My Final Podcast

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So now what is art and who decides ultimately.

In this course we have been discussing the biggest of the big questions of what is art and who decides. We have looked at tons of players and tons of narratives and thought about this question pertaining to them all. What I have found as a definition for myself based on all of this is that art is different for everybody. Something that you think is art can be art to you but not everybody necessarily needs to think that it is art as well. There are all different types of a lens that you can look at art through and that is how you figure out who decides. Some people may like one type of art and not another type. It all depends on their particular viewpoint. What I think is that art is extremely personal. No two people have the same opinion on what is or is not art. Ultimately in my opinion it is the artist who decides if what they themselves make is art or not. It is all about the way you look at art and what school of thought you subscribe to.

Textual Diptych: PoMo vs. Mod

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So if thats Modernism..... What is art and who decides??

Modernism was a step away from the romantic era into making art that is new and influenced by many things that were going on in the world. Technological advances played a large part in the creation of modernism. I think a modernist would respond to the question what is art and who decides by saying that art in the modern sense is something that can be based on perception. It doesn't have to be a picture of nature but rather how we see nature. It is very structural and deconstructed sometimes and may not look like what it is portraying. Modern art shows the viewer in the picture so to speak by creating something that is not only based on the actual reality but the viewers reaction to it. The people who decide are the creators who make the pieces as well as the public. Modern art takes subjects that were not previously acceptable and makes pieces about them like T.S. Elliot did. Sometimes (but not all the time) art is a reaction to the changing times and it may reflect that. However it doesn't always have to be that and there in lies the beauty of modern art.

More Modernism

In the second part of the book that we read we were taught more about modernism. One of the things that jumped out to me was the influence of primitivism. This was using African masks and other sorts of tribal things in art works. This is very modern because it is something outside of most of the people's daily lives who were using them. They were a way to show meaning without people having to draw too much of their own outside information to understand. One of the things I also liked about this was that they referenced the book Heart of Darkness, which is something that I would really like to read. I had never thought about it as a modern book so it was neat to see that in there and it has further driven my desire to read that book. Maybe that will be what I do after we read Modernism.

The Love Song

T.S. Elliot is a very modernist poet. From reading his poem entitled The Loves Song of J Alfred Prufrock, this is easy to see. Alfred writes about a character who is not fancy r rich or important. Instead he writes about an average man. This is a very modern topic because normally poets would write about a hero or some great respectable figure. Also the speaker questions life a lot in the poem and that is a very modern thing to think about. I think that it looks very different than other poems before his time. This poem deals with a subject that the older ones wouldn't.

Neitzsche, Freidrich

The vignette titled "The Parable of a Madman" written by Freidrich Neitzsche is powerful by the least. It tells the story of a madman who rushes into the marketplace early in the morning proclaiming that God is dead, and it is the people that have killed him. His works are very modernist in their ideas, as can be seen through this tale. Neitzsche is straying away from old romantic era of the beauty and sublime of nature and saying that God is dead. I think that this can be considered modern because what I think that he is trying to say that the people killed God with the new revolution and changes in the world. This is modernist in that he is taking into account the importance of the changing time and the time stream itself. And on a basic level it is modern because he is saying God is dead. That is a very disturbing thought for him time period. I am still a little confused about the ideas of modernism and think that what I have written may be completely wrong, however the one thing that is clear to me is that that story was very different than others that I have read from around the same time-period.

Modernism

I have had an introduction to modernism through reading the first 55 pages of our modernism book. It has given me some deeper understanding about what modernism is. Reading this has built onto the small intro to modernism we had in the Postmodern book. What I gathered is that modernism came about through all the changes and new-ness that was happening in the world at the time. It said that modernism is a lot about technology and revolution and the idea of time as a stream. The world was entering into modernity and this coincided with the modernism movement. One of the forerunners and most easily recognized modernist was Pablo Picasso who started painting people with exaggerated form that were very deconstructed and flat. He was also one of the first people to head the idea that for something to be modern it must have no relationship to anything outside of the thing itself. For one to gather meaning from a modern painting you need to only look at the image and not drawl from any other knowledge. This is what I found to be one of the important criteria to recognize a modern work. In the book they also talked about the idea of time being a part of something. Art was no longer about a landscape or a recreation of a space but about a moment in time. This was evident with the introduction of movie film. Most of the films were train films where the camera was placed on a train and the train was moving through time and space. All of these things are important to modernism but they are not the only things that are important as I am sure we will find out through reading the rest of the book.

