(Continuing the discussion, "Yes, but is it art?):
I labeled the above short film ("close up") a critical essay / dream sequence, which is what I intended when I made it last fall. But pretend you saw it at a film festival or a gallery and were told it was a "found footage" composition by a filmmaker whose influences include, say, Bruce Connor, Kenneth Anger, Stan Brakhage, Luis Bunuel, Jean-Luc Godard, Dziga Vertov, and/or Guy Maddin. Would you perceive it differently, whether you thought it was any good or not?
What if you were told that it was a meditation on the intersection of the actor's gaze, the camera's gaze, and the gaze into the mirror; of the movies that have been implanted so deeply in our heads that they become part of us; of the human face as blank slate and reflection of thoughts and emotions; of the skull beneath the skin and the vanity of the flesh; of subconscious metamorphoses and/or stream-of-consciousness Surrealist dream-imagery? A densely interwoven montage of images that requires annotation and explanation to fully understand (you know, like Eliot's poetry)? Or a Surrealist experiment in the vein of "Un Chien Andalou," using only silent footage, scored to a multi-tracked collage soundtrack composed of excerpts from two symphonies by Gustav Mahler and stock sound effects?
Two of my favorite films that pose direct inquiries into the question of "art" are Orson Welles' "F For Fake" and Alan Rudolph's "The Moderns." Each of them explores the idea of forgery, reappropriation: Does the artist's identity sanctify the work? If the work is by someone other than the ostensible artist, does that make it any less a work of art than one created by the artist to whom it is (falsely) attributed? On the other hand, when Van Gogh paints his copies of Velasquez, but in the style of Van Gogh, are those paintings "originals" or reproductions? And are they any good -- not as forgeries (which would "fool" no one), but as paintings in their own right?
A piece in Sunday's New York Times Arts section (" Public Art, Eyesore to Eye Candy") raises some questions relevant to our discussion about the nature of art, and what can be considered art. For example, is a large reproduction of a puppy made out of metal, earth and vegetation a work of sculpture? It's not a topiary, more like a novelty planter on a massive scale. But it's also a piece of architecture. And a garden. Can gardens be art -- like, say, the formal grounds at Versailles (or Marienbad)? What about when Jeff Koons puts together (or has his assistants put together) a 43-foot tall stainless-steel framework holding 25 tons of soil and 70,000 plants,including Marigolds, Begonias, Petunias and Lobelias?
Roberta Smith writes:
It was Mr. Koons's giant "Puppy" -- a West Highland terrier covered with dirt, planted densely with flowers and first shown 16 years ago -- that broadcast most loudly and clearly that public sculpture was neither an exhausted form nor necessarily a dumbed-down one. [...]So, what do you want or expect from art -- movies, music, video games, comic books, painting, sculpture, literature, poetry... -- that makes it, well, art?"Puppy" was intensely lovable, triggering a laugh-out-loud delight that expanded your sense of the human capacity for joy. It was a familiar, sentimental cliché revived with an extravagant purity, not with enduring materials like marble or bronze but with nature at its most colorful and fragile. The flowery semblance of fur made "Puppy" almost living flesh, like us. [...]
Ever since Jasper Johns's flags and targets pointedly addressed the viewer with "things the mind already knows," much, maybe most art has set out one way or another to reach a broader audience more directly. The welter of strategies began simply enough, with the elimination of the sculpture's pedestal and the siphoning of images from pop culture, and it now extends to the Internet. The revival of public sculpture is perhaps only the latest ripple in this continuing wave, but it is also the most public.
• An expression of creativity? Skill? (Can art be creative or expressive without representing much in the way of skill or craft?)
• The ability to stimulate your imagination, your senses, your intellect, your emotions?
• A transformation of the way you perceive or understand something about the world, or yourself -- to (literally or figuratively) see through someone else's eyes?
• Evidence of a personal vision or signature? And/orr the manifestation of a larger cultural, tribal, historical, political, religious context?
