h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"...anyone could have done it" - off you go then

Far be it from me to impinge upon the expression of your creativity

Perhaps 'making one think' wasn't quite the right phrase. I'm not sure what is, to be honest, but creating a piece of art with the sole, or main, purpose of shocking people, which is what I have often heard artists say they want to do, seems utterly pointless to me.

To create a piece of art which is innaccesible to most people, which you have to be of a certain mindset to 'get', which you have to belong to a certain group of like-thinking people to understand is elitist and bourgeois, not to say pompous.

Bourgeois

I don't use that word often enough

Art made for the sole purpose of shocking people isn't necessarily good art. I go back to what I originally said, if it moves me and connects with me then to me it is good.

It's not a question of 'getting' art and it being elitist. It's a question of what you like in it. There is plenty of art produced from 12th century up to the present day that I think stinks, just as much as there is plenty which I simply adore. Horses for courses (or possibly formaldehyde) as they say

One of my favourite bits of art --> http://www.petecodling.co.uk/onemillion.htm

This reminds of a Picasso quote that I've had hanging on my refrigerator for years: "I am only a joker who had understood his epoch and has extracted all he possibly could from the stupidity, greed and vanity of his contemporaries."

That wraps up modern "art" in my opinion!

It is an honest statement from a man who had great talent. He probably enjoyed creating art. I was more of a Grandma Moses fan, myself. I also like Marc Chagall and Salvador Dali.

GreyDesk,

What a wonderful project!.... I love it!

One of my favorite artists is Eduardo Chillida http://www.hispanart.com/chillida/obra.htm

'off you go then...'

I did do it. All it took was a can of petrol and a box of matches...

btw: I'm not a reactionary philistine. I like a lot of modern art. I have just come to think that that conceptual movement has dominated British modern art to the detriment of other more worthy endeavours. So much of it seems to be about the artist thrusting his/her personality into the public's face, and very little about pause for reflection. What about that Turner prize winner, the room with the lights going on and off? That was the biggest pile of crap ever conceived.

Compare this with Rachel Whiteread's work, such as the Holocaust Memorial (http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/news_comment/artistsinprofile/whiteread2.shtml), which really *does* make one think, or Anthony Gormley's explorations of the human form.

just because you dont like it doesnt make it not art.

van gogh was rather heavily criticised as 'not being art', as were the cubists, as was duschamps for upending a urinal. now, all their pieces are considered incredibly important.

its ok not to like conceptual art, not to get its aesthetic message, not to beleiuve that it has anything to say. you can believe its 'bad' art. theres no problem with that. however, you have no objective grounds in saying that it is not art, and nor can you say that it is objectively bad. it isnt: lots of people like it, and their say is as valuable, in general, as yours.


now i dont like conceptual art. i think emin and hurst are slightly crass charlatans, but i will defend their right to make their art and i will defend the rights of others to like it.

I'm getting a BBC 404 page not found error on that link FM.

Ah, I see why - you've put a comma after the url, which gets picked up by the software and turned into part of the link

I always leave a space if I need to put a comma or any kind of puctuation after a url

There is a Member of Parliament, who has been notorious for his statements on modern art and Immigration issues. His name is, appropriately, Art Hanger.... He was first in the public eye when he got involved in the controversy over the National Gallery's purchase of Barnett Newman's "Voice of Fire" ( http://cybermuse.gallery.ca/cybermuse/search/artwork_zoom_e.jsp?mkey=35828 )

I think at, the time, he wanted to have the National Gallery's funding cut and have the purchase of artwork vetted by a committee of overseers.

Hanger is a former Alliance Party member (our far, far right political party). He declined to join the new Alliance/Conservative party.

http://www.arthangermp.com/2003photogallery/

Every country has people like that.

Senator Jesse Helms wanted to cut off federal funding for the arts.
There was a photographer who suspended a crucifix in urine, and took a photograph of it. Robert Mapplethorpe, a photographer who produced some spectacular photos of flowers, got in trouble with Helms for some photos that had gay imagery.

I went to a Mapplethorpe exhibition in London about seven or eight year ago - the one with the infamous fisting picture. It's nothing these days - you can find pictures like that online with ease... so I'm told. Are they art? Why is Mapplethorpe's picture art?

Despite their subject-matter, they are incredibly beautiful photographs.

I think that the point is that there can be great beuty even in the disturbing, and great ugliness in what we consider beautiful....

I don't see a difference between Mapplethorpe's photos and those of Lincoln Clarke's photos of the women of Vancouver's Skid Road. http://www.highway99.com/lclarkes/heriones/index.html

Some might see Clarke's photos as "documentary", and, in fact, he was accused by detractors of exploiting the women he photographed. However, he sees them more as classical portraiture. These heroin and crack-users, and prostitutes are the women he sees every day (and sees disappear everyday).

Society, if it sees them at all, sees them as castoffs and lesser-beings. He, on the other hand, sees them as women. He shows the beauty and worth in those we regard as disposable.

'just because you dont like it doesnt make it not art.'

I went to see the Raft of the Medusa at the Louvre last year. There was no question as to whether or not that was art. So, I think one observation worth restating is that asking the question 'is it art?' does not necessarily make it art. The question has to be answered and sometimes the answer is 'no'. Or even, if the answer is not a categorical 'no', then often the aim of producing something of artistic has been plainly overshadowed by other rather more base motives. Tracey Emin is simply a talentless self-promoter, that's all.

As for the 'lights' winner of the Turner Prize, how fitting that the ceremony was presided over the ultimate self-regarding wannabe of questionable talent, who is nevertheless desparate for credibility: Madonna.

emin is art because she says it is, and because other people say it is. just because you dont think its art doesnt make it so. you are not the boss of art

Just because they say it's artr doesn't mean it is yah booh sucks!