So if thats postmodernism.. what is art and who decides??

We read about postmodernism so now we should have a new sense of what art is and who decides. And I would say that I do. I know now that postmodern art is about a mesh of all sorts of ideas and styles and people and places and events. It is about the coming together of everything and the movement of creating something out of other thngs. I think that this tells us that art is a collage so to say and that the people who decides are to postmodernists themselves. The modernists and the premodernist arent going to agree on what art is and what is or is not art. Because of this I think that postmodernists are the ones who decide what postmodern art is and the modernists decide what modern art is and so on and so forth. It is still a touchy subject though and I still cant completely wrap my head around all of the concepts but I think nonetheless I have gained a greater insight from reading this book.

Inappropriate

Im am very angry about this idea of appropriateness. IT MAKES ME REALLY REALLY REALLY MAD!!!!!! The whole idea that something that we are reading for a class isn't appropriate for school. I AM EIGHTEEN YEARS OLD. I am legally an adult. These things are out there anyway, why cant we read about them in the safe environment of school?? I feel as though it is inappropriate not to let us read them. Teachers aren't showing us these books or whatever it may be and saying go do this be just like that. We are reading for educational value and to be taught life lessons and ideas. In English a little while ago we read Sula. In that book there were plenty of scenes that I wouldn't even call suggestive. They were so blatantly out there that it was almost reading soft-core porn. It is a little ridiculous to me that we are seen as so impressionable that reading a book will somehow damage us in unforeseeable ways and ultimately destroy our live. THIS IS RIDICULOUS. I AM FURIOUS. That is just my opinion.



An exerpt from Sula that had been deemed appropriate for school, to have students read ,and be taught..

"He liked for her to mount him so he could see her towering above him and call soft obscenities up into her face.. As she was rocking, swaying, she focused her thoughts to bar the creeping disorder that was flooding her hips. She looked down, down from what seemed an awful height at the head of a man whose lemon yellow gabardines had been the first sexual excitement she'd ever known... The height and the swaying dizzied her, so she bent down and let her breasts grave his chest... She slipped her hands under his armpits, for it seemed as though she would not be able to dam the spread of weakness she felt under her skin without holding onto something.. He swallowed her mouth just as her thighs had swallowed his genitals." - Sula p. 129-130

How's that for suggestive?

Post-Modernism Post-modernly

We got our first book yesterday and it is called Post-Modernism: A graphic guide to cutting edge thinking. We did some previewing of the book last night and I discovered that this book is not like any book I have ever read before. First of all it is about post-modernism, a subject I have never read about before, and secondly it is a graphic novel. It is really neat that it is a graphic novel because I have never been taught a graphic novel before. I imagine that it is going to be an interesting read and an interesting way to have class. On thumbing through the book I saw that it is pretty much a series of images and some text. On a particular page that I randomly turned to (p. 142) there is a scene about karaoke and its origins. The pictures were silly and the words were big and I was amused. Then on the next page it starts talking about serial killings, which doesnt seem to have anything to do with karaoke but apparently does. I get the feeling that reading this book is going to be insanely interesting and exciting.

But what is modern??