• An engaging or challenging experience? A contemplative one?
Can you describe why something (or some form) that does these things, or others, deserves to be called "art" (or even "great art") -- or is it like pornography and you just know it when you see it? (Ah, the eternal question... )
Now apply those criteria to a work of movie criticism and see what you come up with.
I was too distracted trying to identify all the clips to decide if it was art or not. :)
I imagine if I didn't recognize most of the clips or especially if I didn't know any of them, I'd have a very different reaction than if I did. To a child looking at this short film, it would be a series of closeups of people's faces and eyes, not movie clips at all.
All art exists in context and all art is received in context. Who was it that recently made a video that was a line that traced the hand motions of Bogart in "Casablanca"? I wouldn't have the slightest idea what to make of something like that without having the context explained to me. I still might not like it, but it would sure help to know a little more. Obviously then, I reject the notion that art must be something that can be understood by itself.
Of course, the author doesn't necessarily get any more say in what the art "means" than the viewer does. The author may not really be dead in this post-modern worlds, but art is polysemous. Once the author throws the text into the cultural maelstrom, he or she doesn't have control anymore. Shakespeare surely never meant Caliban to represent Colonialism, but that doesn't mean a reader can't extract such meaning from the text.
Damn, I shouldn't have answered this just before going to sleep. I tend to ramble in half-remembered theory-speak.
What is your quiz about? Do you believe Art is an answer to the expectations of the public? that the definition of Art is in the eye of the beholder?
Maybe you survey the public opinion on what people perceive as the popular understanding of art, but you're not going to grasp what Art is unless you explore the quintessential raison d'être of producing Art. The artist makes the call. And if the public doesn't follow, understand, appreciate it's besides the point.
Have fun with this one.
Art is no more exclusively about skills and identifiable figurative anthropocentric beauty... Now you have to understand conceptual shifts and theoretical challenges. Like applying a texture to a form that doesn't naturally fits it (in your puppy example, or the Ferrari in my example), extrapolate meanings, play around with scales, disturb our usual perception of objects...
You don't make Surrealism with a MTV montage of formally-related shots... the collision of images also needs to break frontiers, to evoke subconscious associations, to shift the couple signifier/signified, to jump-cut to the most unexpected follow up, to confront form and content, to express disinhibited social taboos...
The approach to montage of the structuralists (say found-footage by Tscherkassky) proceeds from an intention different from the Surrealists.
HarryTuttle: Good answers. That's what the questions are about.
Ant hole, armpit, urchin, iris.
Jim, when I saw your movie when you first posted it, I DID think it was art at the time, I really enjoyed it and thought it was put together well, you made a lot of good choices. Thats what art can be also, it good choices. You didn't just just google 'close-ups' and shuffle whatever you got together, you sat down, and sifted, and chose!
Honestly, most things can be art, depending on the person observing or interacting with it. Your post should be intitled not, 'Yes, but is it art?', but, 'Yes, but is it good?' So, the question, is what you did good art? I liked it.
I've recently had long chats about these topics with friends (prompted, appropriately enough, by Roger Ebert's discussion about Video Games as art, or not). The most concrete opinion that I came away with was that art is by definition created by an artist. I do not mean by that to classify certain people/professions as artists, but merely to designate art as something created by someone, presented to the public (however large or small that public might be). Thus, in my opinion, a video game is, by necessity, not art. If the public is creating the experience for themselves, than that is artful as, say, a rollercoaster ride. The excitement and thrill are undeniable, but it is not art.
However, the story-telling/craft of a video game can certainly be classified as art (I know from experience that I can be enveloped with a video game's story-line to a greater extent than the vast majority of movies, even my favorites).
I know that the above is rambling off subject...but the point is, that art is presented by an artist (or a group of artists) for consumption. There is nothing artful if it requires active, physical, audience participation (and little of value if it does not require passive, intellectual audience participation). It ceases to become art, and becomes an experience.
