Prog Trading Cards

Interesting read, Bern. 

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 It's just that once, I was in the perfect mood to "get" the random noises.
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You should have laid off the hashish that night. 

Bern wrote: But! Be warned that I could argue for hours and tell you why Theo Van Doesburg is cool and Moonchild too.

I have no doubt you could.  In fact, if you get spare time, PM me on Doesburg.  I have heard you and you have gained my respect in your field.  I am very interested in learning from you about art- it would be a great benefit to my knowledge.

(Although I don't believe you could convince me the last nine minutes of "Moonchild"  are cool, but if you think you could, I'd love to hear you).

I'll try to be as brief as possible.

First, I believe you know your junk.  That's clear.  Good for you- when it comes to paintings, I just know what I like, and am usually at a loss when it comes to interpretation.  My field is literature and language, as well as music.

My favorite painter of all time is Dali (just for the record).  I can stare at his stuff for hours.

Okay, "Black square on a white canvas."  The clever aspect is not the painting so much as the title.  Most people would say it was a white square on a black canvas.  Either way, I look at it, and go "so what?"

I have a problem with equating creativity with shock-value.  I don't value something because it (in your words) "shocks the whole [...] community."  If I did, I might have to appreciate Marilyn Manson for his contributions to music.  But since I don't, I find his whole persona and "music" asinine.




Okay, regarding the third painting, I'm going to quote you here:

Alright, I guess it would be easy for you to just say this is totally random, ugly and that it requires no talent. However, strip down your thoughts of everything you think should be represented in paintings. Painting is not made to represent things. You can do it if you like but painting is mostly about an optical experience ain't it? If you get down to the mere visual experience, you'll find out that things like that are beautiful. It might not come right away. It took me like my 2 first years of artistic education to be able to forget about the normal conception of art that society gave me. Now, it's second nature.

I don't mind this painting so much, actually.  It's somewhat interesting, but not my thing.  There are at least apparent brush strokes.  But take this one, by Theo van Doesburg:




My reaction to this is, "Okay, so the guy can make parallelograms of different colors.  Whats the big deal?"

The point is, it's uninteresting (to me at least).

Let me give you this to help you understand where I'm coming from:

In a progressive rock masterpiece, I can listen to it a hundred times, and even then, something may strike me as new, something I hadn't observed before, and that makes the whole piece somewhat new again.  Most pop music doesn't do that- it is all it will ever be.

Art is the exact same thing for me.  With Dali, I can look at one of several paintings of his for ten minutes, and then come back another time, and observe something new.  With the above abstract painting, there's nothing left to observe- they're shapes.  With colors.  I get it.

To quote you again:

"As I said, mostly all of the abstract painters had an academic training and are able to draw a perfectly realistic human figure. They just don't see the need to do it."

That's their prerogative.  But that doesn't mean I'm going to enjoy or respect anything they do.  I can piss in the snow and call it art, but I think most people will look at me and go, "You need to zip it up and go inside."  Those who applaud, I will never trust their opinions again.

To wit, if I had made "Moonchild" note for note (and King Crimson hadn't), and people told me I was a genius for all 12 minutes of it, I would shake my head and never trust them for their opinions.  If I sat here at my modest little studio and just played notes at random, and then recorded random notes on my keyboard, and then the bass, and so on, it is not a masterpiece.  It took virtually no time to do.  It took less effort.  It was gibberish.

I like effort as well as structure.  A white splotch on a black background takes absolutely no effort.  Therefore it means nothing to me.

Ditto with prog.  Sitting around and making random noises does not interest me.

If you like shock-value in your art and "directionless improvisation" in your music, that's cool with me.  I have no problem with you liking what you like.

But here's this from you:

Then, how come talented people make the best free improvisations? It does has a link. I'm pretty sure early King Crimson realised there was way more than harmony to music.

Talented people get the record deals (well, they did in '69 at least ).  Anybody can do what these guys did on the last nine minutes of "Moonchild."  It's silly.

Epignosis wrote: Bern wrote: Epignosis wrote: Anyway guys, no need to turn a friendly thread into something highly argumentative. "Opinions are like assholes.  Everybody's got one and some of them stink." Yeah, I just posted a long argument. It doesn't really open up debate. I think you guys should read it. Should be an interesting read. I certainly will read what you wrote.  I don't mind people telling me they think my asshole opinion stinks.  I hate when it's done without any substantiation whatsoever (like the PM I got).  I appreciate your well-thought out reply (with examples, no less!).  I'll respond to it, if that's okay (I've not read it yet, so I don't know what I'm going to say.  ). I just don't want anyone to get bitter here, that's all, and I can definitely be sharp with my tongue if I so choose.  Pat's already nailed me once before for it.

Yeah. Don't worry about me getting bitter. I just wanted you to read what I wrote.

Thanks for reading it.

moreitsythanyou wrote: I can't do it at all tonight but I was wondering if I ever got a card from playing last time.

