Against the "Artist's Statement"
I think it's best to get the bullshit out of the way: I hate the artists's statement. It feels like kindergarden show and tell. If a work of art I make requires an explanation, then it's not worthy of anyone's time. The work should speak for itself; essentially, what the philosophical issue is here is that art should express itself on it's own terms. I should not have to write a short essay that logically defines what my intuitive mind threw up on the page. Real art is vomit. If you want to enjoy art, you need to be able to enjoy vomit.
So what's the counter argument? Do artist statements help the audience situate what they're experiencing? Is this situating important/necessary? Why? If not, then why?
What would an artists statement about a poem or a story look like? A prelude to a prelude? How does language play a role, if at all? Lots of options, here.
So what's the counter argument? Do artist statements help the audience situate what they're experiencing? Is this situating important/necessary? Why? If not, then why?
What would an artists statement about a poem or a story look like? A prelude to a prelude? How does language play a role, if at all? Lots of options, here.
Comments (218)
Agree 100%.
Edit: artist statements are an academic notion.
Though the statement is an integral part of the work because that’s how the work was constructed.
Sure, but they are also provided at art museums, and at musical performances. They exist beyond academia; they exist in the artistic wild.
I think it’s become a style of sorts. It’s like all exhibitions have a title. Academia has totally influenced things, because so many artists come through uni., as do the curators, etc.
Edit: it’s packaging.
I don't mind a good title; hell, I love a good title to a novel. But what I'm against is when the artist tells me what their work means. Stop being so precious and precocious. Let your work breath.
I’m 100% in agreement with you remember. These people don’t have much of an imagination, they’re not really spontaneously creative. They have to construct a work of art from a “concept”. Then they have to explain it because only they know what it’s about. That becomes standard practice once you leave uni.
Actually let’s say the artist statement justifies the work itself.
Hmmm, defend yourself.
Defend what?
The idea that "the artist statement justifies the work itself".
Do you mean explain it? Because “defend yourself” sounds like you disagree.
What I mean is that they use the artist statement to justify a work that has very little substance.
By "defend yourself" I was signaling that I didn't outright agree, but also didn't outright disagree.
Quoting Brett
I agree.
Isn't that an artist's statement?
Quoting unenlightened
Most definitely.
No, it's not. Demonstrate how I'm wrong.
What?
And of course they can't help but want to add words to tell you what to think, since they don't have the skills or sensuous aspects in their work to make it a full experience.
They have to give you more thoughts.
I have no rule against artists' statements. I am sure they can work quite well in some circumstances. But the culture of them, I think, is part of this trend toward making people think rather than having a complex sensory experience AND think, after that, and then after the next look and contemplation.
He is not saying that one should not think about art, he is suggesting something about the act of an artist placing what the work means next to it. It happens to some degree in novels, though extremely rarely. And it is also part of a new trend. It may or may not be a good thing. It may be a symptom.
But his act in the OP has is not in any way parallel to an artist telling us what his or her art means. The OP writer is not presenting us with a work of art.
I would have thought that the problem is not that the artist says something about their work, but that the work is not worth talking about. There's a lot of that about I will grant you. Naming no bananas.
You're treating this like legislation. ('can talk about art') I see the discussion as raising the issue of whether it is a good thing or not.
And also, his OP is NOT him presenting his art by saying what it means. That's not an arbritrary distinction, that is central. His op is in no way telling me what any specific work of art or show means. Quoting unenlightened
To me most works that I love stand on their own. I can spend time with the work as a sensous experience, and then if it is representational, I can mull over the meanings. I think if someone feels the need to explain what is going on in their art, at the place where the art is shown, they don't really trust their artwork. I don't have a rule. I certainly wouldn't come close to banning it or even think of the idea. But the more it happens the more I think it's likely the piece of art itself is missing something.
Of course there could be mixed medium works with words and painting, say. So, yes, there is no clear line. But the more someone tells me what their work means, the less I think they trust it and the less likely, I think, I am going to enjoy their work on several levels. I think it is more likely their work will only make me think. And I think then it is likely that they are not working in the best medium.
I wouldn't want to listen to a piece of music that had a narrator telling me what the song was about. I'd be happy to have lyrics that in themselves are works of art, part of the art, and inside it, and likely in the best art not telling me what the music means, but in creative tension with the music that is also telling me what the words mean.
If I put on a song and it started with a voiceover saying 'in this next piece I will be dealing with male authority figures, using my own father as a metaphor for government....' or whatever, I would be irritated. I can read interviews with the artist, later. And heck, why doesn't the artist trust me to find their work powerful with being told it's secrets.
Further artists are not necessarily the best judges of their art, though they may be about their intentions.
To me it's a symptom. Of course they should be allowed to do it. But I think the more it is done, the weaker the art is and the less confidence the artists have in their work, and further, I think, the less actual love of their medium. They don't trust the medium. So, sure, an artist's statement doesn't mean that the painting next to it is any less great, though I think, actually, it might diminish the experience of people who read the statement before having spent some serious time with the painting. The meaning gets narrowed down to whatever the artist is conscious of and we would, in general, I think, 'see' the meaning we are told is there. My sense is that the feeling one should have an artist statement next to one's art is a symptom of something that will also show up in less interesting art work. And I see this specifically with the mass of abstract modern and postmodern art. See, my earlier long response to the OP for what I mean there and also to see I do love, in fact, many examples of both modern and postmodern art. I just think it opened the doors to people who think art is about verbal thinking in the main, and we have lost something.
I don't like to do things people hate, if possible. But of all the problems with the sort of conceptual art that seems to do the circuit of European public galleries, the labels seem the least offensive to me. If the art is good, who cares about the labels? And if the art is bad, who cares about the labels?
This works in other ways. Who cares if your golf or tennis follow through is right, if you hit the ball well, you hit the ball well.
Well, if you are not intending to make that follow through what comes before that absent follow through will not be as good.
Quoting unenlightened
If the art is good, the artist saying the meaning can and I think will in most cases detract from the art, since it will be seen through a narrower lens. I also think that it is part of the same wave as the NOT paying attention to the sensuous values. If people did not think they were going to make their art work through explaining what it means, they might realize they need to make powerful art in and of itself, and this power will include things that are not related to verbal thinking.
I made these points already and I don't think you addressed them. You're deciding to simply repeat your position, despite the fact that I actually did respond to it, and to not respond to me did give me a chance to reformulate, but hey...why not respond as if I actually said something?
I'll wait for others to chime in. (and yes, my posts were long. I am not expecting you to respond at length or to all my points. But you responded by simply repeating yourself as if I had said nothing.
I have a neat solution to this; look first, read afterwards if you like what you see. Perhaps the artist is also interesting when he writes and perhaps not.
Quoting Coben
I suspect it is usually the other way about. That one cannot get one's work taken seriously by the gatekeepers of the establishment unless one has a good line of bullshit. And this is the problem, not what the artist says but that they cannot make art that will be exhibited without saying something 'conceptual'. Curators give the bullshit all the importance because they have no 'ground' by which to measure value otherwise.
I suspect we more or less agree about this, you me and the op, but it really isn't the bullshit that's the problem, it's taking the bullshit seriously. And that comes from the gatekeepers of the art establishment who naturally value what they do most highly.
"Neo-proletariat politics based on the ever inflating ethics of anarcho-organized government, a system of circular dissentation to promote the growth of rice mutations within the arctic circle. A question of well-planned drainage from Gleneagles golf course to South Chile only to enter the hole of the poles with Stratoproads from recent outerspacial recent artifacts.
"That the general public are now adequately informed on the simple but arduous projection of the Artist from the humid warmth of genealogical gestation to the dizzy freezing point of oil paint on canvas in well established Morphology going from one vicissitude to numberless combinations of zoological color gnodes to ambivalent orquestration of strangely timed psyclograms deftly intershot with sparrowhawks pressed into the tablets of concentrated malice only to explode here and there with the soundless perversity of zero sirns in an incalculable gesture of suspended astonishment."
Perfect.
Quoting unenlightened
Oh no! You mean the artists are being forced to write statements?
?
I understand the by-the-books dialectical reversal being applied, but I'm surprised this is your take. The easy dialectical reversal breaks down quickly under minimal pushback - & I can supply that if you want - but either way, why this stance? We disagree on a lot, but I feel like I usually can anticipate what we'll disagree about. Didn't expect the love for the artists' statement.
I'll try again, if I may. I'm not breaking any silence by crying "no artist statements!" I'm interrupting the noise of the artist statements themselves. If there were no artist statements, I wouldn't be adding to the noise. I would be quietly reflecting on good art.
Surely you are aware of the inanity of what you're saying. If calling for art to be freely experienced by the audience without the imposition by the artist of a forced theoretical framework is "policing", then I'll be happy to continue incarcerating mediocre work indefinitely.
