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| Homage to Georgia O'Keeffe |
What I wonder is how do you decide what's good? I know the art world is full of authorities. These experts will gladly tell you what is good and what is valuable. And then people like me will go to museums and look at this art work. And many will agree, yes, this is an exceptional piece of art. Others, like me, will look at some pieces and puzzle over how they got there.
I wonder if there isn't a sort of hierarchy in the world of culture. Experts declare some artist (or author, poet, filmmaker, musician, playwright , composer or other creative genius) as exceptional and that makes it so. Maybe the public doesn't want to appear unsophisticated or not hip and so they buy the opinion of the experts. The media then blasts this out and voila! the creative genius has been inaugurated.
All this is to say that I am planning to learn more about art. It's always been the class in college for which I regretted not making room. I delight in art books and museums but only because I like what I see, not because I understand what I see. It's time for me to grow up and get an art education.
My teachers will include (but are not limited to):
I think when it comes to art, "good" is completely subjective and to me that's the beauty of art :)
ReplyDeleteI agree. Preference is selective. I want to learn what the "experts" look for when they call something exceptional.
DeleteI know nothing about "art." I do know what I like, and I like the paintings you create. I have one in my living room, and one in my bedroom. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteYou are welcome! xoxoxoxoxoxxooxoxo
DeleteIt will be interesting to see what you find as you do your research. I know next to nothing about art, which I wish I did know something because hubby's parents had two pieces of art they thought were "worth something" but I've found nothing on them to see if they were (we're liquidating their estate). I do enjoy looking at art though, unless it is too abstract :)
ReplyDeletebetty
Oh no, Betty.... one of these days you will see some of my original art work posted here. Abstract is my territory but I am not "good" - I just paint for fun!
DeleteMy husband is a fine art technician, which is just a fancy word for someone who hangs or installs art in museums and rich people's homes. Art is such a subjective medium. My favorite piece of art is something I bought at a garage sale in Indiana. My husband wasn't impressed initially, but the piece has grown on my husband and I think he likes it more because I like it. I think popular opinion is definitely an influence about who takes off in the art world. Not that I'm a taste maker, but I do feed my husband, so it helps when he agrees with me:) You should check out the nun, I think her name is Wendy. She has an art book and a tv show and it's pretty good.
ReplyDeleteOh, yes! I know that nun! I've seen a piece of one of her videos that the art teacher at my school was showing. She could be another instructor for me.
DeleteCertainly, art is a subjective medium. I guess I want to understand more about what it is the so called experts see that makes a piece more valuable than some other piece. I'll probably never really get it though. I already know that.
I am not very artsy. But I have always loved Ansel Adams and wanted to be just like him when I was younger (well, at least I wanted to have his photographic talent and eye!).
ReplyDeleteI want to go to the places he went to! Yosemite Valley is one of the holiest places on Earth in my mind. I love some of the photos he took in New Mexico too.
DeleteI think you're on to something with the public not wishing to appear unsophisticated thing--I always think of it as a kind of emperor's new clothes situation. No one wants to risk exposing their own "ignorance" (or wants to be the one to piss off the emperor) so no one wants to be the person who says, "That's not a fancy new outfit--you're buck naked."
ReplyDeleteI definitely am not well educated about the visual arts and I am much more about what I like, on a gut level, than what might be "good." Different things speak to different people--and to me speaking to one another is kind of the purpose of art. So I guess, in my humble, uneducated opinion, there are all sorts of "good."
Nice post, Gracie.
Thanks, MM! Yes, agreed, there are all sorts of "good" - and I like what I like. In the world of art, I am really okay with that. It's funny though - transfer that to movie making and I get blown away when someone thinks some movie is the cat's meow when I thought it was boring or I didn't get it. That's when I feel stupid. Maybe that's why I seldom go to the movies?
DeleteI don't understand the direction of art installations that are temporary and changing - like sculptures made out of meat, which change as it rots, or using things that decompose to make paintings - I mean, if somebody pays tens (or hundreds) of thousands of dollars for a 'work of art' shouldn't it last for a while?
ReplyDeleteThat's it, Joe! I don't get why meat rotting is considered to be art. That's what I want to learn. What is behind rotting meat as art? Now, Christo's Running Fence (a temporary installation ) in Marin County in the mid- 1970's? that was a cool installation!
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