Modern art

Gamemako wrote: Proletariat wrote: Modern art is art. If some one made it to be looked at then its art. If someone made sound to be listened its music. How can you decide where art stops? Does it stop with the impressionists making fuzzy realities that arnt quite perfect? does it end with Picassoes twisted visions? or does it end with Jackson Polluck's splatter paintings? the fact is art never stops. Refer to above. Calling everything art to justify "modern art" is an exercise in futility. You ultimately have to admit that everything is art, and there is therefore no art but just existence. Then what are you looking at your "modern art" for?

A man called John Cage would say pretty much the same thing about music.
If one calls everything art, then one is basically saying that art is a pointless label, and is free instead to look at what one finds interesting or intellectually stimulating. I like to look out of the window of my house onto unspoilt Dartmoor, because it is beautiful. Pollock has lots of nice exciting textures to look at, a blank wall doesn't. Some people may prefer looking at blank walls. That's a bit weird, but I'm not going to kick up a fuss about them.

Alternatively, you assign levels of art, at which point you admit that superiority exists, which is fundamentally incompatible with the idea of preference and demands objective determination of value (and that principle runs minimalist art straight into the ground). Back to goose: and for line drawn on a canvas versus a stroke, no, you may not. There is nothing beyond the line; it is not painted in one stroke. You can call it absolutely nothing but a line (or two, or three, as the "artist" sees fit). At its best, fawning over a single straight line is like saying "God, I'd sleep with that organic molecule in a heartbeat!" Billions in a highly organized fashion make a beautiful woman (or man), but one taken alone is nothing.

Sex is primal, art is intellectual. There's a pretty enormous psychological difference there. However, personally I don't like the idea of sleeping with someone just because he or she happens to be attractive any more than I like the idea of buying a painting just because it happens to conform to an archaic view of aesthetics.

Your point is absolutely moot. Even if it were one stroke, it would be irrelevant. Number of strokes means nothing (and your artist did not paint in one stroke) -- you can shove plenty of notes onto a page without making music. If you could write Mahler's 5th symphony in one note, it would still be Mahler's 5th (of course, you can't, nor can you make Dali's Dream of Christopher Columbus in one stroke).

I'm pretty sure I don't understand what you're saying here, because if you're saying what I think you are, it basically disagrees with all of your arguments. It sounds like you're saying that art has existence outside of its physicality, which is a neat way of looking at it but would mean that a line drawn on a canvas has depth beyond its aesthetics. Obviously that's not what you're saying, because that's not what you think, so can I have some clarification on what you actually mean?

God, I can't believe anyone actually argued with the line on a canvas point. First time I've ever heard anyone defend that.

I've never seen a single line on a canvas that has interested me or that I've wanted to gaze it, but I'm sure other people have. Doesn't bother me.

Prog is "modern art" as much as most contemporary literature (sans poetry) is "modern art." Zeuhl is the "modern art" of prog, and I happen to dislike it immensely as well.

I must admit to having next to no knowlege of contemporary literature, having read very little that has been written in the last century. So I'm not really in a position to judge. But I love lots of Zeuhl and RIO, and I find groups like ELP and Yes (except for the Relayer album) pretty overblown and dull. But other people like them, so I know there must be something in them to like (in all honesty they were two of my favourite bands when I was about 14, so I do know a little about their music, but it doesn't interest me in the least any more except as an exercise in kitsch.)

goose wrote: Personally I'm a fan of progress away from something that, however grandiose and thrilling it may appear to start with, becomes turgid and banal if repeated and copied ad nauseum. I tend to favour progressive music over Prog Rock (that's not to say that a group can't be both, of course!) Why bother doing something that was done the same way yesterday, let alone a century or more ago? Good question. Why would anyone ever to listen to old music? And why are we still using time signatures and clefs? And what's with these people all stuck in the past with their Cartesian coordinate systems? God, get with the future, guys.

Why would anyone ever listen to old music? Because there is some great old music which I love listening to (nothing like a bit of Stravinsky, King Crimson, Debussy, Webern, Miles Davis etc.!) Why retread their steps when we can just go and listen to the source? Bands today that haven't progressed since the '70s are no more interesting to me than Starcastle.

Why are we still using time signatures and clefs? Well, not everyone is. Noise music and free improv certainly don't, wheras bands like Meshuggah use several at the same time. But they offer a useful way of organising sounds in time, which is the point of music. Time signatures and clefs are a tool for creating music, not a cage to be bound by.

For a halfway example, Michael Giles' drum fill just before the chorus of In the Court. It's clearly completely out of time, and that's what makes it so exciting and fitting! It wouldn't make any sense to anyone listening two centuries ago, just like modern art wouldn't make any sense to someone whose idea of aesthetics came from two centuries ago.

