The Great Art Debate

[Puskas]

I don't know much about art, but I know what I like.

A bowl of fruit on a table. Or possibly a painting of one.

Anything that makes me think should be banned.

I painted the ceiling of my bathroom last year. Wasn't that hard.

I have heard people suggest you're a bit of an artist in passing must have been in reference to your bathroom ceiling painting endeavours.

That wasn't in passing - that was a p1ss artist.

I think.

[Dujon]

. . . On another note, were posters aware that a lot of the 'classical' artists used a camera obscura to outline their works? A bit like finding out the Mona Lisa was started on tracing paper.

No, IA - not this poster anyway. My father was a surveyor/cartographer by profession and a pretty dab hand at pen and ink sketching. He used to exhibit and sell some of his works, usually for charity I believe - profit only I might add, given the costs of framing. I always thought he was 'cheating a bit' because he too used a similar, although slightly more modern, method to pick out the critical points in a sketch. No, it wasn't tracing, just a tool to help get the perspective 'looking right'. I should mention that most of his sketches were of buildings. He set up a jig on which he mounted a slide projector (pointing downwards, obviously) and, having taken a photograph of the subject prior this exercise then projected the image onto the medium he was using (usually paper) and mapped out what he considered to be the important references, turned off the projector, moved it out of the way and then got down to his sketching.

His initial sketch was done using pencil and then, once he was satisfied with his layout, he used the nib and ink to produce the finished article.

***************

Sorry about my digression.

Art's a funny thing. I enjoy impressionists (painters) and, like many other posters (given my exposure to it), think that so-called modern art (a term that has been used for a long time) is a waste of space. That is not to say that all modern art is rubbish, far from it as I haven't had the opportunity to see many examples, and those that I have came from media exposure rather than personal experience. We have in Sydney a modern art museum, called the Museum of Contemporary Art (is that a contradiction in terms or what?) which I most assuredly wouldn't bother to take the 50 mile trip to attend; Elephant dung? People painted grey pretending to be statues? Honestly!

When it comes to sculpture I start to become somewhat ambivalent. I admire the skill required by a sculptor to produce a life-like image of a person (or anything else for that matter) but that's not art (is it?) just artisanship (if there is such a word) and then, is there a real difference between an Artist and an Artisan?. I like Rodin's 'The Thinker' as it does seem to embody some ethereal quality which is part of being a human. I also like some of Moore's curvaceous works - although I doubt that they bring to me the feelings or request that the sculptor envisaged or made.

As someone once said, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

[TANGODANCER]

Might raise a laugh or two, but Rolf Harris is an extremely talented artist. I much admire how he just throws paint around with house painting brushes and suddenly there's a really brilliant painting there. That's talent Miss Emin.

[William the White]

Might raise a laugh or two, but Rolf Harris is an extremely talented artist. I much admire how he just throws paint around with house painting brushes and suddenly there's a really brilliant painting there. That's talent Miss Emin.

did with me, tango.

Rolf does fine at some hybrid of representational painting and caricature. And what you see is what you get. No room, or need, for interpretation, or any kind of engagement with the object other than the eyes. brain not required. emotions untouched. Surprise denied.

Art it isn't.

By the way, I really like pretty much all the artists you mentioned earlier and 3 months ago was in the vatican museum, feasting on the works of a lot of them.

I love this site. which other fan site has room for stuff like this?

Unique, i reckon.

[William the White]

i think it's true that some modern art (and artists) are engaged in a money making venture. it's also true that many 'classical' artists did exactly the same. and the praised salvador dali was a money grabber of the first order (and not fit to lick picasso's shadow, imho...)

i think many of us would like the talent to be able to cash in, wouldn't we?

and it seems to me, at least a possibility, that people are able to cash in only because a very significant number of people detect a talent... it's possible that sometimes they are entirely wrong (like dali, the heartless bastard - yes he's good in certain ways, i admit, don't shout at me, but i really find his work easy to admire for its cleverness and easy to reject for its artifice). but, mostly, there is a talent to be cashed in on...

hirst certainly was no con artist once, but i reckon is hovering around that territory now with a dozen acolytes producing 'damian hirsts' to his design, but little else authentic other than his signature. i find it easy to ignore a large proportion of his work.

emin i find often engrossing and rarely trivial. i would make an effort to see her work. and i'm prepared to do some work on it, stay with it, interrogate it, let it interrogate me. i find it emotionally engaging, challenging and questioning. i don't mind if no one else on this site shares that view. but i think it's too easy to dismiss someone on the say-so of some shite in the sun yapping 'this isn't art' et boring cetera.

but i can't see anyone beating velasquez, and goya throughout every period of his career, but especially his late bleak, black period. and picasso in the 20th century. so, spain produces a genius to rewrite the rules of painting once a century. that's great. you could lock me in the prado in madrid for a month, and i'd be happy. especially if it came with tapas and rioja.