I find it far more difficult to pin down a film or piece of music as Art. The classification is a rather moot point, since however you want to say it, it either works or it doesn't. I know that I am particularly susceptible to classifying impressive looking movies that I like as art. "There Will Be Blood", "No Country for Old Men" and "The Diving Bell and The Butterfly" recently struck me as Art, even though I could only express why that is to varying degrees (The multitude of discussions about NCFOM did help me pinpoint specific thoughts and emotions brought on by the movie, but one rarely have the luxury of that. I am greatly disappointed by this summer's discussions of "The Dark Knight" and "Indy 4", which so often went to the post-modern analysis of it's reception, skipping the actual reception by many invaluable Bloggers. I personally find myself quite depressed by the lack of some of the sharpest mind as in depth sounding boards through which I can gauge my own true reaction to a movie's elements).
I apologize for the disconnected rants.
Art, as far as I'm concerned, is defined very broadly--art is a descriptor for those undertakings which are volitional, expressive, and aesthetic in nature. The degree to which an undertaking is those things, it is art. That doesn't mean that it's good or great, just that it is.
For art to be worth my while, what I want most from it is simply to provide an experience that holds my interest. If it's good, it'll not only hold my interest but give me something to think or talk about beyond my initial experience with it. If it's really great, it will give me an experience I haven't had before, either emotionally, intellectually, or aesthetically.
Craft and skill are not absolute prerequisites for any of this, but they certainly help.
The puppy topiatue reminds me of the giant 39-foot tall leaning fire hydrant sculpture in downtown Columbia, SC (see here). Art/not art too?
You probably hear this a lot, but I think art is too expansive to be confined to the bullets above. Before I heard of Girl Talk (the stage name of mash-up artist Greg Gillis), I didn't value sampling as an artform or even as a method of making music. However, upon purchasing his 2006 release NIGHT RIPPER, I saw Gillis as an artist existing in his own realm. He sampled close to three-hundred songs in just sixteen tracks, rearranging them with the skill of a surrealist filmmaker or a master dada artist. True, none of the music is his (and I don't know how he gets away with the copyright issues), but he nonetheless created something new and exhilarating from familiar material.
With that said, I encourage you to download his new album, FEED THE ANIMALS, for free (yes, free)from his website. You can either Google Illegal Art (Gillis' record company) or you can follow this link to the exact place where you will be asked how much you want to pay to recieve the album: http://74.124.198.47/illegal-art.net/
Yes, $0.00 is an option.
Please, please, please take the initiative and download the album. You have nothing to lose except your time. Who knows, perhaps it will inspire a new discussion on your blog...
I know that I'd be glad to participate!
Dear Mr. Emerson,
I hope that my last entry didn't sound like I wrote solely to promote the album. I simply assumed that with your renewed fascination in what defines art it could open up possibilities for a blog entry. Plus, since the album can be downloaded for free, everyone who happens to read your blog could participate and provide feedback. As Tobias from Arrested Development exclaimed, "Let the great experiment begin!"
Your devoted reader,
Nick Young
P.S. If you aren't already a fan of Mitchell Hurwitz's genious show that cut so tragically short, you should check it out. Arrested Development is the only show that I can watch repeatedly that continues to feel fresh.
I will say that to me that I think film is an art form because it is a medium where there is an expression of creativity and craft but what makes a film a masterpiece for me is that it stimulates my imagination,intellect or emotions.I think Art is a medium in itself and just because something is from an art medium doesn't that something is a masterpiece.I think there might be a difference between work of art and Masterpiece.For Example, I think Michael Bay's "Armageddon" qualifies as a work of art because it is a movie(and movies are an art medium) but it's without a doubt not a masterpiece in fact it is a bad movie which does very little in terms of imagination,insults are intelligence and mechanically manipulates are emotions and the only thing I think it achieved was money at the box office.( Although I wonder if "Armageddon" would be a better or worse film if it was done in IMAX form)
John Porath--
I disagree absolutely with your position about video games as art. I think the idea that because the video game is interactive somehow devalues it is ludicrous. Let me ask:
1: Is architecture no longer "art" simply because a person must walk through it, open doors, etc. to gain the experience of it?
