ku # 519 ~ decide what you're making

Lilacs, birch, & Jay Range • click to embiggenA couple commenters, and who knows how many others, took a bit of umbrage the other day when I quoted a comment from Joe Reifer's blog. Specifically, it was this little ditty:

... if you make a beautiful picture of a clearing winter storm in the Sierras, it's almost certainly junk (in the artistic sense) ...

Just because I quoted this idea doesn't mean that I agree with it. The fact that a lot of what is being made, photography-wise, is Decorative Art, not Fine Art, does not make it "junk". It's true that a lot of it may be cliche ridden, schmaltz-y, obviously (and intentionally) imitative, and, as some always point out, meaningful to the person who made it, but, IMO, that still does not make it junk. It's not Art, but it's not junk.

That said, the part of the quoted comment that I do agree with is this:

A serious artist making serious art shows a new way, demonstrates thoughts not thought before, makes what is essentially a philosophical argument .....

Even in my basic agreement with this notion, I would issue caveats regarding "new way" and "thoughts not thought before" in as much as "it has all been done (and said) before". All Art is derivative in the sense that all Art; a) builds on / evolves from what came before, and, b) relates to / derives from the culture in which it is created.

The best of Art may, indeed, address a given subject in a "new way" and address thoughts and ideas from a "new" perspective, but, ultimately, the best of Art addresses what it means to be human and, therefore, addresses "timeless" thoughts and ideas about the human condition.

IMO, this is what separates the wheat from the chaff - Fine Art from Decorative Art - in the world of art, especially so in the visual arts. Art is so much more than what strikes the eye, AKA, the illustrative. Art is at least as much about what strikes the mind and soul as it is about what strikes the eye, AKA, Art that illuminates. The best of Art incites, not just passion, but thought and, by extension, discourse about meaning and truth. Art that stimulates something other than just the pleasure centers of the human psyche.

Much has been written lately about photography that suggests that what is pictured in a photograph (the referent) is not nearly as important as what is implied in a photograph (the connoted). As an example, Jeff Wall has opined that it is vitally important to avoid, at all costs, picturing anything that you actually care about lest the referent take precedent over the connoted. This is an excellent example of the academic lunatic-fringe thinking that has dominated a large segement of contemporary Art world. Although, it must be said, that is probably a legitimate notion when one is making Art about Art, which is essentially what Wall is doing.

All of that said, and with the exception of pseudo-art made solely for commercial gain, I would suggest that there is a lot of art out there - most of it Decorative, and just a bit of it Fine.

Comments

[Sean]

I see Art as something that can lift a person up or lift them out of themselves. There has to be a connection, a provocation, or a reaction.