Art critic

Liked the comment from the Beeb this morning: "...millions of pounds worth of modern art is thought to have been destroyed along with Tracy Emin's tent"

See the "smoking" thread. I reckon it was those guys and the million quid burn was a dress rehersal.

Bet some of Tracy Emin's conquests are quite pleased the tent is gone.

Listening every day planning to "not fade away"

Of course it could have just been a critique by Brian Sewell
oldie.

Ignorant question?

Why is (or should that read was) the produce of Tracy Emit and Damian Hurst called/classified as art?

Mike

Was Tracy Emit camping at the time ?

Wishfull thinking!!

Listening every day planning to "not fade away"

The sad part for the rest of us was encapsulated by an "insurance expert" on PM on Radio 4 who estimated the claim would/could be in excess of £100m.

This will, most likely, affect all of the rest of us via increased premiums.

Personally I wouldn't have slept with her anyway, so that makes paying for it even worse...

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Why is (or should that read was) the produce of Tracy Emit and Damian Hurst called/classified as art?

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Whilst a decent definition of art is elusive, art does require creative perception by the artist and audience. Commonly, there is an expectation of ability, the mastery of a medium so as to convey meaning or depth. But art also appeals to human emotions and can arouse moral and aesthetic feelings and "good" art appeals on many levels.

For many, the works of Damien Hurst and Tracy Emin provoke consternation, contempt or derision and on that basis they are art and Mike, you could therefore be a bona fide art critic

I'll go back to sleep now.

Dave

I wish I was the Loss Adjuster!

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Originally posted by Tom Alves:
Why, it was mainly worthless (whoops, I mean priceless)

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I would give them the cost of the tent and chewing gum

This is a hot topic for chrissake!

It even made it to question time!
Where unfortunately Janet street porter (Or luggage carrier or what ever she is called) happened to be on the panel and got all emotional about the "value" of DH & TE's er..art.

sad really

geoff

Listening every day planning to "not fade away"

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I would give them the cost of the tent and chewing gum

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And do you think Tracey Emin or Damian Hurst go beyond just having a "concept" to encompassing ability and mastery and does the audience understand?

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What I think isn't relevant, it's what you think that counts. Clearly though, some of the audience thought so.

What I think is interesting is that, by using their own criteria for judgement, this potentially renders the act of their destruction an artwork in its own right. Whoever "dropped" the match should claim millions.

Dave

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Originally posted by Tom Alves:
Damina Hirst...

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Is that a Freudian slip, Tom?

JonR

Can someone explain what art is involved in sleeping in a filthy bed or pickling a sheep you have not made in Formaldehyde you have not made in a tank etc. On the second item an awful lot of artists in medical research places.Or is that a lot of awful artists?

Howard

Hi Howard,

I'm not really qualified to explain but I'll have a go any way and perhaps any art teachers/students out there could give me a hand....

There is no definite limit to what can or cannot be called art. Ultimately, it's up to the audience.

So, most of us would agree that an un-posed, real life photograph is art, but why? It is after all just a reproduction, using a mechanical device, of what we can already see with our own eyes. We're just redefining something that we might see every day as art. Damian Hurst has taken an every day item - a sheep - and forced us to look at it in a different way just as Tracy Emin did with her bed. The fact that it was dirty or unmade is irrelevant. She did however expose herself completely in displaying it so, as the audience, you might think what a sad cow or possibly what a brave thing to reveal such an intimate study of your own life.

I'm not saying I like it but you don't have to like something for it to be art.

Bringing it back to music, Frank Zappa said "anything can be music, but it doesn't become music until someone wills it to be music, and the audience listening to it decides to perceive it as music. Most people can't deal with that abstraction - or don't want to."

There, I'm sure that's confused things further!

Dave

Dave,

I think that was succinctly put, and spot on.

The crux of the issue is the division, or otherwise, between "art" and "craftsmanship".
When people dismiss something on the basis that "they" or a "monkey" or whatever "could've done it" they miss the point somewhat.

Clearly there is a difference, and one we can all readily accept with, for example literature. No more craftsmanship here than anyone capable of typing an e-mail demonstrates. More, some very distinguished literature was dictated. Photography (as you described) is at the other end of the spectrum.

