Quote of the day:
"That looks like Christ meets Hellraiser!" ~ a classmate upon looking at a particularly gruesome painting of Jesus on the cross.
Finished Reading:
Mutant Message Down Under ~ Marlo Morgan. Finally! How long ago did I start this thing? If I had read this when I was just starting on my path, I would have absolutely loved it. As it is, unfortunately, it was a case of 'been there, read that.' Still, it wasn't too bad as stories go.
Still Reading:
Memory and Dream ~ Charles de Lint. Maybe I'll get to finish it one of these years. It's one of those stories where no matter how many times I read it, it's like reading it for the first time.
I'm sitting here, staring at the computer screen. In theory, I'm writing a five page argument paper on 'What is art?' In reality, I'm racking my brain and trying to figure out if I have a clue to what my answer may be.
This all started with an anonymous faculty member writing an article in the campus newspaper about an art exhibit that had been hanging in the library building. It was a pretty bizarre letter, giving Freud and the invention of the camera credit for making modern art possible as well as giving everyone who read the thing a little insight on himself (I'm assuming it's a 'he' ~ the letter mentioned a poster hanging in the Arts building and all the non-art instructors there are male) as the last paragraph talks about the 'penises and vaginas' he saw in the exhibit. I guess there's no wonder why he didn't want to put his name at the end of it since it was an exhibit of abstract art and there wasn't anything recognizable in any of the works, as far as I could see. Imagine the ridicule he may have to put up with.
One point to focus on is this: does the viewer decide what is art or is it the artist? The author of this letter flatly stated that "...since I am not an artist, if I can do it, it isn't art."
Tangent alert: I actually would like to see him try creating something like those paintings. Even though I really wasn't into the exhibit or the guest lecture, I can appreciate what goes into them, especially now that I've had a little foray into the realm of abstraction as part of my 2D Design class. It looks deceptively easy but believe me, it isn't. I went through a four inch high stack of paper before I got two that was deemed to have 'potential.'
Back to the point: Is it art because it was created for the sole reason of expressing something that couldn't be expressed any other way or is it art because a lot of non-creative types decided that it was? Van Gogh couldn't sell one painting while he was alive and now look. (Then again, that may just be a case of 'Death brings popularity.') Does technical skill make it art or is it the emotional response that it evokes in the viewer?
Ah hell. I don't know. I guess I could look at this paper as a response to that letter (which it actually is) and maybe I can get something going that way. I think part of the problem here is that I keep looking outside to find the answers I'm looking for. Damn.
Page Copyright 2002 D. Firewolf
