The Great Art Debate

[bobo the clown]

I note that Freedom, probably the oldest Anarchist paper in the world, which was a weekly when I was selling it, is now a monthly... Shame.

How much does it cost ??

[William the White]

I note that Freedom, probably the oldest Anarchist paper in the world, which was a weekly when I was selling it, is now a monthly... Shame.

are you still buying it? if not - then maybe that's one of the reasons??

You're right... But when I saw that it had shifted to a monthly I was tempted to take out a sub... haven't yet, though...

It would feel like an exhumation, I think. My years as an anarchist activist are so long gone, though I'm fond of their memory...

[William the White]

I note that Freedom, probably the oldest Anarchist paper in the world, which was a weekly when I was selling it, is now a monthly... Shame.

How much does it cost ??

http://www.freedompress.org.uk/news/newspaper/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[bobo the clown]

I note that Freedom, probably the oldest Anarchist paper in the world, which was a weekly when I was selling it, is now a monthly... Shame.

How much does it cost ??

http://www.freedompress.org.uk/news/newspaper/

that may make my computer crash !!

.org ??

Quite apart from that being very funny, for an anarchist newspaper, does that mean it get treated as a charity ??

£2 an issue ... shouldn't it be free ?
Do people advertise in it ?

Sooooo many cheap shots.

[thebish]

Sooooo many cheap shots.

and only one Bobo - like a wasp to jam!

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

My favourite Class War cover was when Princess Margaret was taken into hospital for a lung condition... Class War had a hand with an open packet of cigarettes, offering it to HRH... And the headline shouting 'Class War says... Have another one, Maggie....'

[William the White]

I note that Freedom, probably the oldest Anarchist paper in the world, which was a weekly when I was selling it, is now a monthly... Shame.

How much does it cost ??

http://www.freedompress.org.uk/news/newspaper/

that may make my computer crash !!

.org ??

Quite apart from that being very funny, for an anarchist newspaper, does that mean it get treated as a charity ??

£2 an issue ... shouldn't it be free ?
Do people advertise in it ?

Sooooo many cheap shots.

Anarchists, for the most part, are advocates of organisation. They believe in it and practice it. They don't believe in hierarchies. But are, historically, assiduous organisers - organising highly militant trade unions in France, Italy, Spain, Latin America, for instance. The Spanish CNT at its height (in the 1930s) had 1.5 million members... One paid official.

The other cheap shots aren't interesting enough to respond to... Wasp, desperately seeks sting...

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

What do you mean when you say there wasn't a 'literal meaning'? Is it ever possible to find a 'literal' meaning when nothing figurative is depicted?

OK - the bit 'left over' when my wife shouted me in for 'The Art of Winter' - seriously good and I'm v glad not to have missed and recommend...

Well... the only literal truth here is squares and bars... But I'm not sure there is a 'literal truth' in even the most 'figurative' art... Not even photography (as some of the wonderful art on BBC4 just now indicated)... I think, to state - restate - my viewpoint... Art is created in the dynamic relationship between the creator and the viewer... But emphatically so with abstract expressionism...

I think some of our posters get angry when they can't see what the artist is getting at (not that some make any effort at all before dismissing them - they often boast that they wouldn't cross the road to see etc), or - yawn - their 4 year old could do it... I think they want the difficult to be easy and it refuses to be... And why should it?

I like the fact that art is a contended space... And that artists make it so... And the best make it so the most...

Yes, I suppose what I was thinking is that when you said that you weren't "looking for a literal meaning" is that it was so obvious to be banal!

Anyway, as I said to you at the match on Saturday, I find that Rothko room in the Tate to be far too dingy and dark - I think you said that you agreed but that it is in line with the artist's wishes? I think.

What I did find interesting was hearing that Rothko had been influenced by the Villa of the Mysteries in Pompei. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villa_of_the_Mysteries" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

So, prompted by your post, I popped in to the Tate Modern today to have another look at the Rothko Seagram Murals.

I think they do repay a bit of time - I spent 15 minutes in there this time - and they are starting to grow on me.

Because of this, I now actually care about them and think that they are dishonoured by how they are currently displayed. They deserve better than that pokey corner room, light and noise from the outside spilling in, and not even with all of Rothko's gift to the UK hung on the walls - some are not on display, gathering dust in a basement.

The paintings themselves do have an 'oppressive' feel to them. Not, for me, the bars of a prison, as you said, but of closed windows or shutters, perhaps in some instances with daylight trying to peep in round the closed edges.

I would like them to have a bigger space in which the viewer could be completely surrounded by them. Ideally you'd be shut in with them, the door closed behind you (also keeping the distracting and unnecessary noise from the outside out). I appreciate this is difficult in a public gallery but it seems like the sort of challenge some gallery architect should be able to rise to.

There is so much about the Tate's white wall hang that is annoying, now I come to think about it. The space lavished on old air conditioning hanging out of the ceiling does seem something of a provocation when you consider the plight of the Rothkos and the crowded jumble that the surrealist paintings are subjected to.

Generally I don't find it to be a welcoming, exciting place. It doesn't feel like a celebration of ideas, creativity and talent, but more like a grim museum of the traumas, identity crisis and cultural correctness of the 20th century.

[bobo the clown]

Oh, stop it mummy.

[William the White]

To mummy...

Interesting post on Rothko exhibition, and on your reservations on Tate modern as a space, which I at least half-agree with... And will respond...