An example of a modern dance class

I am not very knowledgeable about different art forms. When asked the question what is modern and what does it mean and how it is applied I am not really sure what to say. I think that modern is a term used for things that happen now. How that applies to art I am not really sure. Drawling from my own experience, I have seen a type of dance that is called 'modern dance'. I was a ballerina from many many years and one year at my dance studio they introduced a modern class. Curious, I tried it out and went to see what it was all about. The typical dance class as a ballerina normally consists of drills upon drills upon drills about the foundations of ballet and the positions and the preciseness that it entailed. In my modern class I was astonished to see the other girls without the standard leotard and tutu but in shorts. We begun our class with a stretching exercise, not at the barre. It was odd to me that all of a sudden, in this modern class, we were foregoing the traditional seriousness of dance and began experimenting with what we could do. We added in new elements like stretchy elastic and gymnastic style rolls tucks and lifts. It was a complete turn around from the ballet that I had been doing all of my life. We didn't even wear ballet slippers, instead we went barefoot. In my experience with modern dance I think that I ended up with the idea that modern is something that breaks traditional rules and makes its own new ways of going about something. I don't know if it is that same way with other art forms but for me, modern dance was something that took everything I had learned as a traditional ballet dancer and twisted and warped it into something completely new and different.

The most amazing video in the world, created by us.

so for this class we made a live action video about what is art and who decides. It turned out amazing if I may say so myself but first off let me explain it. For the video all of us individually embodied a stereotype of artists. We used these stereotypes as our characters and in a class room scene we had a critique of pieces that we made in the fashion of out characters. In this way we showed how everybody, depending on views as an artist, thinks differently about what are is. Ultimately, through the use of interspersed testimonials, we displayed that really it is the creator of the art who decides if they feel that it is art. Other people may agree or disagree with the claim but in the end it is all about the artist. Our video showed all of this in a comedic nutshell by using us as the characters and commenting on the pieces made (or not made) by the different characters.

So... why DOES man create?

The most unique movie we watched was Why Man Creates? it was a kind of documentary esque video about the reasons for creation. The First segment we saw was a cartoon and it showed how man has been creating and solving problems since the beginning of time. It was interesting to see all the inventions and ideas that came through time. Another one of the segments we watched that I thought was interesting was the one where the artist put up his sculpture and all the people were criticizing it and how those bad reviews were shooting him. I thought that was a really interesting way to portray the idea that the artist depends on recognition from the public to survive. The last segment that I thought was cute was the bouncy ball that didn't meet the standards and was thrown out of the factory for bouncing too high. Then he made a life for himself as an individual and bounced into the sky forever. I think this was trying to show how sometimes when there is something new it might be rejected at first but if you perservere you never know how it will turn out in the end and eventually it may take off. The video as a whole was really neat to watch. It was a good unique way to look at some of those concepts.

Lust for Life: Vincent Van Goh

Watching Van Goh's story was interesting to me becaue it is the most widely known of any famous artist out there. Van Goh is the portrayal of the 'starving artist' stereotype that we all know of. It is interesting that his name is even in the dictionary definition penniless. I think the story of Van Goh shows how difficult is is to be an artist. How he can have so much passion but get no recognition becausae he was different than the norm. It is a shame that he was so shunned in his own time but so respected now. In essence his obsession with art drove him mad and in one of his many downs with depression he shot himself. It is the darker side of art but it is a story that needs to be known and understood to know all the trials of an artist.

Jackson Pollock

What I took from watching the movie clips about Pollock was mostly about the viewers of the art and how that influences the artist. In the beginning when Pollock meets Lee Krasner I thought that was interesting because of the way she acts towards him. She asks him alot of questions about what his art is and who he studied with as if that will give him valedation but he doesnt really believe that and he doesnt answer her questions very thoroughly. When he finally does get a break and have an exhibit at the Gugenheim all of the critics there don't like his work and it has a profound effect on him. He changes the way he is painting and is doing the splatter painting that gets him very famous and a lot of good recognition. In this video the people like Lee Krasner and Peggy Gugenheim were the ones who interested me the most. They show how important it is to have recognition in the art world but also how fickle it can be.

Basquiat, what an art sounding name.