The kids' statements really bring out that childish wonder which I think is sometimes the best way to experience art. Obviously not all statements do this - a great deal are nonsense - but I like the principle of elaboration on an artwork. Give me context, give me themes, append some intellectual spark along with the sensory, let them mesh, clash, extend, contradict one another. "An artwork should stand on it's own" - but nothing stands on its own, even without the statement. I simply have no time for 'purity' of art. Art isolated, put on a pedestal in the middle of a warehouse with a single lonely light on it. That's art for the collector, who wants to admire pretty things without being disturbed by anything else. Can I say that's bougie bullshit? I'm not sure if we're allowed to use bougie as an insult anymore.
:clap: :party: :100:
But the 'artist's statement' has to be understood as the specific thing it is. To make this concrete: Imagine jamalrob makes it mandatory that every post here is supplemented in a specific way. You hover your cursor above the post and it brings up a box with your 'post statement.' After a while, these post statements develop their own particular language and terminology. Soon everyone is - through social pressure - expected to adhere to this language. (Some imagination is required here. We're not posting for our livelihood. Artists are.)
At some point you say - this whole post-statement thing is dumb. Then someone else says: That's just an avant-garde post statement!
But Is it? Isn't it just literally what it is? Someone saying that post-statements aren't that helpful? & note that the person saying this, isn't saying this as part of their 'post statement'. They're objecting to the form itself. 'Artist Statements' are not, very much not, the same thing as artists making statements.
I agree that childish wonder is perhaps the best way to experience art, but that exact experience is immediate; the childish wonder of experiencing something artistic for the first time has nothing to do with a theoretical abstract; it simply happens to the observer. There's no need to read a philosophical perspective to receive the experience. A child shouldn't have to be told that different shades of blue can be metaphors for different kinds of sadness; a child can experience that on their own, without guidance.
Quoting StreetlightX
The context is you, the observer. If I need to give you the themes, then you're being lazy.
Quoting StreetlightX
But purity in art is the experience of childish wonder.
Thank you..
I like that kindergarten idea as well. It's charming and I think it's a great idea.
But there's a clean and quick way to deal with second point - 'nothing stands on its own, even without the statement." If nothing can stand on its own, then the artwork, from its inception, already carries with it all the things it can't stand alone from. 'A work of art isolated, on a pedestal in a warehouse with a single lonely light' already carries all sorts of conceptual meaning - otherwise that particular assemblage wouldn't have come to you as a way of imparting some sort of meaning. It doesn't need a secondary prose statement to put it all together.
[as a rhetorical exercise, let's say the artist's statement does do some necessary work of orienting the viewer. You say that the art in a blank warehouse is art for the bourgeois consumer. Maybe? ( I think definitely not, artists statements tend to be very gallery- agent-consumer directed, on an empricial level) But we can just as easily bourgeois-ify the artist statement by comparing it to the way in which Ikea contextualizes furniture by displaying it in a well-appointed room, where everything fits just right. The artists statement, in the same way, fits the art into the conceptual/mental 'living room' of the bourgeois art collector and so forth --- you can do this back and forth, for each side, forever. It's just rhetoric.]
What the OP seems to be objecting to the artists' statements as the social artifact they are And that thing is, for sure, silly. Most artists, if you warm up and have a few drinks, agree. (It's like saying Butler's 'giving an account of oneself' is self-contradictory because it asks those who ask us to give an account of ourselves to give an account of their asking us to give an account. And, maybe? but how far do we go down that route.)
The simpler thing is : mandatory artist statements are stupid.
Sure, I can agree with this. But that's the thing, not supplying a statement is fine too. That too, 'says' something. The isolated warehouse artwork also carries 'meaning'. But it all does. Inveighing against the artist statement is simply arbitrary. It closes off possibilities elsewhere admitted. It's policing. It's equally stupid.
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Would it be over-interpretation to say that this is neoliberalism at the level of art? 'An artwork should pull itself up by its own bootstraps!'. Eugh. Reagan as art curator.
Can you present an argument in favor of artist statements? Other than the concept of a children's artist statement, which I think is fine for what it is. In the OP I made room for this; I asked some open questions that provided potential avenues for counter arguments. So far I've only seen reactions against my arguments, all of which I've found to be pretty easily thrown aside. I'm asking honestly.
That's not a proper argument. Can you elaborate? I gave specific examples; I'd love specific examples of how you disagree in such a polar opposite way. It would help both of us understand our disagreement, and clear up confusion.
For instance, make a case for why what you perceive as my conception of purity is a myth.
This isn't a proper argument either. Why should an artwork 'speak for itself'? Why it is 'not worthy of anyone's time' if it requires an explanation? What is the artwork's 'own terms'? What does it even mean to say that an artwork has 'its own terms'? This a-contextual notion of art is so incredibly, well, artificial that it's simply incomprehensible to me. It's simply a hermetic sealing of art off from anything in the world. It's elitist and bourgeois: "I will not have the petty concerns of the world or of people intrude on my charmed experience of the artwork!". The OP asks for a 'counter-argument' - but there is no argument to counter. Simply a bald series of statements without any provided rationale.
Because art communicates via it's own inherent medium. If you don't understand this, then I don't know what else to tell you, and I'm not trying to insult you by saying that.
Quoting StreetlightX
Maybe I went a little overboard here. But generally, good art should evoke interpretation, not require explanation. Does that make sense? No? Let me know if it doesn't.
Quoting StreetlightX
This metaphor simply indicates that art is not primarily apprehended theoretically. Again, let me know if you have any questions.
I'm still waiting for your argument in favor of artist statements. Why are artist statements important/good/necessary/helpful, in your view, @StreetlightX?
Or the artwork, due to neoliberal precarity, is forced to market itself through the artist statement, like a worker made to forge their way in a gig economy, seeking the right conceptual hashtags to render itself employable. Again, political reframings are so easy to do, one way or the other, once one learns a few rhetorical tricks (do you recall Schopenhauer's chart showing how you can link anything to anything else through gradual conceptual slippage?) Better to drop that approach. It's suasive flash and fury, maybe, for those unversed - but for those who are, its very clearly what it is!
Anyway, if the artwork doesn't speak for itself, but requires a statement, then we can as easily say the statement doesn't speak for itself (what, is this a statement in a warehouse?) and so needs an additional statement and so forth. As though some final explanation would settle things, funneling the whole thing into explanatory purity. But if we aren't saying this, if we admit that any explanation is itself in need of explanation, and so forth, then we can say that the artwork itself already enters as its own thing in a turbulent space of reception, to stand on its own, as something complexly composed, in polyvalent dialogue. It already contains, as part of itself (developed through the artist's education/experience, the process of creation, the audience and so forth) a self-explaining complexity that goes beyond simple paint on canvas. Or doesn't it? If it doesn't, then doesn't it just simply display itself? But, as you say, this isn't the case, because ... You can see how easy it is to turn these arguments back on themselves. Brought to their limit, they snake around to bite their own tail.
That's the thing with these kind of arguments - they're free-floating and mercenary. plunk them down in any context, and they can do whatever you want, either way, as long as you don't follow them too far. If you do, you realize they're not talking about anything but themselves, using this or that content for fuel, and always have to wend, strategically, at certain junctures in order to forestall their self-negation.
It's better to focus, empirically, on how artist statements, artists, and the artworld interact. (Unless that smacks too much of [concept degree one, concept degree two] --> [bad political thing] )
There's much more to art than the actual art piece. There's context to art such as the background and culture behind it. To fully appreciate art you have to have a certain level of knowledge. An artist statement simply provides some context to the artwork, nothing wrong with that.
I feel like I say this every other post, but the most important context to a piece of art is you. You provide the context. Not only is there cultural and theoretical context to any given piece, there is also your perception of that context. The audience is half of the work itself. This is a seminal building block to my philosophy here, and I think is responsible for so much confusion.
You mean "you provide most of the context"? I don't think I agree with this. As a viewer, you don't provide any context. The context is whatever inspired the artist, which you had nothing to do with. How you perceive a context is a different story. If you're happy with merely perceiving a context, my hat is off to you.
I like to think I will have an enhanced perception of the art piece when I know more about it. :up:
No, you provide the contextual lens through which the work is viewed. I mean, is this really debatable? The context [which is] "whatever inspired the artist" is something that you experience yourself. The illusion we all fall into is that we're philosophers observing from Hannah Arendt's concept of a perfect objective viewpoint; we're not.
