New Poll: What do you think about Modern Art?

[House of Usher]

Okay, Mikey - now I get you. The art should *show* you its meaning. You shouldn't need the artist to explain it to you.

That's good, and I think it's a principle that by and large should hold good. There are exceptions, though. Where does this leave us in relation to art that actually needs explanatory text?

Example: I once saw an exhibition of photographs of 'happenings', some of which could be described as situationist. The caption for one photogragh said that it was taken on an evening where the artist ran around Glasgow dressed as a ghost, going into pubs and drinking up the drinks patrons had sitting on the tables in front of them, through the white sheet over her head, and running out again.

The caption of another photo said that the artist had filled numerous sandwich bags with the air she had exhaled over an eight-hour period.

I took all of this in, until I read the last card which said that all of the events photographed were staged, and all of the captions were inventions. The 'breath bags' had been filled in minutes by someone blowing them up, and she had only drunk one drink in the pub, which she'd probably bought herself anyway.

What it was *about* was the truth status of claims made about photograpghic records of events. It was certainly a clever conceit, but was it art? Without the stories explaining the pictures, and the explanation saying the captions attached to the pictures were all untrue, the viewer simply could not have interpreted the piece "correctly".

Was the artist breaking a rule, if the only thing there for the viewer to make up his mind about was whether it was good or not? (The artist had to talk the viewer through it) And was it less good art because the art was made up not of the photographs themselves, but several stories about those photographs and one story about those stories?

[Oddboy]

That's different from 'explaining the meaning' - in this case, the captions are *part* of the artwork.

[House of Usher]

Oddboy's right, of course.

As far as I remember, it didn't say "...and this piece is actually about the truth status of claims made about photographic records of events, leading us to further question the truth status of any uncorroborated account of events we were not witness to ourselves..."

- But maybe it did. It was a couple of years ago, so I can't remember.

[Krustabi]

BUMP



My God, I just read the Emin column. Kill,kill,kill.

[Max Kon]

yes, Kill,kill,kill.

[Krustabi]

Emin:" Having my abortions was the best thing I ever did"

Jesus wept!

[Dudley]

If you're in London, this looks to be well worth going to see...  Modern art with a purpose...

Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/reviews/observer/story/0,,1355875,00.html" target="_blank">Shrinking Childhoods

[lisataylor]

"Some things can be both art and Art (the Mona Lisa). Some things are just one or the other (That statue of David, or Tony the Tiger). Some things are neither (the M4)."

But if you took a piece of tarmic from the M4 and stuck it in the Tate Modern then it does become art does it not?

[Oddboy]

Maybe...

But it also ceases to have a useful purpose (ie. driving twix East and West)

[Dudley]

But it also ceases to have a useful purpose (ie. driving twix East and West)

That's a fairly limited purpose, though, surely?  Unless you're in the confetionary haulage business that is...?

[Floyd-the-k]

I don`t want to be a philistine, or limit art to one bourgeoise idea of chocolate-boxy realism etc

but (you knew there was a but, didn`t you?)
a lot of conceptual art is like a single-panel cartoon. That tent Emin did, gosh how clever! Wish I`d thought of it.
   Once we`ve finished saying those things, and being happy that it`s shocked people less clever and cool than ourselves, what`s left?
  My other problem with `shock` art is that it`s so safe and predictable. I mean, sleeping with quite a few people by the time you`re thirty isn`t the sort of thing that gets you tarred and feathered in the UK these days is it?

anyway, what would I know, the only kind of art I`m into these days is 2000 AD (if that counts) and Shogetsu ikebana because my wife is into it.http://www.ikebana-philadelphia.org/ev_longwood_crys_03/DCP_1068.jpg">

[House of Usher]

Is that by Shogetsu ikebana? I don't get it. What's it supposed to be? I have no frame of reference for it.

[Floyd-the-k]

I`m not sure what it`s supposed to be. Shogetsu is the most modern school of ikebana and it`s output ranges from just plain flower arranging to stuff that`s more like modern sculpture; giant owls made out of tree trunks, frames of pink wooden chopsticks with photographs stuck on them....some very groovy stuff

your