Just interested - did you get to see the Moore in the previous room? I reckon this is very good work...

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

Oh, stop it mummy.

Ha.

I was interested to read that Rothko was inspired by Michelangelo's Laurentian Library ahead of producing the Seagram Murals.

Of it, he said: "The room had exactly the feeling that I wanted [...] it gives the visitor the feeling of being caught in a room with the doors and windows walled-in shut."

It's interesting to look at the photos and see some of Michelangelo's architectural shapes that are echoed in the paintings.

http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/ ... dings6.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Now, I haven't been to the Laurentian Library, but I have been to the Medici Chapel in Florence ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJYqNOV-AhE" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; ), designed in a similar style by Michelangelo, and I thought that the architecture, at the same time as being beautiful, was not benign in the atmosphere it created, and there is something of that stifling atmosphere in being surrounded by the Rothko murals, or at least there would be if there were so many people around and you couldn't hear next door's soundtrack drifting in. The Pompei red gives them that bit of classical grandeur too.

They deserve better than being dismissed out of hand, anyway.

[bobo the clown]

Bllx.

You are simply making all this admiration up. You do realise that, eventually, you'll disappear up your own ring if you keep doing this, don't you ?

It is my sacred duty to keep you grounded and I will stick to my task.

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

Bllx.

You are simply making all this admiration up. You do realise that, eventually, you'll disappear up your own ring if you keep doing this, don't you ?

It is my sacred duty to keep you grounded and I will stick to my task.

I am grateful for your efforts.

But I don't think I have described all that much 'admiration' anyway!

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

To mummy...

Interesting post on Rothko exhibition, and on your reservations on Tate modern as a space, which I at least half-agree with... And will respond...

Just interested - did you get to see the Moore in the previous room? I reckon this is very good work...

I can't picture it and don't recall looking at it. What is it?

All I remember from the previous room is the horrible Turner they have used to illustrate the link with Rothko.

The only other thing I really I looked at was the room of Richter abstracts, which I am still baffled by.

[TANGODANCER]

I'm getting truly baffled here Mummy. Are you saying it's necessary to have paintings-that were painted randomly in a studio-exhibited in an oppressive room that makes the viewer feel like they're shut in, in order to experience something from the artist's imagination? The paintings have no form whatsoever except colours on other colours, with titles like "Black on Maroon" etc, yet we're being told they need artificial conditions, lighting etc, to fully appreciate what the artist is saying? What he's done is paint a canvas, series of canvasses, to hang on a wall/walls, which can only be seen one at a time by the viewer, who then has to use his own imagination to make sense of what he/she is seeing. What then, is this really all about? Even a pile of bricks or Tracy Emin's bed-pit are at least what they say they are. None of it makes the slightest sense to me. Add the fact that these canvasses sell for millions and the mystery deepens. Do explain...



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[bobo the clown]

I'm getting truly baffled here Mummy. ................. Do explain...

No. No, please God. Don't.


ffs Tango !!!

[thebish]

I'm getting truly baffled here Mummy. ................. Do explain...

No. No, please God. Don't.


ffs Tango !!!

TANGO is such a WUM!

[William the White]

For the crayons...

See below... As posted on p79 of this thread...

It's small scale for Moore, in the centre of the room...

Are you going to catch the Manet?

There's a brilliant Henry Moore in the room before the Rothko, that, as so often with this artist's work, changes its impact as you move around the sculpture... It is another Mother and Child, a persistent motif for Moore, that from the front is shocking, as though a semi monster lurks within the figure, and from the far left side as you look at it, slightly behind, is a hooded mother with a fragile baby held tenderly...

I've tried to find the image online without success, but, just in case there are some interested, it really is worth searching out...

[William the White]

I'm getting truly baffled here Mummy. Are you saying it's necessary to have paintings-that were painted randomly in a studio-exhibited in an oppressive room that makes the viewer feel like they're shut in, in order to experience something from the artist's imagination? The paintings have no form whatsoever except colours on other colours, with titles like "Black on Maroon" etc, yet we're being told they need artificial conditions, lighting etc, to fully appreciate what the artist is saying? What he's done is paint a canvas, series of canvasses, to hang on a wall/walls, which can only be seen one at a time by the viewer, who then has to use his own imagination to make sense of what he/she is seeing. What then, is this really all about? Even a pile of bricks or Tracy Emin's bed-pit are at least what they say they are. None of it makes the slightest sense to me. Add the fact that these canvasses sell for millions and the mystery deepens. Do explain...



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Just to say - that;'s a dreadful image... Though I suspect for you and bobo the more accurate the image the less you'd like the art...

But - just to ask - what do you mean that it doesn't make the slightest sense? What kind of 'sense' do you want from art?

[TANGODANCER]

Just to say - that;'s a dreadful image... Though I suspect for you and bobo the more accurate the image the less you'd like the art...

But - just to ask - what do you mean that it doesn't make the slightest sense? What kind of 'sense' do you want from art?

Okay Will, first the image was just a random choice. As for making sense, isn't it the senses that art is supposed to appeal to, or at least in this case, the eyes? I can't explain it any better than I did in the post. For me, there's nothing there that in any way appeals. How are these canvasses works of art? Where is the content? I appreciate talent in anyone and the world's full of great paintings, sculptures, carvings and architecture,etc. In these...?