2: Is a film not art if it's on DVD and one must navigate a menu to appreciate it?
3: Is a book not art because the reader has freedom to turn the pages at any time, skip pages, re-read pages, etc.?
4: Is performance art that demands audience participation no longer art?
5: Is a beautifully-carved chess set no longer art simply because someone will eventually play with it?
The art, in a video game, is not in the playing (though it potentially *could* be if the player is sufficiently talented and inspired), it's in the creation of the environment in which the players play, or in the creation of a storyline that pulls the player through. You admit these things can be called art, so why devalue the game as a whole simply because of the creators' invitation to the audience to participate?
Art is entertainment for intellectuals.
-- Woody Allen
You have thoroughly entertained me with this montage, Jim. I'm fairly dumb, though.
Here are my humble, and possibly naive opinions. First, I think it's important to come up with these definitions for ourselves. I'm very interested in these kinds of discussions - I had them often when studying architecture, where cricicism is as much involved as artistry. I think the definition of "art" should be exclusive, because otherwise what's the point of pursuing the arts? If anything is art, than a person could be a critic, or a mathemetician, or a construciton worker, or a politician, but can also call themselves artists - and that kind of devalues the role of the artist. Surely there may be artistry involved in those professions, but they aren't pure artforms, just like artists who study art or architecture history can't consider themselves pure scholars, and artists who study anatomy can't consider themselves pure scientists.
I think there is an inherent difference between art and criticism, but that difference is not a fine line. Criticsm can be artistic, as in your posted video-criticism, and art can be critical. And maybe a particular artifact can be 50% of one and 50% of the other. But I think a person could pinpoint each in any artifact, and show how each operate differently.
The reason why I think there has to be some inherent difference between the two is that I believe art and criticsm are two parts in a mutually refining process. Critism is the mirror image of art, and vice versa. (In fact, I'm sure I've read essays with this thesis, but I can't remember them to give credit). If they both precipitate and refine each other, then isn't it necessary for there to be a difference between the two?
For me, criticsm has always been an exterior act - exterior from the body/mind/soul of the critic, while the artist is interior. Both art-making and criticizing are very similar processes. Artists and critics both are inspired by outside phenomena (current events, history, nature, etc.), have a personal reaction to those phenomena, and then create an object that records that reaction. The critic's reaction, however, occurs outside. It's pinned to whatever phenomena (s)he's reacting to. The object (usually an essay) is about the phenomena (perhaps a film), seen through the lens of the critic's personal feelings/thoughts. The artists reaction is interior, and the object (s)he creates is about the artists feelings/thoughts (perhaps love, for Wong Kar Kai) seen through the lens of the phenomena (shots of kissing?, I'm not a really good amateur critic).
My argument is, if a critic is writing an essay the film, and has a deep emotional epiphany about what (s)he's writing, and creates an essay that is more about in tune with those experiences than with the subject at hand, than (s)he's is assuming the role of artist, either partially or fully.
Peet: I feel a song coming on: "Dah da daaah, dah dah da-da-da-daaah -- That's Entertainment!"
1- Some of my favorite works are pretty low on technical skill, like King Terry, the Japanese underground comic artist who pioneered what he called the good/bad aesthetic, or punk rock bands like The Ramones who actually suck, technically, but have enough energy to make up for it.
2- I think it should stimulate SOMETHING, or it's just a useless artifact (to me, anyways, it might stimulate others, and for them it's art, for me it's just a movie/game/comic book/novel).
3- Hopefully. If not transformation, then I should at least look at how I see the world again and reconsider why I believe what I believe. I should be encouraged not to put my worldview on auto-pilot.