The problem is that visual art is a fusion of the two, and often the craftmanship of modern "conceptual" art is easily accomplished, or even done by others. And hence dismissed.

Most celebrated art commentators regard Salvador Dali as a complete fraud. Easily the most gifted person at manipulating a paintbrush since Rembrandt, perhaps even Michelangelo, but - on his own admission - a total plagiarist of ideas. He even styled himself "the great masturbator", and he was right.

For me, the problem with the new conceptual art is that it often as not takes as its premise the idea that to shock is, in itself, a route to artistry. This was, undoubtedly, true when Marcel Duchamp did it first in 1913. It is now to my mind no more original than if someone were to present a drawing in the style of Raphael. Ironically, the latter would probably be quite shocking in the context of the Turner Prize.

Mind you, much as I find them a turn off, Jake and Dinos Chapman still do find very real shock-value, as occasionally do Gilbert and George and even Hirst. Shock, however is simply not original anymore.

I also, luddite that I am, quite desire some kind of quality of beauty, although this really is beside the point. There are plenty of ugly great paintings, Guernica being one. Its ugliness is actually its point.

Amongst the destroyed was a large number of works by the late (significantly) Patrick Heron. I rather like his paintings. I'm sure most of us would agree these were a far greater loss than the re-creatable work of living young artists. Just less of a story for the tabloids.

Rod

I'm with rasher and others on this one, this isnt art, its worthless (in art terms) tat bandwagoned by people with more money than brains or taste. Our 11 year old twins have been playing in the garden in their tent and spilt some water over it - wonder what thats worth
Martin

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context of the Tate the visitors saw it as art.

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Surely you mean the owners of the Tate saw it as art?
I have been to the Tate Mod and only have their title of the building to suppose these pieces are art.

Howard

Did you not feel or sense anything sitting in fromt of the magnificent Rothkos in the Tate Modern?

Really?



DS

ITC - Blackhouse - Stairway to the Gospel World

"I have been to the Tate Mod and only have their title of the building to suppose these pieces are art."

Monet's Waterlillies?

If you're determined not to like something, then you won't. Some of it takes effort on the part of the viewer, and time. Do you dismiss music if the first listening doesn't satisfy, or not read the rest of a book if the first chapter is hard work?

Like David, I have spent many hours in the Rothko room - the whole of which the artist designed in conjunction with the gallery - and it is a near-spiritual experience.

Almost by definition most of here pay vast sums to achieve the reproduction of music as closely as possible to the way the musicians intended. Yet, as a nation, we have one of the finest collections of art in the world, and we are priviledged to be able to see real thing rather than just reproductions of it.

It's a gallery, and like someone else's record collection, there will always be things we don't "like". For anyone not to be able to find something of personal merit I find astonishing.

I was being extra facetious about my visit to the TMod.It was a short visit I enjoyed quite a lot of what I saw. Conversely a lot of it piles of bricks, glass of water on shelf(done that) and several canvases of different shades of brown left me laughing. I would not know a Rothko from a hole in the ground. As I said only a short visit,I may have seen his/her work but it obviously didn't make an impression.
I am predisposed to dislike it but certain items do register. I like some Dali, Piccasso(not his cars) and like classical loads of pictures I would not have a clue who thay were by.
I am 57 and have managed without a great appreciation of art maybe I will start to mellow now. My musical tastes are being broadened by this forum so all is not lost if thats how you see it. I would prefer we stick to music though. If I want art I'll go to an art forum thanks.

Howard

Oh dear.

I fear that "several canvases of different shades of brown" is not far off a perfectly factual description of Mark Rothko's oeuvre...

Well you can't win 'em all

Thanks Tom nothing gets passed you eh? Hoisted by my own petard started as a joke and went too far.
Those operas do they come with an arty cover?
Some research does in make it look like I did see the Rothko room. Obviously made some impression on me, not positive I fear.

Howard

Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet (I'm not an opera fan), with a decent red Burgundy to hand and, naturellement, a Rothko catalogue is my idea of bliss.

Thank heavens we are all different!

Rod