I don't see the relevance of Cartesian co-ordinates. I use them because they are valid for the calculations I do, not for any other reason. Again, they are a tool, but I think the value of a static mathematical model is rather more than the value of a static idea of aesthetics (I am using the word aesthetics far too much.)

I might have missed bits out of this post, it got a bit long and unwieldly. Oh well, I need some breakfast.


Edited by goose - November 27 2007 at 03:15

Modern art is art, and is actually my favorite kind. 

Rocktopus wrote: Jesus.... and I thought I had pretty concervative tastes in art myself! You're opinions on modern art and rap are insults to modern art and rap. The modern art scene is as broad as the modern music scene. You can find just about anything within it. You're example of true art is highly entertaining over the top kitsch.

You confuse "modern" and "contemporary" -- Daniel F. Gerhartz is contemporary, but not modern.

goose wrote: Can I please replace your line drawn on a canvas with a stroke, painted on a canvas, just for the sake of my little argument: Let us assume that Gérôme's painting you linked to was started with a single painted stroke. Was the painter creating art when he painted the first stroke? Let us assume that the painting you was finished with a single painted stroke. Before that line, was the painting art?

It still isn't art. It's a line on a canvas. I hand you a bar. Is that art? If so, then the question is not "what is art?" but "what is not art?" and you have at best proven that your interpretation of art is that everything is art, therefore there is absolutely no point in looking at a line on a canvas because the white wall behind it is just as much art as the painting.

Proletariat wrote: Modern art is art. If some one made it to be looked at then its art. If someone made sound to be listened its music.   How can you decide where art stops? Does it stop with the impressionists making fuzzy realities that arnt quite perfect? does it end with Picassoes twisted visions? or does it end with Jackson Polluck's splatter paintings? the fact is art never stops.

Refer to above. Calling everything art to justify "modern art" is an exercise in futility. You ultimately have to admit that everything is art, and there is therefore no art but just existence. Then what are you looking at your "modern art" for? Alternatively, you assign levels of art, at which point you admit that superiority exists, which is fundamentally incompatible with the idea of preference and demands objective determination of value (and that principle runs minimalist art straight into the ground).

Back to goose: and for line drawn on a canvas versus a stroke, no, you may not. There is nothing beyond the line; it is not painted in one stroke. You can call it absolutely nothing but a line (or two, or three, as the "artist" sees fit). At its best, fawning over a single straight line is like saying "God, I'd sleep with that organic molecule in a heartbeat!" Billions in a highly organized fashion make a beautiful woman (or man), but one taken alone is nothing.

Your point is absolutely moot. Even if it were one stroke, it would be irrelevant. Number of strokes means nothing (and your artist did not paint in one stroke) -- you can shove plenty of notes onto a page without making music. If you could write Mahler's 5th symphony in one note, it would still be Mahler's 5th (of course, you can't, nor can you make Dali's Dream of Christopher Columbus in one stroke).

God, I can't believe anyone actually argued with the line on a canvas point. First time I've ever heard anyone defend that.

Prog is "modern art" as much as most contemporary literature (sans poetry) is "modern art." Zeuhl is the "modern art" of prog, and I happen to dislike it immensely as well.

goose wrote: Personally I'm a fan of progress away from something that, however grandiose and thrilling it may appear to start with, becomes turgid and banal if repeated and copied ad nauseum. I tend to favour progressive music over Prog Rock (that's not to say that a group can't be both, of course!) Why bother doing something that was done the same way yesterday, let alone a century or more ago?

Good question. Why would anyone ever to listen to old music? And why are we still using time signatures and clefs? And what's with these people all stuck in the past with their Cartesian coordinate systems? God, get with the future, guys.

Edited by Gamemako - November 26 2007 at 20:53

Modern art is art. If some one made it to be looked at then its art. If someone made sound to be listened its music.

Gamemako wrote: Inspired by a comment I made in another thread, I'm curious how many people consider "modern" art (such as minimalist art -- drawing a line on a canvas and calling it art) to be art at all?

Can I please replace your line drawn on a canvas with a stroke, painted on a canvas, just for the sake of my little argument:


Let us assume that Gérôme's painting you linked to was started with a single painted stroke.

Was the painter creating art when he painted the first stroke?


Let us assume that the painting you was finished with a single painted stroke.


Before that line, was the painting art?

Prog is modern art. Make of that what you will.

EDIT: Respectfully, IMO that painting you linked to in the first post is, well... let's just say that I'm surprised you chose it to represent 'classical art' (whatever that is)...

Edited by Visitor13 - November 26 2007 at 17:30

Yes, modern art is art. And, out-bloody-rageous, contemporary art is art, too.