Quoting Wheatley
I don't disagree with you here, and I think this is key, and probably a source of further confusion in regards to my position. Educating oneself about works of art is a rich pastime which I recommend indiscriminately to anyone. But, for maximum aesthetic experience, education should follow experience. Why? Because the experience will be lacking if it's preceded by education. Theoretically understanding something creative inherently robs the creative work of it's essence. This is understood experientially, not theoretically (which is not surprising). This of course brings up the big question of what art is for; is it primarily for aesthetic experience? To add more confusion, the answer is no. But aesthetic experience is the language of art, not it's goal. So, counter to @StreetlightX's claims that my view is bourgeoisie here, the exact opposite is the case. The pleasure of art is merely it's communication; what it actually communicates is philosophically beyond pleasure.
But in many ways I think this is right too. Art in a gallery is already compromised in some way; an artist statement does function - or is made to function - much like you describe. But I can fully accede to this while still thinking that some principled prohibition on artists statements the name of some faux-purity is also dumb. There's a whole bunch of stuff about Benjamins' 'aura' going though my head right now if you're familiar with that stuff, but if not nevermind. Anyway, so yeah, you can totally have that conversation - conditions of art in the modern world, etc etc, - but that's just a different conversation.
Quoting csalisbury
Yeah, we can say this, but should we? Perhaps part of the problem is that the very idea of art 'speaking for itself' or not is silly to begin with. The way I see it, a statement for the most part is just another way to engage with an artwork; another way 'in': it's embellishment upon an embellishment, excess upon excess. Like, I'm not saying that art 'requires' a statement. That'd be silly. I'm just against it's 'prohibition': that it must be without one, otherwise - what? It interrupts some purity? No. It's all excess all the way down.
What? the work itself was not an embellishment or excess to begin with. When I write a song, I'm writing a song so I remain alive. If you don't understand this about art, again, you just don't understand art. And I don't mean that as an insult.
Quoting StreetlightX
And I'm not saying artist statements should be banned. But they should not have the place in the conversation that they do. @csalisbury has done an ace job of describing that.
Quoting Noble Dust
I don't think it's fruitful to make such broad statements about art, as if there's an essence to art. There are many different kinds of art and many different ways to appreciate it. Let's not oversimplify things here.
I mean, sure, there is an "outside" context (the artist, culture, etc), and there is the "point-of-view" context: you. I just spitballed that right now, but is that more clear? What I'm trying to say is that the "you" context gets neglected in the glut of the illusion of "objective" context which no one actually has. And I think that illusion is detrimental to art appreciation.
Quoting Wheatley
I disagree; make a case.
It's okay if we disagree.
It is, but this is a philosophy forum where we discuss ideas which we generally disagree about.
That's fair. I'll give it a shot.
Where do I begin? First it's important that we both have the same understanding of what art actually is.
Also fair. "What is art?" There was a whole 20-something page thread about this...I don't want to get mired in another one of those debates, so I'll try to set out the minimum tenets I find to be necessary in a definition of art.
Art is a human expression which functions creatively/via the intuition.
Give me time to digest that.
I'm struggling with the "functions creatively" part.
Art is human creative expression. How's that?
Like I said, I don't want to get into a debate about what art is; that's not what this thread is about. If we seem to disagree about the definition...well, there we are. Which cycles back to what you initially said...it's ok to disagree...
But, I put together that definition on the fly in as succinct a way as I thought made sense. Art is...an...expression. But uniquely human. Does it have a function? It seems that it does: it functions creatively; another way to say that is that it functions via the intuition. Or, in other words, the human faculty for expression requires creativity. Art is the product of that process.
Oh, well. It's not that important anyways. Artists are going to continue writing statements, whether you like it or not. :wink:
Indeed; we (artists) will continue to write them, and I will continue to rage against the writing of them.
Yes, I thought I had conceded the point, but yes i pushed that line further than was justifiable. I fear that art has become a religion along with football and so on. Reciting the creed is more important that following the teaching.
Quoting Noble Dust
I do not understand what this is supposed to mean, nor how it provides a reason for the former. At best, it seems tautologous - does it say anything other than 'art speaks for itself because it speaks for itself?' - but I can't be sure of even that.
Quoting Noble Dust
But why a disjunction between interpretation and explanation in the first place? Why one or the other? Why even these terms and not others? I'm not taking sides here: I just don't see that there's a genuine debate to be had in these terms to begin here. And even if I were to take sides - why shouldn't some 'good art' require explanation, especially when that explanation is willingly provided? Why not draw connections, why not expand the imagination even more, why not multiply the points of reference? Why this pious insistence on closing art down because - what? It's a very strange gatekeeping, a kind of priestly instance.
Quoting Noble Dust
Who are you to say how art is 'primarily apprehended'? Is this your artists' statement? And why should anyone give a fig about that?
Quoting Noble Dust
I'm don't have an 'argument in favour of artist statements' in general. I'm not particularly 'for' them. I'm simply not against being against them on, as far as I can see, utter spurious grounds. Some artists statements are good, some are terrible. But I'm not here to play art police and specify what ought to be the case in advance.
Presumably, all of the points you've made throughout this thread would apply just as well to poetry or film. But those don't usualy have artist statements. Why? If it boils down to excess upon excess, then why aren't poets explaining their works through image, or film-makers through poetry?
Of course, I'm ok with them doing that if they want. In fact there's even a word for this kind of thing : multimedia art. But it would be disingenuous not to notice that the above examples feel intuitively different then artwork + artist statement. Most artworks are not considered multimedia projects because they have a prose artist-statement attached. Again, why is that? (But that's the point - we all already know why. We already know that the artist statement isn't the same sort of thing as an artist adding another layer in another medium)
If we ingenuously follow this thread, we're lead to the fact that the artist statement is not simply an additional multimedia aspect, but something essentially gallery and market-facing. Again, we need to be empirical here. Are we talking about artist statements as they actually function, or are we talking about an abstract idea of 'the artist statement' as it can be slotted into a pre-existing complex of thought involving identity, purity etc.
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I adore Benjamin (the guy who attempted the Arcade Project, who was meticulously devoted to seeing things precisely, as they're situated in their precise historical setting) but I think his concept of Aura is decidedly the wrong way into this. That's a confusion of levels. I can expand, if you like
Quoting csalisbury
I don’t think it has a function for the viewer. It doesn’t help except add another patina to the intellectual or concept level. I do think it’s a curator/ gallery thing. How to write an artists statement is part of the visual arts units at uni. I don’t think things would be any worse or confusing without them. It’s almost like the artists/curators/gallery owners/critics are talking to each other, which is fine I guess, if that’s how they want it, to exist on another level besides the art itself and the audience.
I think I mostly agree with this, but here's the case I want to make: in gallery conditions, where the artwork is already so alienated and displaced from the lifeworld - where its aura is already diminished - the statement can function in a compensatory register; it is a reactive effort to give something of what has already been lost.
The other option - call it the revolutionary option to my reformist one - is to refuse to play the game and say: here's the artwork, in this cold space, take or it leave it: if its aura is missing, thats your(?) problem, these are the conditions under which art is exhibited now, so this is what you get. A kind of identification with alienation ('accelerationist'?). And yeah sure, you can do this, but how effective is this going to be, really?
So I am trying to be historical-empirical here: this isn't just some abstract-theoretical argument in favour of multimedia experience, but really looking at how the artist statement functions in the conditions of alienated art. I see it as potentially offering a small window into an outside that no longer exists, a tiny effort at reclamation. The artist statement as the union and the dole, if I can make that comparison.
Quoting StreetlightX
I think this is right, the statements are meant to educate. There is a wide variety of reasons for the statements, whether it's to introduce children to what the artist is doing, or to explain to a wider audience, why the artist is doing it. The artist might even be trying to reach a wider audience through the medium of education.
If you think it's cheesy, then ignore the statements. Or better yet ignore the art which includes statements altogether. Isn't that what we normally do with art that we dislike?
But that seems even less likely to be effective then the 'accelerationist' option to which you oppose it (and there are definitely more options then lifeworld-accelerationist gallery warehouse - artists statement!)
So, I understand your argument, like I think it's conceptually well-formed. I just don't think it seems to reflect what's actually going on? If the artist's statement is primarily a marketing tool - something most artists experience and approach the way the rest of us approach putting together a CV -but a pecuilar marketing tool in that, for it function, it has to pretend to be something it's not - then what I think you've produced is a an artist's statement about artist statements. It fits in with an extra-artistic discourse, but in a way that seems aimed at satisfying the demands of that discourse, so everything fits in to place. It reminds me a bit of Zizek's anecdote about being on some kind of panel show and talking about the frame of the frame (or something) and becoming despirited (he claims) when the other panelists didn't realize he was handwaving.
The question isn't: Can we conceptualize the artist's statement as a stopgap which seeks to compensate, however meagerly, for the artwork's alienation from its lifeworld? Because we can, of course.
