I been struggling, peoeple call what i do art. But is it? Isn't it just pretty patterns across a page.... merrly asthetically attractive to the eye. Don't people want more, meaning, a reason a point... so they can understand it. I'd like to say my work was subjective, you see what you want. But, is that really art? Can sometime be art if the artist hasn't set out to portray something. Personally i amthinking it can't be, i can't say i am an artist.. because i believe artists set out to say something, what i do is pattern, yeah its nice.. but it has no relevance, no importance.. its just like any of doodle really. What does everyone else think? To me art is suppose to have meaning, express something... have some sort of message... its got to have a reason for being or it isn't art at all. It's something that belongs on a tea towl or on decoration of a plate ... it needs to be specail to be specail and have some importance...
To me, all art should be, and in many ways is, political. But then that depends on how you define politics....
why should it be political? and how do you define politics in relation to art? sorry, just your comments here are vague, i want to know what you mean...
po·lit·i·cal adj. Of, relating to, or dealing with the structure or affairs of government, politics, or the state. Relating to, involving, or characteristic of politics or politicians: “Calling a meeting is a political act in itself” (Daniel Goleman). Relating to or involving acts regarded as damaging to a government or state: political crimes. Interested or active in politics: I'm not a very political person. Having or influenced by partisan interests: The court should never become a political institution. Based on or motivated by partisan or self-serving objectives: a purely political decision. pol·i·tics n. (used with a sing. verb) <LI type=a>The art or science of government or governing, especially the governing of a political entity, such as a nation, and the administration and control of its internal and external affairs. Political science. (used with a sing. or pl. verb) The activities or affairs engaged in by a government, politician, or political party: “All politics is local” (Thomas P. O'Neill, Jr.). “Politics have appealed to me since I was at Oxford because they are exciting morning, noon, and night” (Jeffrey Archer). The methods or tactics involved in managing a state or government: The politics of the former regime were rejected by the new government leadership. If the politics of the conservative government now borders on the repressive, what can be expected when the economy falters? Yes, sal... elaborate on why art should be political? Love Clairexxx
No it depends on how you interpret the world. It's like saying everything we do is political. It is only so when interpreted through a lens which sees politics as the most important aspect of meaning in our behaviour. This I would suggest is a particularly limited and blinkered conception of meaning when it comes to artistic expression. There are some types of thought (art being an expression of thought) which have nothing to do with politics and power.
I think art is expressing yourself under the rules you define as aesthetics. And artistic pieces do not necessarily have a transitive meaning. They are what you interpret them as. So everyone is/can be an artist.
Things tend to go in cycles... WhenI was doing my degree, I got a lot of flak for the stuff that I was doing because I followed a line of thought whereby the meaning was more important than the appearance or the skills used in the creation of the piece... hence I did lots of installation based pieces... and I often worked in a way that was interpreted by others as being anti-art because they saw the artistic skill as being the most important factor... Then years later I see myself looking at the whole BritArt phenomenon and seeing shades of what I had been doing... and the whole idea of the concept had become all important again... Maybe the question that you really need to be asking is why do feel that you have to create the pieces of art that you do?... what internal need are you trying to fulfill through the process of creating them?... Fly...
I don't really use the dictionary definition when I talk of politics necessarily, I'm thinking of wider social phenemona, influences psychology etc. As such, I interpret most art as pertaining to such things, and see it as political. Even if it isn't intended that way, thats how I like to interpret it. It's just the way my mind works. When I think of art as having meaning, I like to think in the political sphere. Ultimately, I think art should have different levels of meaning, so that people can take what they want from it....
Yeah T'was what I was gonna say. People who draw patterns with a point, a subject in mind, aren't being artistic about it. Your doodles and patterns you say have no point had to of come from the creative side of yourself and as StarFly said, that in any form is art. There'll be someone who can put they're own meaning on to it and get a kick and ay, that's entertainment - How spot on d'you reckon most opinions on works of art are anyway?