[TANGODANCER]

[did with me, tango.

Rolf does fine at some hybrid of representational painting and caricature. And what you see is what you get. No room, or need, for interpretation, or any kind of engagement with the object other than the eyes. brain not required. emotions untouched. Surprise denied. .

I think you should have a troll through all his work WTW. You might be surprised.

[William the White]

[did with me, tango.

Rolf does fine at some hybrid of representational painting and caricature. And what you see is what you get. No room, or need, for interpretation, or any kind of engagement with the object other than the eyes. brain not required. emotions untouched. Surprise denied. .

I think you should have a troll through all his work WTW. You might be surprised.

give us a link. i'll give it a go.

[William the White]

Just in case it might interest those of us actually interested in Emin and art... here's a link reviewing her stuff at the royal academy show that i posted enthusiastically about earlier... I pretty much agree with everything this critic says (now with the times, used to be the guardian)...

Warning - will be very boring unless you are actually interested in art...

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/ ... 072275.ece

Emin is a really serious and challenging artist! IMHO...

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

Just in case it might interest those of us actually interested in Emin and art... here's a link reviewing her stuff at the royal academy show that i posted enthusiastically about earlier... I pretty much agree with everything this critic says (now with the times, used to be the guardian)...

Warning - will be very boring unless you are actually interested in art...

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/ ... 072275.ece

Emin is a really serious and challenging artist! IMHO...

Yes, I'm interested, William.

Let's have a look at the one paragraph of that article that mentions the content of her exhibition of her and her mates' work.

Emin, meanwhile, is constitutionally incapable of middle-browness. She just can’t do it. So, the deliciously outrageous display she has inflicted on the summer show is chiefly about nudity and sex. There’s even a sign outside warning visitors that some of the exhibits “may cause offence”. The “may” is optimistic. Miss Marple will run a mile at the sight of Mat Collishaw’s wonky pseudo-Victorian automaton, featuring a life-sized zebra having sex with a woman in what the title assures us is “the old-fashioned way”. Or the gory collages of that crazy Austrian proto-Emin Elke Krystufek, who pictures a menstruating mother inserting her fingers into herself and showing us the blood. The Israeli artist Sigalit Landau gives us a powerful video of a naked woman doing a Hula Hoop routine with a ring of barbed wire on a seashore. There’s a big gold painting by Gary Hume of a fuzzily gendered figure in underpants. And a lovely work by Emin, full of gentle pink hesitations, which finally reveals itself to be a reclining nude opening her legs.

A zebra having sex with a woman.

A menstruating woman inserting her fingers into herself.

A naked woman tearing herself up with barbed wire.

A hermaphrodite in its underwear.

A woman on her back spreading her legs.

Why do we want to be looking at any of this?!

But, of course, that's the big point, isn't it... Once you've realised that though, is there much more to it?

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

i think many of us would like the talent to be able to cash in, wouldn't we?

and it seems to me, at least a possibility, that people are able to cash in only because a very significant number of people detect a talent...

All about market forces, you might say.

[Bruce Rioja]

Seems that we live in a period in which someone without any discernable talent can present pretty much whatever they want, regardless of how ridiculous, because there'll still be some bozo, chin between thumb and forefinger, claiming to be able to identify with it in an attempt to try and set themselves apart from the 'unlearned'. They're welcome to one and other.

[boltonboris]

Seems that we live in a period in which someone without any discernable talent can present pretty much whatever they want, regardless of how ridiculous, because there'll still be some bozo, chin between thumb and forefinger, claiming to be able to identify with it in an attempt to try and set themselves apart from the 'unlearned'. They're welcome to one and other.

You've just described David James..... Prize tw*t when it comes to 'art talk'

[Worthy4England]

A zebra having sex with a woman.

A menstruating woman inserting her fingers into herself.