I think a better question would be : how do artists understand the artist's statement? How do they approach it? What use do artists put it to? How do dealers understand the artist's statement. What use do they put it to. How do curators? Critics? and so forth.
Anecdotally : Almost without exception, all the professional artists I've known do not like the artist's statement - they see it as something like a CV - and it's the type of thing they mock endlessly when 'off the clock.'
[quote=streetlight]So I am trying to be historical-empirical here: this isn't just some abstract-theoretical argument in favour of multimedia experience, but really looking at how the artist statement functions in the conditions of alienated art.[/quote]
When you say 'really looking at how they function', what do you mean by really looking?
I think these are fair questions. I do think they are overdetermined though, by a focus on mandatory artist statements, which is not something I'm at all in favour of. I agree that's shit, and it's awful that they've become, as you've said de rigueur. But I also want to hold out for their value, and especially against the idea - most prominently argued in the OP - that the statement in someway compromises some imagined purity of the artwork in it's experiential capital-P Presence. My problem being more directly about the principle than than the conclusion, as it were.
I'm also not arguing that artists statements' are 'effective' in the 'accelerationist' sense of breaking the mold of the art industry or whatever. I don't think they even try to! They are quite clearly tailored, sociologically speaking, for that industry. But they don't have to be that. That's why I like the kids' statements and why I reckon they're a model for what an artists' statement should be like. If you want a 'revolution' in the experience of art you're certainly going to have to look beyond the form and content of artists statements - a relatively meagre and trivial thing, all things considered.
I also like their pedagogic element. I'm no art expert. I like having certain things drawn to my attention that I might not have otherwise thought of. Sometimes, a great deal of the time, the statements are silly and can detract rather than add to the artwork. But again they don't have to be! I've definitely learnt to see or feel or listen or think differently as the result of some, and maybe that makes me some kind of phillistine, but then, fuck any elitism that expects everyone to 'get it' on the strength of their own art-analytic powers. That's what informed by charge of elitism too. There's a great deal of political nievity (at best) or simple class contempt (at worst) in the argument that art simply ought to stand on its own.
(Which is not an argument that all art should aspire to pedagogic transparency, or to pedagogy at all. Just as it should not be required that all art should have artists' statements, there should equally be a space for art to be challengingly opaque and 'difficult'. It's just that the one should not rule the other out. But I think there's something to be said about aspiring, however minimally, to a democratic culture of art appreciation, of which artist statements, when done well, can contribute to).
Don't forget, the artist is a cunning creature, sly as a fox. With the growth in media, public critics abound, and they may seize the artist, interrogating with questions of what does this mean, what does that mean, sometimes to the point of harassment, because these critics haven't the confidence, or capacity, to produce an authentic interpretation. I think the artists have simply developed a preemptive strike to fend off the critics. It's a prepared response to the critics.
True art can’t be translated from one form to the other. The purpose is to communicate ideas that can only be transferred in this particular way. This particular hue of red gives me a certain feeling and I want to try to convey that feeling to you: naturally I show you that color, I don’t try to explain it in words.
If an artist’s statement is needed, it means that work of art is uncapable of fulfilling its purpose of communicating the intended idea, and consequently it is worthless.
(A written interpretation is something different. It’s not a part of the work and the artist himself is not necessarily the best interpreter.)
I think this is to simplistic, some works of art are carried out, or conceived of by the artist which are not evident in the finished work. There is a case, especially if the artist wishes it to be so, for some kind of explanation.
This is a work I produced a while back, I won't give an artist's statement at this stage, but I might later on to qualify the work.
What as a viewer do you see (as a work of art)?
As I see it the artist's statement became mendacious with the advent of conceptual art. There was a point where artists were presenting poor artworks and then propped them up with a lengthy ambiguous concept which they used to justify and qualify the piece. I experienced such artists being cross examined by critics, who were attempting to defeat the attempt to qualify the piece. It left me with a bitter taste in the mouth and I disregarded the piece out of hand. I don't think I am alone in this.
I could try to interpret the work but whether I’m able to do it well or poorly is not the point. I’m sure you could do it better, being intimately acquainted with it, and since you are probably an articulate person, I don’t doubt that you could do it better than other artists interpreting their work. But even though you yourself is the artist in this case, that is no guarantee that you could produce a better and more truthful interpretation than any other critic. In fact, being the artist doesn’t give you any special interpretive authority. What if you told me that the painting depicted the war in Syria. Maybe you had that in mind while painting it, maybe it inspired you, but so what. It’s not there for any other viewer and including such a statement as a part of the art work would be nonsense. (Although it would be interesting to know what inspired the artist.)
Your painting is not in need of a statement to be a work of art. I was saying that if a work can’t exist without an artist’s statement, it’s worthless. A painting speaks the language of paint and if a written word must be included to give it meaning, it’s not a painting.
PS: I like your painting
The author has no interpretive authority? Isn't that kind of contradictory?
I'm simply pointing out that you can't remove the artist from their work entirely, and that if the artist thinks that a statement of some kind is required to appreciate the work, then that is valid, a valid aspect of the work.
This is entirely different from the contortions of a conceptual artist trying to legitimise the work they have produced in an atmosphere of conceptually validated works. Or a sterile establishment comment by a critic.
My life's an Escher.
You are a beautiful person.
Has Klee written any books on colour that you know of? I'm really fascinated by the way that different relations of colour can affect us in a way similar to the way that different relations of musical tones affect us, as harmonic or discordant, and by creating moods through a succession of notes at different intervals.
Yes, he had quite a philosophical approach to art. This is the edition I have, I just looked on Amazon and they are asking £1000 for a copy, amazing. There are many books by commentators about his work, just google.
I'm not too interested in commentators, I'd rather get it from the horse's mouth, the primary source. That's why I'm in favour of artist's statements But that appears to be quite an expensive artist's "statement" you have there in that little book.
It makes me think, maybe sometimes the statement might be more valuable than the piece itself. What do you think of Banksy's "statement", with the self-destructing piece? Isn't this a case where the statement is supposed to be more important than the piece itself? The problem though, as I think I mentioned earlier in the thread, the artist does not get to determine the value of the piece.
Maybe this "statement" concerns itself with the way that art is valued. With most merchandise, the seller does actually name the price, and the buyer pays or does not. There may be some negotiations, bargaining to actually lower the price, in some instances. What's with the auction, bidding up prices, so that only the rich can afford the product? I suppose it's a feature of the uniqueness of the product. But it's even becoming commonplace in real estate sales now, bidding wars to buy a house. That would be an artificial, illusion of uniqueness, created with the intent of raising the value of the object. Do you think that artists create an illusion of uniqueness, or a real uniqueness, to support the value of the art? Or is the value derived elsewhere, such as the artist's name and reputation?
I think you may be correct about me being a Miro. I think I’m “The Beautiful Bird Revealing the Unknown to a Pair of Lovers”. I like his art.
Hey, I'm a Paul Klee!
I said he has no special interpretive authority, meaning that he doesn’t possess the right to give a final and uncontested interpretation of his work. But of course I would find it more interesting to listen to the artist rather than any random observer, expecting him to be an expert on his own work.
Quoting Punshhh
By valid aspect of the work, do you mean that the statement may belong to the work itself so that without it, it would be unfinished? In that case I disagree. Visual art speaks a visual language and its genuine message can only be expressed visually (or else the artist would have chosen another medium of expression).
(That is not to say that you can’t mix the mediums (book illustrations or opera for example), but you can’t pretend that the picture and the words are saying the exact same thing.)
Can’t the artist be completely wrong about this requirement? Imagine a mad van Gogh rambling on about his paintings. Do we have to take him seriously just because he is the artist?
What if an outside observer has detected an aspect that no one else has seen and thus changes everyone’s appreciation of the work. Does that observer then become the artist?
I also get this impression: visual artists who need to create, need to create in the same way philosophically inclined ppl need to argue and do philosophy. They're following something. Its instinct filtering into whatever medium they work in. They're doing what they do and then checking the boxes it seems to them they have to check.
It seems plausible to me that the critical complex, for reasons I can't put my finger on, needs to wrap up artworks in a discursive web shot through with ethical considerations. I'm no innocent here, I do it too, but it does seem like a certain kind of smoothing out.
I once went to friend's solo exhibition and sale a long time ago, about 15 years back.
There was just one theme on the walls, a semi-abstract painting, sort of pukey. On one of the four walls was a small typed card with the artist's statement.
It elevated her puke into real art for me.
The statement was about four words, but no more than six. I can't remember what they were, but they righted the paintings. It all fell into place, the focus was right away directed, and it shew the artist's brilliance.
Without her statement her pictures were crap.