4- I think anything someone does, from eating breakfast to parking their car, is as much an expression of a personal vision as anything they create deliberately.
5- Any of these would be appreciated.
And hey, Jim! Where can I see some of your other movies?
It becomes art the moment somebody asks, "but is it art?" =)
This is indeed a conundrum. The fact is, I haven't yet read a definition here that I can't find an exception to. There is art that I think isn't particularly creative, for instance, even though I would say, generally, that it should be so. There is art that was certainly not suffered over or sacrificed for; some great work (not a lot, I would guess, but some) has just sort of fallen out of someone's ass. Divine inspiration, perhaps? I'm not much into the divine, myself, but who knows? There is art that was never intended for consumption, including, humbly, certain rhythmic, occasionally rhyming scribblings of my own that can move me in different ways every time I look at them but which I will never show to anyone else. They serve an artistic purpose for their audience of one who sometimes knows exactly what he was doing the night he jotted that down and other times says "What the hell am I trying to say to me? Or make myself feel?". Anyway, yeah, I guess I would say "I know it when I see it." But it does sometimes require study and contemplation. It's not quite like love at first sight.
On the other hand, the importance of art to both individuals and societies makes it imperative to keep asking the question of what it is whether there's an answer or not. (I'm not sure I would make that claim about pornography). Just saying: "Anything and everything can be art, kids," might not be the best way to maintain an aura of relevence or to inspire a sense of discovery. I guess to just keep exposing and discussing is all that can and should be done. If someone thinks those big-eye puppy paintings are essential to their intellectual or emotional or spiritual well-being I won't argue, I'll just say, "Okay, but have you seen *this*?"
Dane Walker--
You say: "Just saying: "Anything and everything can be art, kids," might not be the best way to maintain an aura of relevence or to inspire a sense of discovery."
I don't really understand this criticism of the "anything can be art" viewpoint. It seems like it is, once again, mired in the idea that calling something "art" automatically makes it good. I don't see why that should be. The fact that there are both good and bad athletes doesn't take away from the idea of athleticism, or the drive to achieve new athletic feats. Athletics, science, mathematics, etc. etc... none of these things have the exclusivity some people want to give "art", but that's never stopped anyone from valuing them. What other field in all of human endeavor fails to qualify as itself unless it is extraordinarily successful?
Although I share your love of the movie F For Fake, it's literary equivalent must also be mentioned. Namely, Borges' famous story Pierre Menard, Author of Don Quixote. For those who have not read this wonderful story, it can be found online here:
http://web.archive.org/web/20041109092837/http://www.english.swt.edu/cohen_p/avant-garde/Literature/Borges/Menard.html
Art is whatever you choose to look at as art, whether it's presented to you as such or not. A painting is both a canvas with pigment on it and a reflection of some sort of reality or fantasy - you can analyze it apart from its desired affect if you so choose (though why would you?). Hence, your montage, the movies those clips were drawn from, my computer, the driveway outside, even the tree or the sky are all art (does "art" need an "artist"?). The pertinent question is not, "is it art" but as Stephen and Miles suggest, "is it good?" All the factors you mention are worth considering, not exclusively, but as part of the discussion. It usually starts with a visceral reaction but I think ultimately what you look for is the potential visceral reaction. The work, or object, or whatever, may not reach you but it's worth pushing yourself to "get" it because if you do you'll probably be grateful - and I'm not talking about some intellectuallized analysis here but a gut reaction that it's possible to achieve through study and the use of an open mind.
To best appreciate any work it's best to approach with everything you've got (though not necessarily at the same time) - your senses, your imagination, your critical mind...
Your montage re-contextualizes the clips it includes; and besides, editing (both in terms of the rhythm of the cutting and the juxtaposition of images) is one of the qualities that makes movies as an art form so unique. Therefore, any moving image work that contains cuts has to be considered afresh, no matter what context it's footage was originally seen in.