A naked woman tearing herself up with barbed wire.

A hermaphrodite in its underwear.

A woman on her back spreading her legs.

Why do we want to be looking at any of this?!

But, of course, that's the big point, isn't it... Once you've realised that though, is there much more to it?

Sounds like a fairly normal day trawling through the internet?

[William the White]

Just in case it might interest those of us actually interested in Emin and art... here's a link reviewing her stuff at the royal academy show that i posted enthusiastically about earlier... I pretty much agree with everything this critic says (now with the times, used to be the guardian)...

Warning - will be very boring unless you are actually interested in art...

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/ ... 072275.ece

Emin is a really serious and challenging artist! IMHO...

Yes, I'm interested, William.

Let's have a look at the one paragraph of that article that mentions the content of her exhibition of her and her mates' work.

Emin, meanwhile, is constitutionally incapable of middle-browness. She just can’t do it. So, the deliciously outrageous display she has inflicted on the summer show is chiefly about nudity and sex. There’s even a sign outside warning visitors that some of the exhibits “may cause offence”. The “may” is optimistic. Miss Marple will run a mile at the sight of Mat Collishaw’s wonky pseudo-Victorian automaton, featuring a life-sized zebra having sex with a woman in what the title assures us is “the old-fashioned way”. Or the gory collages of that crazy Austrian proto-Emin Elke Krystufek, who pictures a menstruating mother inserting her fingers into herself and showing us the blood. The Israeli artist Sigalit Landau gives us a powerful video of a naked woman doing a Hula Hoop routine with a ring of barbed wire on a seashore. There’s a big gold painting by Gary Hume of a fuzzily gendered figure in underpants. And a lovely work by Emin, full of gentle pink hesitations, which finally reveals itself to be a reclining nude opening her legs.

A zebra having sex with a woman.

A menstruating woman inserting her fingers into herself.

A naked woman tearing herself up with barbed wire.

A hermaphrodite in its underwear.

A woman on her back spreading her legs.

Why do we want to be looking at any of this?!

But, of course, that's the big point, isn't it... Once you've realised that though, is there much more to it?

To try and answer - for me, i claim no universal truths, here... The comic, the disturbing, the scary, the questioning and the rather beautifully erotic... My response - in order - to the pieces you identify. So, all of human life there.

didn't think at the time anything about emin being big controversialist, was just looking at the art. much as I would in the Vatican, Prado, national gallery wherever.

she isn't just trying to be a very naughty girl. she's a serious artist - and that's the real 'big point'. If you don't like her work, you're probably in the majority. if you dismiss it without any serious attempt to engage with it, you're in the vast majority.

If you dismiss it because you've seen it, and you hated it or it left you cold, I wouldn't be surprised if you were in the majority among art lovers. But you'd be talking about the work and not simply having a good soak in prejudice (I use the term in its literal sense - pre-judgement).

i like her work. i really don't mind if you don't. i just feel to argue about it meaningfully you need to see it.

[TANGODANCER]

The work of Tracy Emin and her ilk seems specifically designed to drag out all the "giggle behind the hand" stuff that makes the majority of people think "Why"? We all know aspects of life exist that border on the "crank", so do we really need crank artists - and I use the term very loosely indeed - to lift stones so that everyone can see what's underneath them?

If that's her aim and that's also art, then I suppose she could be classed as an artist......at dragging out all the "giggle behind the hand" stuff that makes the majority of people think "Why"?

I mean, morbid curiosity might induce people to go take a peek at this stuff, then hurry off before they see anyone they know. Personally, I don't feel artistically challenged enough to explore the inner minds of people who need to paint a woman having sex with a zebra. The very idea of classing this as an art form just makes me feel baffled. Same with piles of housebricks, lights flashing on and off and four-legged bananas. I'll leave a place free in the queue for someone more eager to do so if you don't mind.

I have no aversion to the naked human body, indeed by just turning my head I can view three Russell Flint framed prints around me right now. Russell Flint was, in my opinion, one of the greatest water-colour painters of the human body in the history of art. There isn't a zebra or a masturbating woman in sight, just majestic beauty in the art of painting.

[William the White]

The work of Tracy Emin and her ilk seems specifically designed to drag out all the "giggle behind the hand" stuff that makes the majority of people think "Why"? We all know aspects of life exist that border on the "crank", so do we really need crank artists - and I use the term very loosely indeed - to lift stones so that everyone can see what's underneath them?