But how, could you give us examples? like post a peice of art, with the social political meaning behind it. I agree with you, that a lot of art does hold social/political relevence, but could you demonstrate further this trend, because social/political relevence is a very large theme of art.....
I think that all art is a form of expresion, like music and poetry and art. And even though people say it's pretentious, the turner prize even Tracy Emin's little piece. Art is expression
I am startting to think you know, its nothing to do what the artist is trying to portray... its what it evokes in others. 10 people could look at the same painting and see 10 different meanings behind it, thats the beauty of art. Its objective... art is what it is, and what it is can be different for everyone. Some have a stronger messages than others. Some have great intention of conveying something, but in general i think a lot of art is whatever you want it to be. For example that Rothko, it could be representing peace, because of the pure colours. It could be representing pollution and how like the grey colours take over the canvas as is pollution. Both of those interpretations are quite vallid, because art is open to interpretation by anyone. Why Rothko did it, choose those colours is unknown to you and i but i am sure it was for very different reasons. So its quite reasonable for Sal who is obveously very politically minded to see pollitical and socail readings into art because thats the way his mind works. Maybe a musican, would see music in it and a english student see something different. Thats the beauty!
Yes but I think this idea of the supremacy of reader-response is naive. If I choose to think that that Rothko makes me think of my cousin Cedric does that mean I am right to interpret it as about my cousin Cedric? Of course not. I would suggest that some art exists outside the realm of meaning as traditionally understood, abstract expressionism being a perfect example. I would say that that Rothko is not actually "about" anything in the way we usually talk about art being about something; it means nothing in the way we usually interpret the concept of meaning. We therefore need to develop a language and a way of looking at art which deals with what it actually is rather than what it means.
What i was trying to say is... art can be what ever the veiwer wants it to be. In other words even if it has meaning or not, they are quite able to give it meaning. Because art gives us the freedom to do so. Doesn't mean that its what it set out to do, it just means things or doesn't mean things to different people. Its not niave its fact, people will take everything in art differently... to say some art sets out to do different things, and not mean something or mean something is true of it. But people will always inturpret and try to understand things regardless. Rothko didn't set out to send a message, he set out to emerse and shock the senses. To engulf the veiwer generally. But people will look at it and think other things to, whether that be its just paint on a canvas - how pointless, or something else deeper and meaningful. I am trying to explain that no matter what that piece was created for, at the end of the day once its made, it'll be whatever someone makes it out to be to them personally. Like colours, one person see's red - passion and someone else see's murder... but the artist just liked the colour read splashed on the canvas.
Yes I entirely agree Dandy However if we are to talk coherently about the meaning of art so that others can understand us, when we are dealing with art like Rothko's which doesn't actually intrinsically mean anything, I think we need to find a way of describing objectively what it is, with an awareness that any possible interpretation is arbitrary and imposed by the viewer. In fact that's quite possibly part of the point of art such as this, if it has a point. We need very high standards of evidence for any possible reading of the meaning of this painting and I think it forces us to think about the concept of meaning itself...
I've always felt it interesting why people need to give art meaning in the first place, i suppose its something to do with our need to understand things.. we dislike not knowing what something is about. We thurst for the knowledge to explain what is going on. Why can't we accept something for what it is? Why does it need meaning?
I second that! Sometimes I think it's better not to understand... to see something as it is and enjoy it. Why does there have to be a presumption that an artist (eg. a painter or a writer) has had to have a certain something on their mind that they want to say to people in the form of a painting or a book or whatever? Why do we have to analyze everything? I used to hate it when we had to analyze books and paintings in high school, I'd rather just enjoy it as it is and not ALWAYS have to go so deep into it to understand something. Why can't a writer just write a book, just a story about a bunch of people or a family living their lives, without it having to actually mean something else, like be a satiric description of a country's government and politics for example? Argh... Am I just too dim to see the hidden meanings behind different works of art? ~lovetulip.