Not to rain on the "what is art" parade, but I had about five of these conversations in class at NYU and they were all pretty irritating. Humans made up the term "art." It's a subjective label. If you think something's art, then it is.
Stephen, the emphasis was meant to be on the "just saying" part of the sentence you quoted. I would prefer saying "anything *can* be art" as opposed to " *anything* can be art". I think a lot of people who hear that latter emphasis come away with a trivial rather than a broad notion of what art is. I agree it's wherever you find it, but also that you don't just find it everywhere. My favorite moment in "The Incredibles" was when the kid (Dash?) was forced to hold back in races again the "normal" kids. Someone said: "Everybody's special" and he muttered, "That's just another way of saying no one is."
Once a friend told me: "You think that everything with a message is art... that in the moment that the message is perceived in any level by the viewer, it becomes art... but I don't understand that. We could take a box with feces comming out of it and just with a title like -My Requiem- we could call it art. But it's not. It's curious and witty, but not art."
It made me think... it is not? Are we so arrogant and elitist that we think of art as something that MUST be much more trascendental and compelling? Why? Isn't any metaphore, in the end, a form of art? How can we feel confortable pidgeon-holing such a big concept, if we are in fact limiting its scope?
Do we value the artistic creation or its effects that transgress the boundaries of the format (the paper, the screen, etc.) and talks to the viewer? Well, we can't deny one or the other, we can't even place them apart. Every art has a message to deliver to the viewer, even a small one. Nothing is 'pure art' or, as the french would say "l'art pour l'art". It's no aesthetic per se. That's is NEVER the case. There is no aesthetic work without even a minimal dose of ethics. And even if that wasn't the case, I prefer a box of feces coming out of it that a closed box with feces inside I don't know about. The viewer has to know about it. Othertwise it's just solipsistic and only something to please the creator.... just a fetishe.
What's the point of making a work of art that doesn't use its potential of going to the public and provoking a line of thoughts? I will always prefer a difficult movie that leaves me in shock and makes think a lot to rationalize what I saw and decrease the shock... that an enjoyable movie who doesn't make me think. Is that simple. That's why I can say honestly that (because of its ending) The Dark Knight (yeah, again!) is a great movie. Because it made lots people think... hard... to rationalize the surprising outcomes they were forced to confront.
Every metaphore that awakens in me the desire of thinking is, intentionally or not, a work of art. It's that simple. Good art or bad art... that's a different topic. But to call one work 'art' and another one 'something else' I think it's elitist and insecure. That's why I find so wrong Bordwell's diferentiation between "cinephiles" and "cinemaniacs". It's a cheap way of finding out which is the superior form of a person who loves film.... I'm not saying they're equals, I'm saying that Bordwell is wrong to go through those shortcuts and generalizations.
You ask to approach your short as if it was made by any number of master filmmakers, and my only response to such a brazen directive is to tell you that had any of those filmmakers made the short it would have been great, and since they didn't, it isn't.
In other words: get over yourself.
Yuck.
I just posted in my really small, barely active blog a cheaply "commentary about art" that could be an answer to the first question you pose to us readers.
(In case you want to read: http://ramblingsfromthezoo.wordpress.com
though I'm a bit embarrased of it as I am not proud of its writing but posted it to finally post something, but I guess I hold the main ideas about it.)
So to answer the last question and considering that I think art materializes truths through human means for the public, I think criticism CAN be art too. Good criticism could effectively stir in the human brain truths about the work observed; bring the truths that art conveys back to life through perspective; and creatively point out what really "is" and what "is not" in that work of art in a way that is not necessarily merely academic or scientific, as though it uses thorough analysis, it uses too all the creative tools in hand withing the medium to acheive its full realization.
Yet, as an artform in itself, it is very limited for its high and overly confining dependence on finite works instead of the less finite truths both critic and the more independent criticized artist conjure.