From: Christopher Lovenguth (chrisml@pacbell.net)
Date: 08/19/02-10:02:35 AM Z
Wow I don't look at my email at all this past weekend and I miss the
bi-yearly "what is art" debate. Everyone knows how much I enjoy ruffling
feathers on this topic especially when Mr. Perl is used as reference in
support of an argument....
This time around instead of sounding bitter and possibly insulting people
here on this list (which I'll probably do anyway), I am going to try and
look at this "debate" a different way. I think this conversation always gets
wrapped up in definitions of what label to put on current art when it
actually has nothing to do with that. At least for this conversation there
are two camps on this list:
There is one group who seems to be utterly displeased with how
intellectualized art is and wants to believe in art as object is a
legitimate art form. This group is very bitter with the current trends in
galleries, art schools and so called experts "high brows" in the field.
The other group believes there is a place and always has been for conception
and thought in art. To these people, plain and simple this is what art is.
If someone wants to make a pretty picture for the sake of it, that is craft.
I will admit that I am bias to the second group and this email will be full
of that bias. I also know this is very much an over simplified labeling of
these two camps. But my point here is these biases have nothing to do with
post-modernism or any other label that a timeframe in art history has or
will get. That is left up to the art historians well after a movement has
come and gone. This obsession with "what will be the next thing and it
better be what I'm doing because what I'm doing is very important and must
be recognized or I'm wasting my time here" and then the complaining about
the next big movement when it doesn't incorporate what you are doing is
wasted energy. This is where artist are now in this modern age. It seems
most artist are so worried about being shunned by their own community (which
now seems to include art critics and gallery owners) and concerned they can
not call themselves artist, they set about invalidating anything that is
contrary to their belief. That is not a supportive community.
I'm all over the place in this email but I'll continue....now for the
bias...
Weather you like it or not intellectualism is very important in art. That is
what makes it art. Making the object creative comes second. Art must have
both for it to be successful, but thought outweighs creativeness. It is much
more important to the art movement as a whole that people think then it is
for objects to be made well (if at all). This might be hard for some to
believe but if you were to give a hundred people a pepper and a digital
camera and a year to solely just work on making an image of that pepper with
Weston's image as reference, ninety-five images at end of that year will be
creative and competitive with Weston's original. The images will have depth,
sensuality, texture, etc. Some will blunder in to a nice image, others will
have taken thousands until the right one came out. That is the thing about
the object of art, it only takes time, persistence and sometimes an accident
(and money for materials) to make a nice one. Original thought on the other
hand is exclusive. To bring up the f64 group as support of "art as object"
argument is invalid because the context of when the images were made needs
to be considered. At that time this group of people were fighting against
the blur. They were also pushing the medium to an extreme. When you take
their images out of period by duplicating their work today and apply
contemporary thought to them, they do not hold up. This is because it has
been done. When work like this is now made it is in the ream of craft and
training. Artists have always looked back on past periods of art for
training and inspiration, not replication. Replication and emulation again
is craft.
It is fine to do work for work sake. Just like it is OK to go out and play
touch football with you friends on the weekend and emulate pro football
greats. Just don't to walk in an arena and expect to be let on a NFL team
because you play every weekend, know how to throw the ball and have seen the
pros do it on TV.
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