Art critic

It was probably a conceptual art statement.

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!

Why, it was mainly worthless (whoops, I mean priceless)

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Originally posted by Dave J:
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.

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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?

Tom

Actively enjoying it all

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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

Damina Hirst famously said of "Away from the Flock" (The pickled sheep in a tank of formeldahyde) that it should provoke reaction. He got very cross indeed when it provoked another artist to pour a bottle of ink into the tank. And I seem to remember that Tracy E didn't like the Japanese artists jumping on her bed in the Tate

It's a shame that we are only aware of the two controversial artists who lost "work" and the rest aren't mentioned. Who knows what treasures went up with the rubbish

Tom

Actively enjoying it all

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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

Much of the way modern art needs to be viewed depends on context.

An example from my yoof. My mate lived next to a school carpark. It was never used and was piled with rubbish which had lain untouched for years. One day in a fit of artistic outpourinng we arranged the rubbish into a sculture around the edge of the carpark (so that it wasn't in the way). It was a complex piece which involved a fair amount of balanced pieces. It was also huge. But essentially it was student art wank, devoid of original idea or meaning, a here today, gone tomorrow piece, literally, because the school cleared up the carpark the following day viewing our work as a pile of rubbish rather than a major work of modern art installation.

A month later my wife and I went to the Tate and in the front hall was exactly the same concept, a pile of rubbish balanced in an artistic manner, devoid of meaning or original idea. My how I laughed.

I'm certainly not claimimg these were one and the same, nor that our idea had been seen by the artist in the Tate but where as in the context of the carpark the owners saw ours as rubbish, in the context of the Tate the visitors saw it as art.

Funny old world.

Tom

Actively enjoying it all

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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