If that's her aim and that's also art, then I suppose she could be classed as an artist......at dragging out all the "giggle behind the hand" stuff that makes the majority of people think "Why"?

I mean, morbid curiosity might induce people to go take a peek at this stuff, then hurry off before they see anyone they know. Personally, I don't feel artistically challenged enough to explore the inner minds of people who need to paint a woman having sex with a zebra. The very idea of classing this as an art form just makes me feel baffled. Same with piles of housebricks, lights flashing on and off and four-legged bananas. I'll leave a place free in the queue for someone more eager to do so if you don't mind.
I have no aversion to the naked human body, indeed by just turning my head I can view three Russell Flint framed prints around me right now. Russell Flint was, in my opinion, one of the greatest water-colour painters of the human body in the history of art. There isn't a zebra or a masturbating woman in sight, just majestic beauty in the art of painting.

Do you think anyone really does mind you not being in the queue?

but, let me reassure you - the people actually in the queue, coughing up the money, looking forward to the exhibition are not doing it because they like schoolkid smut (if they do, they're in the wrong queue!). neither are they cranks. and, more seriously, they may think that the really significant art comes through the 'lifting of stones'.

You are baffled. but only at the idea. you'll never know if you'd be baffled by the experience - because your place in the queue is given up to another.

The zebra is comic. It isn't a painting. It's a hybrid of paint and animation. It isn't disgusting. It doesn't advocate bestiality, nor is it sordid. it made me laugh. And the 17 year old daughter, who wants to study art at university. Just to reassure you. i didn't have to queue, i booked my slot three weeks before the London trip. Most of it was really humdrum stuff. but not Emin's room. TFFT!

[TANGODANCER]

Do you think anyone really does mind you not being in the queue?

Er no, and I don't mind that they don't mind. Rather odd thing to pick out of the post though? Sort of hints my opinion doesn't matter.

[William the White]

Do you think anyone really does mind you not being in the queue?

Er no, and I don't mind that they don't mind. Rather odd thing to pick out of the post though? Sort of hints my opinion doesn't matter.

I certainly didn't mean that at all. If it came across like that it wasn't my intention. Apologies.

We clearly have a great deal in common, as i've pointed out previously, in the artists we admire. We also diverge. Nothing wrong with that.

All i'm doing is trying to explain, in the context of this admirable and (mostly) friendly forum that it's possible to admire works that other people find baffling (your own word). I do object to your description of Emin as a con artist. I think it's cheap dig for which there is no evidence. There are other artists - i agree - who might wear that cap. But Emin is conning no-one. she is what she is, consistently. lover her, hate her, denounce her, laugh at her, queue for tickets for her, she is not conning.

There are uphill tasks in life. Following Bolton Wanderers, finishing 'Ulysses', liking the didgeridoo... Defending Emin is just one more...

I guess i am slightly irritated by the implication from a few posters that anyone daring to think Emin (and others) worthy of serious scrutiny is a sap or pseud. I don't think i am.

I expect contradiction...

[malcd1]

I went to Amsterdam a couple of years back with my wife. While there quite a few other tourists told us that we MUST go to the Van Gogh museum as they had borrowed paintings to show the largest collection ever shown. We queued for around an hour and a half and paid about £15 each to get in.

Now I know Vincent has had a few of his painting go for a pretty penny but I have to say I was shocked at some of the rubbish he did. I do mean absolute garbage that would make Emin look like the most talented artist in the world. Van Gogh wasn't just mad at the end he was completely mad at the beginning and middle of his career as well.

People were studying and discussing every single painting on display. To say they were child-like really is no under estimation.

If you ask me it is all about 'Emperors New Clothes'. If you can't see how brilliant it is then you must be retarded. Sorry I am the little boy who shouts out the Emperor is not wearing any clothes.

[TANGODANCER]

Ah, now thereby hangs a different tale. Van Gogh never passed himself off as any form of genius. He only started to paint when he was around forty or so and had a difficult and troubled life. He painted and drew a massiv amount of work and was in fact a talented artist in other fields than the
"Sunflower" style he adopted later. Have a look at his "The Potato Eaters" and other works as an example. A sad man with a troubled life who finally gave in to mental illness, he was, neveretheless (in my opinion) a true artist worthy of the name.