What Makes a Great Work of Art?

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shanez

Lifer
Jul 10, 2018
5,215
24,261
49
Las Vegas
I think some of my pipes are works of art and even display them as such though I do smoke them from time to time as well.

I'm considering rearranging how I display my pipes too. I want to put all of my Yanik pipes together, Negoita pipes together, etc. Imagine the home tour I could give! "And here we have the Yanik wing (shelf) of the museum." puffy
 
anything at all can be "art."
There are maybe two galleries in New York that deal with weird stuff. Being in the news makes it seem like it's going on everywhere at all times, but really it's not. It's a very small thing.

It's like letting what happens in a college setting be defined as what real music is now a days.

How much impact does John Cage's work have on what you listen to in your car? NONE
Does the work of someone banging on a pot affect the music you listen to? NO.
The media makes it seem like the world is going down the toilets. But, really it's not. Just theoretical stuff happening by philosophy majors having fun.

The banana guy has no impact on the art world at large, just as it has no impact on what any of us likes. However, people who are easily swayed by the media will use it as a reason to hate on art "in theory," while the privately enjoy the drawings of friends and their children. Ha ha. Don't let the banana argument sway us here.

Lets talk about what WE like and why. No one likes the banana guy. Let's just shoot that fucker between the eyes and move on, ha ha.
 

JOHN72

Lifer
Sep 12, 2020
5,250
52,639
51
Spain - Europe
I think some of my pipes are works of art and even display them as such though I do smoke them from time to time as well.

I'm considering rearranging how I display my pipes too. I want to put all of my Yanik pipes together, Negoita pipes together, etc. Imagine the home tour I could give! "And here we have the Yanik wing (shelf) of the museum." puffy
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"Our art" is what we collectively agree is "art." If it's in an "art gallery" and is widely supported by patrons, or analyzed as "art" by critics, or just widely considered to be "art" by the general public, then it becomes "our art." I suppose a big part of my point is that much of "our art" today is undeserving of being categorized as such.
There are some music clubs that play devilworshipping deathmetal full of people covered in ink and studs sticking out of their faces. There are a handful of galleries that support people shooting paint out their asses.

Then there are places full of people listening to things they like, just as there are galleries who carry the art we like. Ammiright?

I don't go near the deathmetal clubs with people who tear up their faces because they hate life. Ha ha. Just like I don't buy into bananas taped to walls.
 
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lawdawg

Lifer
Aug 25, 2016
1,792
3,803
There are maybe two galleries in New York that deal with weird stuff. Being in the news makes it seem like it's going on everywhere at all times, but really it's not. It's a very small thing.

It's like letting what happens in a college setting be defined as what real music is now a days.

How much impact does John Cage's work have on what you listen to in your car? NONE
Does the work of someone banging on a pot affect the music you listen to? NO.
The media makes it seem like the world is going down the toilets. But, really it's not. Just theoretical stuff happening by philosophy majors having fun.

The banana guy has no impact on the art world at large, just as it has no impact on what any of us likes. However, people who are easily swayed by the media will use it as a reason to hate on art "in theory," while the privately enjoy the drawings of friends and their children. Ha ha. Don't let the banana argument sway us here.

I think you are underestimating the extent of the proliferation of garbage non-art:

28 Amazing Art Exhibits Coming To New York City Between 2020 & 2021 - Secret NYC

1/3 of that stuff is absolute crap.

I also completely disagree with you on the "bad art does not affect you" thing. Just like the argument "why should anyone care that people now wear their pajamas in public? What they wear doesn't affect you." Yes it does. Relaxing of standards, or even total abandonment of standards, affects everyone collectively.

Lets talk about what WE like and why. No one likes the banana guy. Let's just shoot that fucker between the eyes and move on, ha ha.

Well I can agree with you on the banana-taped-to-the-wall issue puffy
 
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telescopes

Pipe Dreamer and Star Gazer
The problem with much of today's "art" and postmodernism generally, as you phrased in a more positive light, is that we have removed all criteria, and now anything at all can be "art." This is somewhat like the "noise" movement in music that occurred around the same time (beginning in early 1900's) as more modern movements in other arts. What sounds qualify as music? Why should someone get to say that one type of sound is music and another type of sound is not? Why does music have to be made on a 12 or 16 note scale? Why do there have to be any rules at all? What's the difference between Bach and banging on a pot?
No, no, no. WE have not removed all criteria. WE have expanded the notion to allow for the free expression of ideas.

What is art has never been up for debate. It all is at some point.

The question is rather, "What is good art?"

That subjective question does have at its roots a criteria. I think Jesse - @sablebrush52 - someone who is paid as an artist and lives off the proceeds - stated that criteria quite succinctly. I thought I did as well, but hell, what do I know, I like my Grabows just as much as my Dunhills.

At any rate, there is a criteria, and the ages speak to this criteria. Photo realism, drawing inside the lines, all that was bullshit rules set to control sales by guilds that had to ensure profits - rightly so - for artists who needed to make a living.

Today, we have democratized art. We have broken the yolk of what is and what is not considered art.

All of it is art. Not all of it is good by any measure. But art it most likely is - even the taped banana and the screaming loco Yoko.

Who is anyone to say what is or is not art?

But everyone of us may judge for ourselves what we like and what we don't like.

Right?
 
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"why should anyone care that people now wear their pajamas in public? What they wear doesn't affect you." Yes it does. Relaxing of standards, or even total abandonment of standards, affects everyone collectively.
I'm not sure I believe that.
I corelate the shock art with the deathmetal bullshit.

Obviously standards are not being lowered, by the way we all react to this. If banana art (for the sake of conversation) means that standards are lowered for us all. Then does allowing people to exist that listen to deathmetal lower everyone's standards as well?

I think that in the 1970's, I could have walked into TG&Y with my pajamas on, bought what I need and walk right out with no one arresting me. Sure, people would have stared, but people stare at these people today also. right?

I think some of us give too much credit to the gallery system. True, at one time they had a huge impact on what art was, artists we ever hear about had to pass through them. This lasted for a hundred years. But now they are more like privately owned knick knack shops. They don't have any real power over the art world, nor have they had since the early 80's. Postmodernism killed the gallery scene.
 
In this day and age record companies have lost most of their control over what music we listen to. The internet has given us exponentially more music. We can look at what record companies are doing and talk about the "music scene" if you buy into the notion that they control us.

Galleries are just like the old record companies. Now, we have art shows in every city, sometimes several a year. Then there is etsy and hundreds of other sites like them. Artists can make and have their own websites. They can open their own galleries. Galleries have lost their power, just like record companies are losing theirs.

But, really... I was hoping that this thread would be less about "Fine Art" with capital letters, and be more about what visual arts that you all like to look at and why.
Phuck Phine Aert!!!
 
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