But is it art?

[tahnan]

Should art speak for itself?

The current installation of art at the Diesel is...well. There's a paper bag, its top folded down and the bag apparently full. There's a pencil. A mousetrap. A paint can. All with titles, of course, intended to give them a certain twist--the paper bag was called "The Danger Within" or something like that. But, really, it's all just...stuff. On the wall. As art.

After being there for a few hours, I was getting another cup of coffee (hot chocolate, strictly speaking), and I saw the artist's statement on the wall. It turns out that the various objects weren't actually just Duchamp-like objects presented as art; in fact, the artist had recreated them from raw materials: cutting and folding the brown paper into the shape of a bag; twisting aluminum and shaping and painting wood to form a pencil; and so on. The idea, I think, was that by recreating objects from scratch, the artist was imbuing them with new perspective and meaning. I think.

And that's perhaps an interesting process; but if the end result is, to all appearances, a bunch of household stuff stuck on a wall, should it matter? Should a viewer need to (perhaps even be allowed to) know the process to understand the art?

(See also "Pierre Menard, Author of The Quixote".)

Comments

[kirbyk.livejournal.com]

Well, 'is it art' is one of the most subjective questions one can ask.

Different things work for different people. Does it provoke an emotional reaction in everyone? How can it? Nothing does.

You can kind of get at two things, though: Does it provoke the desired reaction in a lot of people? And, when it works, does it provoke an intense reaction? I think Da Vinci works for most people, Picasso works very well or not at all - both are paths to greatness.

This kind of art - that's as much a study of the context of the art as the art itself - fails miserably at the Da Vinci standard. Are there people that are really into that sort of thing? Do _they_ like it? I don't know. If no, it's - well, I'm not presumptuous to say that it's not art, but it's fairly middling by that point.

I realize there's a whole industry and perhaps social class built up around 'art appreciation' and 'art criticism' that would be appalled at the above, but they appall me equally, so it all works out.

[kirbyk.livejournal.com]

Or, for a different answer, immediately after writing that I saw this:

http://xkcd.com/c193.html

[jadelennox]

To be subtle about it, i'd say that the art installation -- including artist's notes -- might be a kind of art, but the pieces without annotation or context are not. While an individual viewing transaction includes the viewer's belief that it's art merely because it's stuck to the wall, and therefore the viewer's loading of the pieces with depth and preceived meaning, that doesn't make a paperbag stuck on the wall art anymore than a reader's belief that broken lines is poetry makes


tomorrow morning
   I
am
catching the
A
 c
  e
   l
    a

into a poem. The reader might find depth there simply because the format prompts the reader to look for it and *everything*, even drivel, can be the source of interpretive depth. But it's still just applying   tags to a bit of prose.

[colorwheel.livejournal.com]

hey, i think i reviewed that YA free verse novel!

*secretly often loves YA novels in free verse*

[in-parentheses.livejournal.com]

hee!

*secretly kind of never does, even though they're "hip" and "popular" and she feels that she should*

[tahnan.livejournal.com]

well, I don't know whether that's "great" poetry, or if the author of that is famous, but it reminds me of this poem that starts "gather ye rosebuds while ye may"...

[tahnan.livejournal.com]

Actually, as it happens, apropos of the "instillation" comment, one of my thoughts about the artwork was that it was probably a good exhibition for a gallery, but that it didn't work at all as art on the walls of a coffeeshop. Context, context.

[lilisonna.livejournal.com]

That makes sense. Art on the wall of a coffeeshop is...more incidental art? You don't go to the coffee shop to view the art; you go to a coffeeshop to drink coffee (or do your thesis or whatever). In a gallery, you're looking at the art as itself.

I still don't know that I'd call it art. Philosophical statements aren't Art to me.

[rdansky.livejournal.com]

To quote a friend, "If I can do it, it's not art."

I'm not sure whether I agree, but it's certainly an interesting place to start the discussion.

[tahnan.livejournal.com]

Or: "An artist is someone who is gifted in some way that enables him to do something more or less well which can only be done badly or not at all by someone who is not thus gifted." Henry Carr, in Travesties

[luckylefty.livejournal.com]

But as Stoppard (the author of Travesties) points out, by this definition, bricklaying is an art. Stoppard has said that the reason he writes plays, rather than essays, is that it's the only form that allows him to disagree with himself.

[jofish22.livejournal.com]

I think it's a piece of Marxian commodity on commodity, in which the means of production is erased from the end product: the hand-making of everyday commodities ephasizes the disconnectedness of the everyday paper bag, etc.

But, as pointed out, that's my arbitrary interpretation. But it seems likely.

[(Anonymous)]

I noticed that installation, too, Tahnan, but hadn't read the artist's statement. I thought maybe the artist missed the "Duchamp" day in school or something...

Well, as a liker-of-art-that-makes-others-go-"Huh?", my only comment is that whether you think it's art or not, it seems to have made you wonder about it long enough to post about it... and for us to engage in discussion. So it did SOMETHING.

(Ok, one more comment. I like Jofish's interpretation.)

g