With the statement, her pictures were enviably good. Your chin dropped. Your saliva dripped.
She sold seven of the twenty exhibited, each of them near identical to all others, and they cost something like 600 to 700 dollars each.
Dropping in at random, been away for awhile. I'm not advocating an elitism expecting everyone to "get it"; I'm not a visual art expert either, I come from music. If I'm talking about any sort of, what you've projected unto my idea as a call for, "purity", it's not some imagined purity of people "getting it" instinctively. The pre-statement experience I'm talking about doesn't require that. I remember sitting in front of Pollock's Autumn Rhythm for half an hour, just soaking it in (without reading the statement). I started to feel like I was either inside someone's brain, or looking at the cosmos; a very "so above, so below" experience. I have no idea if that was the intention of the work, and I don't care. That was my first experience of his work in person; up till then I hated pictures I'd seen of his work, whereas I loved pictures I'd seen of Rothko. But the same day, I had the opposite experience. Rothko was oppressive to me in person. So here's an example of the experiential thing I'm talking about actually changing my perception of different works, without any text to supplement the experience. My experience was enriched simply through itself. That's what I'm talking about. If that makes me elitist, then so be it. But what is more elitist than an artist statement? it tries to stifle the everyday person from having their own experience. I can't think of anything more elitist than that.
But it's a philosophy forum; I'm doing philosophy. Don't worry, I do ignore them. Then I rail against them philosophically.
This is key to my argument, I failed to touch on this. If this concept of art as it's own language is some high horse pedestal of "purity", then I'm fine with that. I'll gladly stay up there and enjoy the purity while all you philosophers with no imaginations assemble endless words about living, breathing artwork. :up:
I would counter that and say some works (hopefully all of them, actually) "invite interpretation", not explanation.
Exactly.
Ok, I'll give you my artist's statement for my painting with the orange sky.
"Homage to Gormley"
Anthony Gormley is probably the most admired British artist of these times. He has created many cast iron installations around the country and the world. My painting is of this beach, Crosby beach.
There are many artistic works set on this beach by many artists, they are all to a degree a homage to Gormley.
Here is another one of my favourites.
So now you know all this, are you to deny my artist's statement and insist that we all stay where we were before I wrote this post?
Angel of the North.
Yes, there are, but this is not to deny there are others which benefit from some qualification by the artist. I think the issue is with either the viewer being limited, or directed to view a piece in a certain way. Or the artist being limited by what a viewer, a critic, or the establishment say.
Yes, but from where I am, the establishment including academia feels they have a privelidge over the artist and the public, the viewer. Which is little more than snobbery. This is conflated, or tainted by large amounts of money changing hands.
I think you may be correct about me being a Miro. I think I’m “The Beautiful Bird Revealing the Unknown to a Pair of Lovers”.
Along with @Congau, what I'm arguing is that the work should not need qualification from the artist. The reason for this is that it lessens the impact of the work; it pulls the work out of the immediate sensual, and into the abstract and theoretical along a definite course not set by thew viewer. Interpretation, on the other hand, is that same process but done of the viewers own volition. This is important because the audience is half the work anyway. The audience members unique experiences, perspectives, and mindset will determine their interpretation. That's not to say that the artist can't have an explanation at hand; but forcing it on the audience will just inevitably cheapen the experience, and therefore, the work itself.
Also, I'm not advocating some kind of snowflake "everyone has their own truth" idea here. I think a good work of art should illicit many interpretations, but they'll all inevitably remain within a certain set of parameters just based on the content of the work. Lynch's Twin Peaks The Return is a good example. Without giving anything away, it's wide open for interpretation because of how hard it is to follow, but most interpretations I've read/watched videos on center around themes of dream vs. reality, timeframes/eras/alternate timelines, and what happened to Laura Palmer. Without giving anything away. The richness of interpretation possible is what makes the show so inimitable, and gives it it's rabid fanbase.
I'm not a visual artist, but as a songwriter, I'm very aware of this process. The songs I write have definite meaning; I write them, use poetic imagery, dance around themes a little. But each song means something to me, the songwriter. But what it means doesn't matter to you, the audience, because you don't know me personally anyway. What you do when you hear a song of mine, is you may or may not interpret the lyrics in a certain way. It may or may not have a substantial impact on you. If you knew what the song was about for me, the songwriter, it may lessen the meaning that it has for you, the listener.
I won't deny it, but I'm grateful to have read it after experiencing the work first. When I saw your painting, I felt an almost mystical sense of moving into the unknown. As the artist, you're free to shoot this down as a dumb interpretation, but it won't change the experience for me. Now that I know what the painting represented, it adds depth. But again, only afterwards.
This is nonsensical. The artist produces a piece and offers it to the viewer, allowing the viewer the opportunity of interpretation. It makes no sense to say that the artist ought not offer a statement as part of the work as if the statement necessarily lessens the impact of the work, because the statement actually is a part of the work. Why do you think that any statement which the artist makes will necessarily lessen the impact of the work? If the statement is a part of the work, then if done well it will compliment the rest of the work. All the parts of a good work of art, work together. If the statement doesn't do this then it lessens the value of the art. But this only means that the artist has not properly used the statement. If the statement is well used it compliments the work.
And to say that the statement thrusts the work into the realm of "abstract" also makes no sense, because all artwork partakes of the abstract. So the statement, if it is an abstract aspect, is just another part of the abstract aspect of the piece of art.
First time I've agreed with you about anything, ever.
It's not nonsensical; what borders on the nonsensical is that you barely even addressed what you quoted, which was a description of the difference between the viewer following their own interpretive path based on their inevitable 50% contribution to the work itself, vs. an artist statement trying to block this process. Try again.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
By abstract I just mean the process of interpretation (or explanation, in the case of the artist statement), which follows the initial sensual experience. A different word would probably work better.
Banksy is an interesting artist, this is a work he produced this week in Bristol.
He turns the art buying and art establishment world's on their head like a kind or art terrorist. The person who owns the wall on which the artwork was placed is now potentially a rich person. But what should she do? She did have a perspex sheet attached over it to shield it after she discovered the work, but members of the public destroyed the shield (but not the work), presumably because they abhorred the concept of the shield defaming this piece of terrorist art.
She could have the wall removed and put in an auction, which would be very costly and controversial. But that might expose her to ridicule, or something.
Going back to the work which shredded itself. I saw footage of the event, it was fascinating. There were all those rich establishment figures in a packed room at Sotheby's the piece sells for over a million pounds and then the look of horror and shrieks form the crowd as it begins to shred itself. There was wild speculation about whether it was now worthless, if Sotheby's were selling some kind of fraud. The purchaser was said to be distraught and worried about the status and value of the piece.
I expect it is actually more valuable now, as it is unique. I welcome this development and am interested in art terrorism myself.
As they say, there's always a first time for everything … might be an eternity before the second time though. However, it occurs to me that when I first engaged you in discussion, perhaps at philosophy forums, we had some discussion on the nature of beauty, good, and the ideal, and we had a degree (maybe only one degree) of agreement.
Quoting Noble Dust
Nonsense again. Since there are multiple viewers of the work, it is impossible that each viewer contributes 50% of the work. That's why I didn't address that part of your post, I couldn't make enough sense of what you were saying, to bring that into relevance. It's true that the artist plays to an audience, and the audience has importance, but you are clearly misrepresenting that importance. Whether that audience is you, me, StreetlightX, or other people, is not really relevant unless the artist is doing something personal. So contrary to what you say, the particularities, and peculiarities, of the individual subjective experience of interpretation are irrelevant. That's why the artist works in the abstract, and it's simply a mistake to say that it's wrong to force the artist into the abstract, because that's where the artist already is, by choice, in choosing the task which the artist is doing, art.
Quoting Punshhh
"Art terrorist", maybe that's an apt name, but it's a little scary. I like to look at artwork as a statement in itself, that's why I don't like the premise of this thread, which is to separate "the statement" from the art. A piece of art is a way of saying something, you might say it's the medium for a statement. Notice that the way of saying it (the form), in art, is often of more importance than what is said, the statement which the art makes (the content). This is why the inverted purists on this thread want to separate the artwork, as the means for saying something (the form), from the statement, which is the concept, what is said by the artist (the content). Now someone like Noble Dust will insist that the only thing the artist provides is the form, and the viewer, being the interpreter, is free to designate whatever one pleases, as the content, what has been said by the artist through the art. But that's nonsense because if this were true, then the artist could not have any say in the content of the piece, what it says, therefore the artist would not be saying anything, and the art really wouldn't say anything.