Earlier in the week we watched movies about different artists whose stories are important in understanding the story of art and artists as a whole. One video we watched was about Jean Michele Basquiat. His story was interesting to me especially because it was more contemporary then the ones we watched about Van Goh and such. It showed how he came from being a construction worker-esque job while pursuing his art work and finally became an artist. His story portrayed to me what I feel is one of the stereotypes of an artist in the sense that he was very out there as a person and with his art. I think it was best demonstrated to me in the scene with Andy Warhol when he is painting the Amaco mural. It showed how distraught he had become and how confused and possibly under the influence of drugs. It seemed like he had become lost in all his fame and had lost a part of himself. Even after he strived for so long to become famous it somehow consumed him and tore him apart. He then says he is going to go away and write poetry and play music again. It seemed to me like he was looking to find his former self without all the fame and confusion of being a known artist because I think this actually stifled him instead of liberating him.

"I don't know whether you can understand that one may make a poem only by arranging colours, in the same way that you can say comforting things in music." - Vincent Van Goh



Van Goh takes a lot of time in his letter to his sister to describe a painting that he is creating. He explains in great detail the colors and why they were chosen, the people in his painting, and the lines that are in it that may even be overlooked by some people. All of these things in his painting have great meaning. He explains them all to his sister and then presents the quote that is at the top of this entry. I think he is saying in essence that his painting is like a poem or a song that you can get great feeling from. He is comparing the art forms of poetry and music in the sense that the painting that he created is powerful to look at the same way as a poem or song can move you so dramatically. Van Goh's painting is something that you don't just look at to see a pretty picture. There are meanings to his work and he takes great care to make his paintings so that when seeing them you call up a host of emotions and feelings. I think that what he is saying has a lot of value because to me I think that paintings can have the same impact as any other form of art.

Cartooning it up.

In class we have been watching some cartoons as a way to showcase some ideas about art. It is great how by using theses cartoons like spongebob and the Simpsons we can take something that is usually reserved for entertainment and use it as a teaching tool. The cartoons actually do have a lot of little subtleties that you wouldn't necessarily notice when just watching for pleasure. It is really interesting to look at those cartoons that we are so familiar with, especially the episode of Spongebob that we watched, and even though I have seen it a million and one times when looking at it from an academic point of view it is like i have never ever seen it before. I liked how in the Spongebob episode it showed how art doesn't always have to go by the rules of the book and that sometimes the rules can actually be stifling. Also in the Simpsons it was neat to see how Homer made art by accident and then he effectively turned the whole town into art. I think both episodes show that art doesn't have to be really traditional or be created using a set of rules, art can be anything that you make it.

Grad Project Slideshow

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What is Art.. Podcast

this is extremely cliche

artists are often portrayed in a very stereotypical manner. When some people think of artists they imagine very moody people, dressed in black or just dark colors sitting in coffee shops sipping tea or coffee, sketching feverishly into a black bound book. Other people may think of artists as very outlandish people looking a little 'strange' outfitted with piercings and other crazy clothing choices like tattered dresses and shirts, looking a little dirty and unkempt. With both of those two ideas of an artist there comes a vision of what their home life may be like. It is easy to imagine them living in broken down little apartments or condos covered in peeling posters of indie musicians and artsy statues of naked people leaning purposefully skewed to one side of a corner of the room. The artists in these houses I envision having a room covered with piles and piles of papers overflowing from counters onto the floor interspersed with writing implements and painting supplies while simultaneously there can be seen incense burning and the artist himself standing in a corner, smoking a cigarette and looking out the window to the vast city spread out underneath him. This is not, by any means how artists actually are but it is how sometimes I imagine the stereotype of an artist.

The First Day

This is my new blog for Art Literature and Ideas class. I'm not sure what it will turn into yet but hopefully it will be exciting. I'm really looking forward to the rest of this class. It is extremely small and I'm excited to experience a class run by two teachers. I assume eventually I will have to write more posts that will be far more interesting that this but as of right now it is early and I'm not allowed to drink my coffee so until then, see ya.