The joy of photography
-
A
- Thread starter nikos79
- Start date
Recent Classifieds
-
For Sale Kodak's 1947 Sensitometric Step Table
- Started by Gaston 012
-
For Sale Photronix Mod 73 Transmission densitometer
- Started by Gaston 012
-
For Sale Eseco and XRite densitometers
- Started by gmikol
-
For Sale Speedotron 202 VF Flash Head and accessories
- Started by spoolman
-
Want to Buy Sekonic L208
- Started by RoboRepublic
Forum statistics
Glad to hear that was the last one!
So common to encounter opinion served up as genuine criticism. *sigh*
Oh, he wasn't fixated. He was focused on complex themes of sex and violence.
Does what you say actually refute what I just said? No - they're just straightforward posits. Actual reference to the work can support or refute those claims.
I'm tempted to ask if your disaproval is aesthetic or if it's moral, yet I'm not sure I want to know the answer...
You're the one looking for "depth"—whatever that is. He might not be substituting anything and just be looking for provocation. Why would that be bad? There was a good dose of voluntary provocation in Nijinski's choreography and Stravinsky's score to The Rite of Spring. One may even say it owes part of its success to that provocation.
Comparing an orange with a linden tree doesn't tell me anything about the orange nor the linden tree other than they are not the same.
And if, on a sunny, hot day, I expect shadow from an orange and do not get it, I should blame myself, not the orange, for not understanding what the orange can offer me.
I also want to say, and this should be obvious, that there is a real difference between not liking something and that something being bad. Say I don't like Elvis - don't like the songs, his voice, whatever. That's a statement about me. But if I say, "Elvis is bad," that's a statement about Elvis and is making an objective truth claim. As in, it's the same as saying "It is objectively true that Elvis is bad."
Now, if you ask me to justify why I say I don't like Elvis, and I can point out the fact that his voice, songs, whatever don't appeal to me - don't suit my taste. There's nothing really to argue with, if I have given him a fair chance to appeal to me.
But if I appeal to the same subjective matters of taste to justify the statement "Elvis is bad," I'm not giving any objective evidence whatsoever, because I've lapsed back into talking about me again. To justify the claim "Elvis is bad," I need to make reference to Elvis - not to me, not to what I do or don't like.
Now, if you ask me to justify why I say I don't like Elvis, and I can point out the fact that his voice, songs, whatever don't appeal to me - don't suit my taste. There's nothing really to argue with, if I have given him a fair chance to appeal to me.
But if I appeal to the same subjective matters of taste to justify the statement "Elvis is bad," I'm not giving any objective evidence whatsoever, because I've lapsed back into talking about me again. To justify the claim "Elvis is bad," I need to make reference to Elvis - not to me, not to what I do or don't like.
Aesthetic
What about the Duchamp pissoir isn't that provocation? But meaningless? What did he succeed with that?
they all did fashion. Quite easy to compare them
And the orange and the linden tree are both plant life. Still useless to impose on one the qualities we expect from the other.
As others have said, comparisons are easy and lazy, and give a false sense of critical superiority since one acts as both judge and jury.
Well, we're still talking about "what is art", aren't we? Now if you think his gesture has nothing to do with launching (or re-lauching) that conversation in the 20th century, you're more naive than I tought. That conversation was, until the advent of AI, still on-going much on the terms he laid down at that moment.
That, to me, is meaningful.
Provocative, yes. Meaningless, definitely not. What did he achieve? Challenged a lot of rigid ideas about culture and taste.
Pretty much redirected the course of the arts for the rest of the 20th century - and beyond. Not single-handedly, but the urinal was a pivotal point.
Very handy, too.
Gustave Courbet's L'origine du monde is another wonderful example of how provocation and great art are far from incompatible.
https://www.musee-orsay.fr/fr/oeuvres/lorigine-du-monde-69330
Close to top on my list of "I wish I had been there to see the look on their faces" moments in art history.
https://www.musee-orsay.fr/fr/oeuvres/lorigine-du-monde-69330
Close to top on my list of "I wish I had been there to see the look on their faces" moments in art history.
You know what Picasso said about it, right?
No, and I'm not sure whether it matters.
The problem we're now running into is that you're dissing up a series of examples along the lines of "yeah, smoking may be bad but I had this aunt who lived to the ripe age of 90 despite her pack-a-day habit, so..."
As I said before - you're prejudiced, so what. Deep down, pretty much all of us are. Some of us try to confront those prejudices, others try to hang onto them as if they're are a raft on a stormy ocean. Heck, for all I know, the latter group may even be right.
You are all koraks, Don, Alex, Matt, Snus super smart and well educated but I need you to explain me why the pissoir is art. For me it is more important than you may think because it bears a direct analogy on my stance on photography
Because it was presented as art. And you were directed to view it as art.
Why is this art:
Because Picasso presented it as such.
Sort of, by the way. An identity can only be established if it's within the potential ideation of the perceiver.
Last edited:
You make your poll and this is what happens: some people say it's art and others don't. A discussion ensues, which revolves around two questions: (1) what is art and (2) is there such a thing as 'good' vs. 'bad' art? Neither comes to a conclusion in the pages of back & forth that follow. On the first handful of these pages, one or two insightful arguments on either side of both questions will be offered, interspersed with a mixture of dogmatic non-sequiturs, personal preferences and discussion on the best toppings for Neapolitan style pizza (and isn't New York style better anyway?) The ratio between insightful and 'other' content will start out unfavorably towards the former and will further drop precipitously very soon after, but this will not make the discussion peter out until it gets very, very heated and people start being very obnoxious towards each other and society in general, and then I or one of the other moderators come along and put a lock on it.
The quick & dirty, and frankly my preferred solution would be if you could fire up the AI thing again, which will spit out 20 pages of inane banter on the "what is art" problem, which we can then post here as an artificial thread, lock it preemptively and we can then all go on our merry ways. It'll take just a minute and it'll save a lot of keyboards from unnecessary wear & tear.
Having said all that - why the pissoir is art? That question only mattered for a very brief moment around 1917, when so many people got riled up about it that it totally shocked the world of the arts, and as a result of this influence, it very quickly didn't matter whether or not it was art in the first place; the nature of Pandora's box becomes very irrelevant as soon as it's being opened and people who wonder whether it was made of cardboard or teak are much like a cat staring at a pointing finger instead of the direction the finger is pointing in. And that in itself arguably makes it art. Leaving only a rather fickle matter up for discussion: the nature of 'it'. Which I'll leave you to ponder about. That, cardboard and Mott porcelain.
Last edited:
MattKing
Moderator
| Photrio.com contains affiliate links to products. We may receive a commission for purchases made through these links. To read our full affiliate disclosure statement please click Here. |
PHOTRIO PARTNERS EQUALLY FUNDING OUR COMMUNITY:  |