Art Makes Me Come

[ana milgram]

Sorry about the bizzare thread heading, (Naaah, fuck it)

I was basically just wondering if anyone gets as excited about art as they do about music?

I organise talks at art college under the heading 'I'm Your Biggest Fan' about anything you're obsessive about apart from art, and we were talking about how music seems to tap into a really passionate part of the brain where you're perpetually enthusiastic.

In my experience, most people don't really feel the same way about art, even if they're artists who spend all their waking hours making and organising art related stuff.

Any thoughts?

[John Brainlove]

Well, you can't really dance to art. You can't put some art on in the background to help you get to sleep, or put a bit of art on to make your journey go faster. Or pop out and buy some new art from HMV. And you don't see art jumping around in a leather catsuit on top of the pops. Maybe more people would like it then.

I guess art is more taxing than music a lot of the time? I spend a lot of time thinking about art chinstroking, with a furrowed brow - enjoying art takes much more of an investment I think, even at entry level. Hmm. That said, I think the full range of emotion and enjoyment you get from music is available through art, it's just not as instantly accessible. At the Turner Prize this year, the Yinka Shonibare room lit up my brain like a pinball machine, huge slabs of bright clashing colour, the pure sensory overload made me laugh out loud (it was slightly embarrasing). But the kind of PR art has, it'd be hard to get a lot of people through the Tate doors at all.

[John Brainlove]

It could also just be that art is harder to understand, often self-consciously complex and academic, so the majority of people feel slightly alienated and even hostile towards art. Like art is some posh, clever thing that looks down it's nose at you for not understanding. Then when you attach large amounts of money to artworks that are essentially minimal gestures, it makes people more hostile, because it seems to distort the value of money, and the traditional idea of 'worth'. And people don't understand that either, they think it's silly.

I think I have strayed into trying to answer both threads at once.

[stuartmilgram]

art makes me GO ;D

[creakyknees]

Does Art have to be created, or can it be discovered?

For instance, my sister in law had a party for the opening of her flower shop, she had some 'black' roses, a few of these blooms were so beautiful, they took my breath away, they were so 'shaped', that I couldn't take my eyes off them for an unseemly amount of time, my relations and children were there, and I began to get concious of the fact that the time I was taking looking at these flowers would start to make other people uncomfortable, but I was still drawn to having sneaky peeks at them throughout the evening.......

Whats all that about then.........?
Is that art? It went beyond nature apreciation, there was just so much (that was beautiful) to look at in a single flower.

[John Brainlove]

My definition is that art is anything an artist says it is. It can be absolutely anything, but it requires someone who calls themselves an artist to define it as such. I think it's impossible to say a piece of art is not art. You can call it bad art, criticise it, whatever, but to deny that an artwork is actually art is the equivalent of saying a piece of music is "just noise". When it's actually noise music. Criticising noise music is OK, but disregarding it as music is not.

I've never seen black roses.

[creakyknees]

Thanks for that you are helping me sort out the definition of art, which is (I think) the root of many of the problems, that people have with it.

But just to clarify.....

So what If you 'happened' upon something fascinating, that people might not normally notice, then took it, displayed it and drew peoples attention to it so they focussed on it in a way they did'nt normally......If one were to call that art would one be justified?

[John Brainlove]

Yes. You have selected an object, removed it from it's original context (for whatever reason) and chosen to place it in an art context and environment.

I guess a lot of people would argue that this is more museum exhibition practice than art practice, but after the whole found-objects things, I guess it could be either, depending on how you wanted it to be seen. Plucking something from somewhere and redefining it as an artwork is definitely a valid form of art practice though, leading right back to Duchamp's famous 'readymades'.

I quite like the simplicity of choosing something beautiful, putting it on a pedestal and saying "look at this! it's beautiful!" ... Ceal Floyer has been known to do thing vaguely similar, but the thing is, flowers or fruit always rot over the course of the show, so unless you want a new object every day, decay becomes a theme.

[stuartmilgram]

The thing with readymades, and found objects is that I think they are only ever a 'component' of an art work... they are like a catalyst that is necessary for the process to take place, but are not themselves an art work.

I think it's the 'process' of taking the thing and placing it in the gallery that is the artwork and that encompasses the object being re-located, but is not defined by it... in the same way that a painting is not just the paint or the canvas.

[Fellalady]

I was part of a group exhibition in Birmingham once, and I was doing my Sunday afternoon stint as gallery assistant when my then boyfriend brought his parents to come and see my work. Chelmsley Wood through and through, they didn't really take art very seriously probably for many of the reasons discussed in the other 'art' threads. One of the exhibits was an arrangement of walking sticks which had been split down the middle.

I remember chatting away to my boyfriend and his Mum, when Kev (the Dad) came hobbling round the corner with a walking still in each hand saying "I'm not gonna get bloody far with these things, am I!"

Once I got over the ambarrasement I decided that that was very funny and Kev's performance was probably art in itself. A much appreciated visit.

I wonder if the guy whose work it was ever realised that his walking sticks had be re-arranged slightly differently. I did try my best.

[Fellalady]

I've just read Creaky's post on the 'British Art' thread. I think that that is what I was trying to say, only better.

[creakyknees]

I think it would be really groovy if the artist you mentioned welcomed the 'interaction'.

Imagine if the conceptual art was on cctv and recorded, then the artist could also learn from the different ways that the public (Kev in this case) reacted, the artist may be surprised in how many more ways their art would be interpreted/recieved, I guess there is no 'wrong' reaction to art, as long as you have one.

Perhaps with conceptual art the interesting videos of peoples reaction could become part of the exibit, or the exhibition.
(Although it could degenerate into a version of 'whose line is it anyway' where they have 60 seconds to improvise with props)

I think that although some artists would welcome interaction/misbehaving/ mild irreverance/cheekyness with their exhibits (there would be little expense involved in replacing the walking sticks) I would imagine that this may be at odds with museums/galleries policies (I imagine galleries are po faced, although I do not have a lot of experiance with them)

It would be much more fun, and amusing if the public are slightly restrained in their interaction due to their preconceptions of the galleries/museums conservatism, (who wants to misbehave if its sanctioned?)

Do any/many artists video the public viewing their work?

[John Brainlove]

I had the idea of doing a piece where people come into an empty room and mill around, and then in the next room there's a big screen that shows the people in the room they've just left on CCTV. So first you are the person being watched, but you don't know it, and then you become the voyeur.

Never did it though. Just another page in the big book of unfinished ideas. I went less subtle and just stared the audience in the face one by one instead.

Mike Nelson designs his work around the audience. Not so much filming them, but guiding them through a vast puzzling maze. I love the idea of being able to get lost in a work of art and not know where you are any more.

Sounds like you are very in tune with what my work is about creaky. The Milgrams also have a strong interest in this kinda thing ... we do shows together sometimes y'see. In Birmingham actually. We shall have to invite you along next time...

[Monpot]

There's these 2 oriental artists who interact with other artists' work. For instance; they pissed against Duchamp's urinal, and slept in Tracy Emin's Bed.

I found it really funny cos Emin was moaning about it, and saying it was disrespectfull or something.

[Wiggles]

Artists? Or tramps?