As an analogy, let's analyze the act of terrorism, now that "terrorism" has been mentioned. The terrorist is making a statement in an extremist way. So "the way" that the statement is made (the form) becomes the essence of the statement, as "act of terrorism". It's big, bold, and attention grabbing, in the way of terrorism, so much so that the cause, the purpose, the point, or statement that the terrorist is trying to make (the content) often gets lost underneath. So we are left to interpret the act in our own way, individually, by however it affects us. So terrorism itself is similar to art, and may even be classed as an extreme form of art*. But when the act of terrorism gets so extreme, when the statement is made just for the sake of making a statement, then it becomes all form and no content, as the terrorist seeks more and more extreme measures just for the sake of carrying out extreme measures. How could we interpret the content of this type of act, or art which is produced in this way? There is a statement being made, which doesn't say anything, yet it is so loud, exaggerated, and downright scary, that it is impossible to ignore as 'not saying anything'.
Clearly, form without any content is a possibility. How ought this be interpreted? Do we say that this is the content, that what the artist is saying is that form without content is a possibility? If so, then we'd give the piece content, therefore negating the true essence, contentlessness, so this would necessarily be a misunderstanding, a misinterpretation. Therefore, to interpret a piece of art as form without content (just like the extreme act of terrorism, which is all flare, saying nothing) is a valid interpretation. There is no content, the piece is actually saying nothing. No artist statement could validly say that the piece is saying nothing. And if we try to force content onto such a piece, insisting that the artist must be saying something, we are really misinterpreting the piece.
*Philosopher's statement:
Not only is it possible, it happens every time that you, the viewer, interface with a work. The work only exists in the context of the audience. The audience is made up of individuals with individual perceptions of not only art, but of reality itself. The audience, made up of these people, exists within a cultural context, which further shapes their perception of art and reality. All of this plays into how the work is received. This isn't even an argument, it's just reality. An artwork without an audience is only half a work of art. I'm surprised this is so controversial, honestly.
EDIT: Maybe what's missing is the fact that the artist is an audience member of their own work. The artist is not a god on high bestowing an audience with a brilliant work. I've ironically been accused of elitism in this thread, but my argument is demonstrably the least elitist in this respect.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
You keep making assertions as if they are arguments. So, show how I'm misrepresenting the importance of the audience.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I did not say that.
You said "the viewer", singular, passes an inevitable "50% contribution to the work itself". Since there is a vast number of viewers this would add up to thousands, millions, or even billions of percentage, which is nonsense. Therefore, if you are trying to represent what each viewer adds to the work, in this way, as a percentage, you'd have to say that each viewer actually provides a very small percentage contribution to the work. The more viewers there are, the less percentage each one would contribute.
So, each viewer's "interpretive path" does not provide a 50% contribution to the work. So this way of representing the viewer's "contribution" to the work is complete nonsense. If you are insistent that the viewer actually does contribute to the artist's work somehow, you'll have to find a better way of demonstrating it. Maybe financial compensation is a more concrete starting point?
I'm happy to admit that finding the proper language to express this concept is difficult, and this is leading to confusion, although I get the feeling that you won't be charitable to that fact (I hope I'm wrong); but never the less. When I say "the viewer is 50% of the work", I'm saying that metaphorically, not mathematically. If I was saying it mathematically, clearly I'd be wrong and you would be correct in your critique.
But the viewer is half of the work each individual time the work is viewed. Try to think metaphorically with me here. The work is not a mathematical principle that needs to be properly apprehended exhaustively by the audience; it's not an object with one application or formula by which it can be expressed. A work of art is more akin to a word, and how that word's language is always in flux; words change their meaning, but they leave something of a husk behind as they change. There's always a tension between the husk and the new seed of the word. How art functions (and it only functions in front of an audience) is closer to this than it is to a mathematical formula, just as an example. I leave this open-ended to emphasize the concept.
I agree with what you say about my work, there is a tension in the act of viewing an art work between what the viewer experiences and what the artist wishes to convey. Perhaps the answer is to have the statement written in small script besides the work in the gallery, so that the viewer experiences the work before reading the statement.
Personally, I tend to ignore the statement, if there is one. Preferring to simply look at the piece and perhaps read about the artist. Often when attending a concert, I try to avoid reading, or finding out about the performance before I go in. I don't think this is necessarily appropriate for the general public, who often wish for some guidance as to what they are looking at, due to not being well educated in the genre, or artist.
I think what is important is to retain the maximum freedom and flexibility for both the artist and the viewer within reason and not restrict either due to problems on the periphery.
The point is that when you make claims such as "the viewer is half the work", you need to support these principles. If you support them with faulty math then there is no support.
Quoting Noble Dust
Even this doesn't make any sense. You are saying that "the work" is different each time it is viewed by a different person. But that's not at all true, the work stays the same, as the same piece of art, it is only viewed and interpreted differently. It is completely wrong to suggest that the interpretation which the viewer offers is actually part of the work.
That's why we have a distinction between primary and secondary sources in philosophy. This marks the difference between what the author actually has said, and how the commentators interpret what has been said. It is wrong to make the commentary part of the work, just like it is wrong to make the critic's interpretation part of the work of art. There is a distinction between the events occurring, and the narrative.
Quoting Noble Dust
Right, since "the word's language is always in flux", we need to respect the fact that any interpretation is made from a particular position within that flux. Another position will give a different interpretation. However, the meaning of the statement of words, "what is meant" or "what is meant" by the piece of art in this instance, is grounded, stabilized, by the author's intention. The statement of words, or the piece of art, remains essentially unchanged, as what was meant by the author or artist, despite the flux of the interpretive perspective. it is wrong to represent the flux in the interpretive atmosphere as part of the art itself. Of course the artist fully grasps the importance of that flux and incorporates that apprehension into the work, but the artist's methods are distinct from the flux of the atmosphere. The artist's methods are the occurring events, recorded and displayed in the art piece. The flux in the interpretive atmosphere has an effect on the narrative, but not on the art itself.
When someone says the viewer is half the work, they don't mean the thing on the wall. They mean the phenomenological work. Which is going to be different for every viewer. Or better put there will be different works of art arising in the interaction between a unique individual and that piece of art. So, this means there is an endless amount of percentage available, each new patron resetting the measure.
The habit of tell people what a work of art means may be just peachy in a specific case, but in general, I think it correlates with a loss of aesthetics, a loss of trust in the artwork itself, an problematic increase in verbal mental experience of art over sensual experience of art. Now, note. With that last contrast, I think these are not mutually exclusive, not at all, and the best art will also stimulate verbal mental thinky stuff. But nowadays we face a tremendous amount of art where the sensual aesthetic qualities are minimal or absent.
I can appreciate many of the modern and postmodern pieces of art, especially when made by great artists who got there first in their niches. Some of this art is low on the sensual scale, but it creates a delightful contrast, when if first arose. But now people copy and stay in these niches and we have whole museums and galleries displaying art that is really just the stimulation of ideas. And it is made by people who have not done the kinds of aesthetic training needed to make something beautiful in the broadest sense - I mean, Francis Bacon or Bosch, etc.
It create thinking, it doesn't really stand on its own.
Descriptions of artworks are part of a trend. Each individual one may be fine, but the trend is towards getting you to think, often politically nowadays, with much less put into the sensual. Precisely because these are not mutually exclusive, this is a great loss.
And hell, we have books, etc, if we want people to primarily think.
So, when you put that 'hey this is what to think' next to your work, you are indeed creating conditions where the viewer may well contribute less to that experiencing of the artwork.
And there was nothing wrong with his math.
What you are saying is that the artist's "work", is the psychological affect produced in the viewer. But that's simply wrong, the "work" is the physical piece, not the psychological affect. If your perspective were correct, then the artist would be responsible if, after viewing the art, a viewer was inspired to commit a crime. You could say that the psychological affect on the viewer, causing the crime to be committed, was the "work" of the artist.
Quoting Coben
I don't agree, there is no loss of aesthetics, or loss of trust in the artwork by the artist, expressed by the statement, it is simply background information. The viewer does not, and cannot have the same perspective that the artist has, so if the artist wants to impart some perspective, context, to the viewer, dependent on what is required by the peculiarities of the particular piece, this does not constitute a loss of trust, or aesthetics.
It's analogous to two of us looking at the landscape in front of us. The landscape is beautiful. If I point out a bird, and say "look at that bird at the top of that tree", this does not negate the overall beauty of the landscape. If you think that I am pointing out the bird with the intent to distract from the beauty of the landscape, then you misunderstand what I am doing, because I am pointing out something which contributes to the beauty of the landscape. And if you cannot look at the bird without ruining the beauty of the landscape for yourself, just because you did not see it before I pointed it out to you, then there is something lacking in your aesthetic capacity.
That is what I am talking about. The experience of the art, not the ding an sich. And that is something each of use does an incredible amount of work, mainly automatically and then alsoc consciously as we investigate portions of the painting and mull and come back to it. Because much of this is automatic and silent, we often think we are passive receivers.
