Modern art

These discussions never get anywhere, but do I have something better to do?

Ghandi 2 wrote: These discussions never get anywhere, but do I have something better to do? I think minimalism can get so minimal that it's nothing at all (i.e. "Lights turning on and off"--a white room in which the lights automatically turn on and off every 5 minutes, or 4:33, which isn't music), but modern art is art because the artist is using a technique to attempt to convey something (although I am iffy on that. Pollock I have accepted now that I know his paintings are fractals, so it's not just random gibberish). Now I think it's usually terrible, and of course I find it funny that a monkey's painting was praised by a critic for having "depth of emotion" (that really happened, there was some sort of mistake and he thought it was by some famous painter. I don't have the link, sorry).   Then again, I am a huge fan of avant-garde music that others might call noise (although I still hate minimalism), so maybe I just don't "get" it. I do recognize the hypocrisy inherent in liking John Zorn and having great difficulty calling Merzbow music, but I don't see any way to reconcile that.

Merzbow isn't music, Merzbow is Noise. No, I'm not being a smartass, it's just that you don't call the stuff you make 'Noise' if you think it's music.

Though I guess you could argue that early jazz musicians accepted the name 'jazz' (which was colloquial for 'noise' back then) and still thought of themselves as musicians - but Merzbow seems quite insistent on NOT being perceived as a musician.

Ghandi 2 wrote: Does he say that explicitly? Because that would fix some of my problems. I really want to call him noise (manipulated noise, but still noise), but the Zappa quote about music keeps coming back to me (Only thing you need is someone making it and someone listening to it calling it music).

Hmm, looks like it's a bit more complicated than I thought. I've dug up an old interview I forgot about and he does indeed call his work 'music':

http://www.furious.com/perfect/merzbow.html

But then again he is bent on breaking away from any other music:

My music is not only my reaction against other music. It's just my way.

Hence 'Noise' and not 'musical noise', 'noisy music', 'noise rock' or whatever. 'Noise' with a capital 'N' - noise with an intentional aesthetic quality as opposed to your regular, natural, random noise. And 'Noise' as an opposite of 'music' deriving from the natural contrast between 'noise' and 'music'.

So I think that it's safe to call his work 'manipulated noise' and that his use of the word 'music' is mostly a conversational simplification and habit (since he collaborates with musicians and is interviewed by music journalists). Obviously the Zappa quote is still relevant here, and since Noise has an aesthetic intent, it could qualify as music. But if Merzbow really wants to go that far to separate himself from other music, I think he really does think of his work as 'noise', to a significant extent. Whatever aesthetic quality he infuses the sounds he makes with are enough to turn the noise into 'Noise', but not enough to turn it into music. And I think that's just his intent - he doesn't really want to be perceived as a maker of 'music' but as a maker of 'Noise'.

I hope that made sense.




   


Edited by Visitor13 - December 17 2007 at 13:26

stonebeard wrote: The quality of art is subjective.One could just as easily look at a Pollock piece and say "That is good" as he could look at the same piece and say "That is art." They cannot be wrong because it is subjective.

The abillity of the person behind a piece of art is not subjective, though. It either is there or it isn't. AFAIK Pollock had plenty of conventional painting ability, he just used it in a manner that was unconventional (and unreadable for most people).

Obviously everyone is entitled to artistic self-expression, whatever their level of ability. But not everyone is entitled to getting paid the same sum of money (or paid at all) for the fruits of that self-expression. It wouldn't be fair    

So you won't see me buying a ticket to see Robert Rauschenberg's blank canvas, or a 'painting' of a single dot, as much as I appreciate the ideas. Which I really do - there's plenty of detail to seemingly the simplest things.It's just that I can see the same things at home for free.

A B Negative wrote: Visitor13 wrote: So you won't see me buying a ticket to see Robert Rauschenberg's blank canvas, or a 'painting' of a single dot, as much as I appreciate the ideas.    I think the ideas behind modern art are the really important part, in some cases more important than the execution.

Certainly - but if I can witness the execution at home (and read about the ideas in a library), I won't pay to witness it in a gallery.

I don't know, I think that saying beauty is subjective may be a potentially dangerous position. Because if there is no standard whatsoever, is there a standard for anything?

Ghandi 2 wrote: I don't know, I think that saying beauty is subjective may be a potentially dangerous position. Because if there is no standard whatsoever, is there a standard for anything?   There was an article in Scientific American that showed that all of Pollock's paintings were natural fractals (like a coastline), and he painted before fractals were even discovered. I still don't like it, but that impresses me greatly, and I don't think you can call something with that much order not art.

EDIT: Nevermind, I completely missed your point, sorry.

Edited by Visitor13 - December 18 2007 at 04:23