You sure did, buddy.  And how.

You got Mr. Rick Wakeman. 

Epignosis wrote: I'll be sending you a nasty PM very soon. Just kidding.  Freely splattering paint on a canvas requires no talent.  I'm sorry- it doesn't.  I suck at art, but I can do that. Alright, that's what people always say. Art isn't about talent. Anyone could paint a really realistic painting with the right training and time. That doesn't make it necessarily interesting just because it's realistic and well done. The academist painters of the 18-19th century may be the lamest artists ever. However, their talent as drawers cannot be denied. Example : These guys were incredibly skilled with the brush. True. However, they just followed orders from the Academy of Arts (important instance back then), Church or rich merchants gave them and originality was banned. It was a matter of giving people want they wanted to decore their houses with. Yeah. Who doesn't like a naked girl lying on water and surrounded by little angels? Cute. However, it's exactly the same as today's pop music to give out an analogy. It's not bad but if you dwelve deeper into it, it's uninteresting cause there are so much more interesting things out there. It's kinda what got us to like prog I guess. On the exact opposite, some really important paintings required no talent to do at all. However, if you dwelve deeper into 'em, they become truly interesting. A really obvious and shocking example is Kasimir Malevitch's "Black square on white backdrop". Here it is : Alright. How lame is that? I could have done that with my eyes closed probably. However, this isn't the point at all. This, my friend, is the accomplishment of everything Malevitch devoted his life to. Earlier in his career, he was a skilled drawer able to paint exactly like Cabanel (the first example I showed). However, he found out that he didn't care at all for this. He wanted to innovate or dwelve deeper into what painting was all about. So, he started writing about his views of things. He came out with an art philosophy he named suprematism. I won't go into the details here cause it's not that simple. He then started to paint according to this philosophy. He experimented. Finally, it turned out that this simple black square was the best and most representative statement of what he thought about art. Read about it if you're interested. You'll see. Then, we face another common problem. That painting was not beautiful. I agree. Who would want to decorate his house with that? (Well, I certainly would but not for esthetic issues) You've got to understand that this painting is a statement made to shock the whole art community. It wasn't meant to be beautiful. However, since Malevitch and Kandinsky, abstraction appeared in normal paintings. Thus, leading to beautiful compositions and to "people splattering paint on a canvas" (I feel like I'm skipping a lot here but anyways). Here's an example of a painting splattered with paint which is beautiful (randomly chose something by Jean-Paul Riopelle out of a thousand possible choice) : Alright, I guess it would be easy for you to just say this is totally random, ugly and that it requires no talent. However, strip down your thoughts of everything you think should be represented in paintings. Painting is not made to represent things. You can do it if you like but painting is mostly about an optical experience ain't it? If you get down to the mere visual experience, you'll find out that things like that are beautiful. It might not come right away. It took me like my 2 first years of artistic education to be able to forget about the normal conception of art that society gave me. Now, it's second nature. And, by the way, looking down at that in an objective way, it does require talent. Just try once to reproduce an abstract painting such as the one I just showed. You'll find out it's not that easy (if you're going for a pleasing painting) Making a good composition, using good color themes and organising the space on the canvas requires training. As I said, mostly all of the abstract painters had an academic training and are able to draw a perfectly realistic human figure. They just don't see the need to do it. I feel I could go for hours about all this... Hope I may have opened your eyes a little bit. "Directionless" improvisation (I believe there is certainly a difference between directionless and skilled improvisation) doesn't require much more talent. I'll be quicker here. Then, I don't really know about what you mean when you say directionless improvisation. I rarely heard actual recordings where the improvisations weren't skilled. They don't make it to CD if they're not. However, in some cases, I've heard some free jazz album that were kinda on the edge of being completely directionless. I kinda like this whole directionless concept though but yeah, it's not for everybody. It's like throwing darts in the dark.  You might hit the board, but you didn't deserve to.  I just believe that since early King Crimson was obviously very talented, they could have used the last nine minutes of "Moonchild" to construct something.  Not just mess around. Then, how come talented people make the best free improvisations? It does has a link. I'm pretty sure early King Crimson realised there was way more than harmony to music. Hearing long strings of nonsense like that makes me very suspect that the artists are just trying to fill time.  I value structure, or if anything, the semblance of structure.

Ok that's it for now.

I want you to understand that I don't necessarily want you to take everything I said for granted and think you were wrong. But, I thought your answer in the first place was insulting and close-minded. I hope my answer opened your mind a little bit. Alright, you like structure. It's not a reason to insult everything that isn't. There's way more in everything that we see sometimes.

What time is good for everyone to play Jeopardy tonight anyway?  Shoot me some times so we can get the most people playing for the longest period.

Speaking of King Crimson, that's my next series of cards.  There will be more Rush also, and many others to be had.

Anyway guys, no need to turn a friendly thread into something highly argumentative.

"Opinions are like assholes.  Everybody's got one and some of them stink."