Not at all.
Of course this is true of things in general not just art. Given the complexity of much art, our work is also more complex. And in fact can continue on repeated viewings through an entire lifetime. It will nto look the same in ten years.
That's not a good analogy at all. The analogy would be you telling me, as the creator of the landscape, so a kind of deity, that the bird is the most important thing and it symbolizes my soul or your sexual abuse.
That would completely change my experience of the landscape.
And then, since a landscape, unless it is a landscape painting is not a piece of artwork, it is different in other ways.
Pointing to a portion of what is seen and merely indicating it is nothing like the 'artists describe their work' descriptions I have seen. I think even that would be silly 'look at the bird in my paintings' but that would leave me, still, very much open in my interpretatioins and reactions to the work.
I believe there is something of a mathematical structure or logic behind art, in practice though it requires some good discernment and subjective judgments, as do other areas which there, in practice is no 'perfect' mathematical way of defining, even if there is or 'should' be in pure theory.
As a related example, in courts, there is no perfect mathematical formula or system for defining 'pornography', so in practice, it is left up to the subjective judgments and discernments of the judges, using precedents as a guide.
As I already said, it's a metaphor, so no, that's not correct. I supported the concept by fleshing out what I mean by using the metaphor.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I'm speaking metaphorically again, which you seem unable to grasp. Of course I'm not saying the physical work itself is different each time; I would hazard to say that it's nonsensical on your part to assume that anyone could actually mean that.
If Duchamp's Fountain is unearthed 1,000 years from now by a future culture with no knowledge of him or his work, the physical piece itself will not be perceived as art. It will be perceived as a toilet at best. The toilet becomes art when the dialog between Duchamp and his audience begins. This may be an extreme example, but the ambiguity of our understanding of cave paintings and drawings from antiquity demonstrates the same principle, theoretically. Even in a less extreme example, if one of Picasso's sculptures is unearthed 1,000 years from now, it may be understood to be a piece of art, but beyond that, not much (assuming, again, that no one in the culture knows about Picasso).
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
To equate philosophy and art is a pretty embarrassingly erroneous assumption to make.
Sure, each of us does "an incredible amount of work". But that work is not part of the work of the artist. Therefore it is wrong to portray the work that each of us does as constituting part of the work of the artist. If we could identify an overall project which both the artist and the viewer were working on, then the work of the artist and the work of the viewer could each be a constituent part of that overall project. But I see no such overall project, by the time the viewer sees the art piece, the artist's work on that piece is done, and the viewer is not working on the piece, but thinking about it.
Quoting Noble Dust
Need I remind you, that it was you who started comparing a work of art to a word in language?
"A work of art is more akin to a word, and how that word's language is always in flux"
This it seems was part of you metaphor. So when I address you by the terms of your metaphor, this is called "embarrassingly erroneous". Therefore it appears that by your own judgement your metaphor is "embarrassingly erroneous".
Quoting Coben
You can change the analogy in this way, if you want, but if I am the deity who created the landscape, then I have the right to make the rules as to how you may enjoy my landscape. Who cares if this completely changes the way you might experience the landscape, I am the deity creator of the landscape, it is mine, and I have the right to dictate the rules as to how you may experience it. If you come to play in my landscape, you must either play by my rules, or be punished. Sorry if this offends you, but if you only come to my landscape to get some kind of kicks, you'll have to get your kicks somewhere else, because around my landscape we don't live by "anything goes".
That's how deities tend to behave, they always seem to want people to follow rules.
You continue to obfuscate the various points being made by both of us; you get them out of order. Now I'm spending all my energy here correcting the mistakes.
When I suggested you were equating art and philosophy, I was referencing the transition you made here:
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
But now you attempted to turn that suggestion around and suggest that my saying "A work of art is more akin to a word, and how that word's language is always in flux" also equates art with philosophy in the same way you did. It does not. It likens (that's called a metaphor) art to language, not philosophy.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Again, you did not address me in those terms when you equated art and philosophy; you made that equation first, and then you addressed my metaphor.
Hopefully we can now get back to my arguments (or yours, if you'd like to make any).
I wasn't "equating" anything, I was comparing the interpretation of the artist's art, to the interpretation of the philosopher's word, just like you suggested. Why would you suggest that I compare two things, and then when I do compare those two things, you claim that equating those two things is embarrassingly erroneous? Did you know already that the comparison which you were making was erroneous, and you mentioned it solely for the purpose of leading me into that embarrassing position where you could make such an accusation against me?
Quoting Noble Dust
That's clearly false, the evidence is right here on the page. You made the comparison first:
Quoting Noble Dust
Then I made a reply to your post:
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Notice my use of the comparative phrase "just like". "It is wrong to make the commentary part of the work, just like it is wrong to make the critic's interpretation part of the work of art." Then I gave the reason why, there is a difference between the events occurring, and the narrative of the events.
Quoting Noble Dust
I don't see any point. I think I've demonstrated beyond the shadow of a doubt (and a doubt casts one heck of a shadow), that your argument is completely irrational. It is demonstrably wrong to portray the appreciation of the artwork as part of the artwork itself. Now, being left with no means to defend your claims, you've resorted to making false claims about what I've said.
Quoting Punshhh
At least someone understands me. Do you think an Escher could be improved with a statement? Or are we all just satisfied by saying his work is "embarrassingly erroneous"?
Crossed purposes? Maybe, but what's the difference between a metaphor and crossed purposes?
I don't think you have, and I'm confident in the argument I put forward. It's fine to disagree, but this has gotten ugly, and you continue to confuse the order of the arguments made, which I already demonstrated. I'm not intentionally making any false claims, and I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that you're not either. There's clearly a lot of misunderstanding and incompatibility of communication between our positions here. Best of luck.
Obviously, but it's a part of the work of art as experienced. I don't think I used the pharse the work of theartist. And in the context of artists statements that inform us about what we are experiencing, this is an obvious attempt to affect our half of creating that work of art experience.
:up:
Any background information you could provide about a work of art would not leave us “where we were”. Any details about the artist’s biography, his time, his cultural and geographical origin and his sources of inspiration, all of it may be interesting and useful for understanding the work and appreciate it in a wider perspective.
But I would deny that all this information (which in principle could be infinite) is a part of the work itself. It’s perfectly fine and absolutely possible to enjoy it without any specific information at all. Your painting conveyed more than enough meaning at first glance to qualify as art and some might even find this new information to be unnecessary noise (are we now not allowed to think that the black shadow is standing on clouds, for example?)
If it’s really true for one particular work that it can’t exist without an artist’s statement, I would argue it’s not art at all. The language of communication for a piece of art is the one used in that art (paint for paintings etc.) and if that language doesn’t express anything, it can’t be called art any more than a baby’s babbling can be called speech.
As I told Noble Dust, this is all nonsense to me. The artist's act of creating the piece of art is an obvious attempt to affect your "work of art experience". If you reject the artist's statement on this basis, that the artist is attempting to have an affect on your experience of the artwork, then you might as well reject all artwork as well, because that's what artwork is, an attempt to affect your work of art experience
And the premise, which you cling to, that you yourself, as the viewer, has the right to create "half", or some other percentage of that "work of art experience", I've demonstrated as complete nonsense.
Let's start with a realistic premise. Let's assume that the viewer creates the "work of art experience", completely, one hundred percentage, and uses the work of art as a tool toward creating that experience. Consider therefore, that the viewer must choose the tools (works of art), which one will be using to bring about the desired experience. Can you make your argument from this perspective?
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/383721
And as to this whole rights issue, one which you brought up
it
has
nothing
to
do
with
my
posts.
I never said anything about banning artist's statement. In fact I made it clear that they may be in some instances useful or good. I talked about the problem with the trend and what I see as related trends in contemporary art.
Save all this rights talk for those who are urging for legislation, rather than talking about other issues, including those you ignore when summing up my position in a way that, it seems, you can easily dismiss.
As far as the argument you are giving me, about the 100%, I think that has merit. Though why you didn't chime in immediately with this one, I can't understand. I think I prefer to think of the situation as coagency where the work of art is presented to the view by the artist, in its specificity, and the viewer moves toward the work of art also. And while the viewer does, in a sense, create 100% of the experience of the work of art, since their brains will create this internal model based on stimuli in the work of art, at the same time those stimuli were carefully chosen and arranged in relationships that the brain will automatically parallel, in the relationships in its constructed version. Those 'tools' as you put them, are not utterly malleable and will lead to parallel patterns when they stimulate the processes in the brain that reconstruct the piece of art in the mind. 50% is a bit of a dart toss in the dark and the percentages cover different categories. But for me it is better to think of a cocreation of the experience of a work of art.
Thanks for your unecessarily consdescendingly presented, yet useful, suggestion, but I don't want to go over to the 100 percent camp. I think it is a collaborative creation, at the level of experiencing the work of art.
And I hope you realize that announcing that you have demonstrated something as you did in this last post is sillly. I assume already that you believe in your conclusions and arguments. You argued it, sure.
I think the artist growing dependence on presenting the meaning of their works and what people should think about the contents is part of a trend away from skills and works including sensual AND conceptual aspects, and rather is part of a trend to see art as stimulating verbal thoughts and for people to not spend the time training in and creating sensual experiences. So they overrely on verbal thoughts, and so try to get at even more of the collaboration. I think this has worked fine, especially when new forms of modern and postmodern art, particular types, first arise. Valuable because of contrast to are with more investment in sesual aspects, valuable because they staked new ground. Ground that is being repeated, now with no new memes, generally, and absent beauty (in its broadest sense). And then there were other points Ihave raised in the thread regarding the problems which I see the greater use of artists' statements as a kind of symptom of, but also as something that undermines, when read, a part of many works of arts best possible collaborative experiences. And that knowing one is going to write one these things or is likely to...I think this also creates a kind disincentive to create something that stands on its own.
I'll save my focus in this topic for people who read and refer to my actual positions. And who can actually concede points rather than self-congratulatorily declaring themselves the winner over positions not really put forward. Should there ever be a movement to take away the right for artists to have artist statements near their work, let me know, I will join you in the fight to stop that legislation. Otherwise, bye.
Actually, "verbal" usually distinguishes spoken from written. I think a verbal statement from the artist would be even better than a written statement, because this would be more personal. Regardless, you are the viewer, not the artist. If the piece of art contains what you call "verbal" aspects, then so be it, that is the artist's work, and the work has verbal aspects.
If you do not like the verbal aspects then you are free to express your dislike, just like you might express your dislike of any trend in art. But you speak of this statement trend as if you believe that the artist is attempting to get into your mind in some form of brainwashing. It's as if you are allowing the artist a limited access into your mind, and you're afraid that with the statements the artist will get beyond the halfway point of balance, thereby seizing control of your mind.
Quoting Coben
Have you ever considered the idea of simply not reading the statement? When I look at art my eye is drawn to certain aspects which appeal to me, and others kind of get ignored. If I talk to someone about the piece they might ask me about something which I haven't even really noticed, because it never attracted my attention in the same way that it attracted the attention of the other person. Why not do this with the statement, simply ignore it if it doesn't attract your attention but the rest of the art does?
Quoting Coben
What you don't seem to be grasping is that the viewer has the power of choice. Because of this, the artist really provides nothing at all to the phenomenological experience. You need not view any art whatsoever to have a phenomenological experience. That you choose to include some artwork into your experience is of you own making. It's not that the artist is contributing to your experience, as if there is no way to exclude the artist from your experience, you invite the art into your experience. The artist has absolutely no causal control over your phenomenological experience, so it's completely wrong to say that there is a "collaborative creation" here. The creation is all yours, because you decide whether or not to bring the art in, and your creation (your experience) will be different depending on what art you decide to bring in.
Quoting Coben
I know you think this, you said so already, but so what? Art goes through all sorts of different phases, different schools, etc.. If you don't like the current trend, then look at some older stuff. All you are expressing is a personal taste. You don't like the current trend, other people do like it, that's simply the way art is.
Quoting Coben
There is no "collaboration", you are a free willing human being with choice. I think you're a conspiracy theorist. You seem to believe that the artists are conspiring to take away your freedom to control your own aesthetic experience. You think that the artists already control half that experience, and you're afraid that the artists are trying to get the other half now. Are you paranoid that the artists might get right into your mind as brainwashing agents?
I agree with your point about a work which relies on the statement for it to be art, then it may not be art. This is why I am hostile to conceptual art.
Despite the fact that many here are arguing on the premise that the artwork is something more than the physical object, I see no principles to support this assumption. The other aspects, creation and appreciation, are distinct activities which must be considered separately. If they are not considered separately, then we get conflation of these two, as if they are equally essential to the existence of the artwork. But in reality creation is essential, while appreciation is not. Therefore we must uphold the real division or boundary between these two, and that is the real existence of the physical object, as a boundary of separation between them. When the artwork is respected as such, the divisional boundary between the creator and the appreciator, we can also have proper respect for both the creator and the appreciator, having distinct functions.
Music, on the other hand, has a determinate relationship with time. A performance or recording of a work is however many seconds, minutes, or hours long. If written music on the page represents a sort of 1st and 2nd dimension, then the 3rd dimensional aspect it seemingly lacks is represented in sound, over a set period of time. I can imagine this aspect of music as analogous to being able to walk around a sculpture in 360 degrees.
The difference in how these mediums relate to time demonstrates that the physical aspect of a work in any medium is only one variable in the totality of a work. Time and it's relationship to the physicality of a medium is another. Existentially, total experience of a work can't be tied down to one or more of the physical senses by which the work was apprehended.
These are just more layers to the onion of art experience, and the complex relationship between art and audience.
How familiar are you with artistic developments of the 20th Century? Because this distinction and all other attempts restrict art were challenged up to the point where everything was art and anything could be art. I pointed this out in the other thread, " where is art going next".
This development made any analysis by philosophers irrelevant, just like it made any comments by critics irrelevant, to art.
If an artist and this artist's statement is claimed to be nothing more than the show and tell of kindergarten experience then I'm at a loss as to why this is unartistic. I'm no expert in art but an artist probably wishes to convey information, whether facts or just a perspective and everything in between, through his art. I reckon this is where an artist's statement enters the fray, for who was it who said "for words are slippery and thought vicious"? The artist seems concerned, either out of compulsion to express himself/herself or also out of discretion, that his art not be seen in a way that he didn't intend, thus the need for the artist's statement.
With that out of the way, an artist's statement, if but an explanation, in some ways reflects a deficiency, a deficiency in the artwork itself which compels the artist to furnish the so-called artist's statement to, in effect, correct the image his/her work evokes in the minds of his audience to match his/her own. It may be wrong to call this a deficiency though.
Imagine listening to a mozart piece and hearing a voice-over saying - this is where you are to picture me running from my father scared.
Oh, someone says, but some songs have lyrics.
Well, right. But those lyrics are works of art. They enter a dynamic with the music, they are not about the music. They are not suggesting how to think about the music, they are part of the piece and worked on for their aesthetic qualities, not just as information. They are part of the flow of the piece.
No one should be limited from using an artists' statement, but I think it is a part of a trend towards not building aesthetic skills and seeing art as a kind of propaganda alone, a message in a bottle, where the bottle matters less and less. I go to watch a film and the director writes that the theme of the film is based on his holding back his true feelings for his father when he was a kid and how toxic not telling the truth is in family relationships. Hell, I might as well get up and leave. Doesn't this guy trust his artwork. Can't I come to that meaning myself. Maybe there is a whole lot of other stuff, even the director is not aware of, and now I will keep finding 'the' theme.
It's on the nose. As in on the nose dialogue. Dialogue with Subtext is vastly superior dialogue.
I don't see how you have shown that the artwork is anything more than the physical piece. The fact that artwork is necessarily temporal only serves to demonstrate the reality of this.
Music is a unique form of art in which the piece must be recreated every time it is to be appreciated. But I don't see how the artwork itself is anything other than the piece which is created. Let's suppose it is something other than the music itself. Suppose the composer writes on paper the specific instructions as to how to recreate the sounds, and the artwork is supposed to be these instructions which are represented by the notations on the paper. Isn't it necessary that the artist (composer) give very clear and precise "statements" in order that the piece be appreciated as it is supposed to be. The person who wants to hear the music cannot just interpret the instruction any old way.
Quoting Punshhh
Actually, I think the reverse is true. If it is true that "anything", and "everything" is art, then we need philosophy to determine what a "thing" is, because by this conclusion if it's not a thing, it's not art. Claiming that non-existent things are art is where the others have been going, insisting that imaginary things are art. As if I can look at a piece of art and imagine all sorts of things which aren't there, and claim that this imaginary stuff is part of the art.
Not so, if anything and everything can be art, it is the artist who states what art is*, or if a philosopher were to state it, they would by default become the artist.
Do you not realise that something imaginary is art, or part of an art piece if the artist says it is so? The artist is king now, following the liberation of art during the 20th Century. This so called liberation is on ocassion regarded as the death of art, so may not be all that liberating.
You really do have to get out of the reductionist box now. The philosophy of art, as discussed on the other thread, has not been definitively spelled out and has to encapsulate the social and cultural considerations of humanity, or it fails to capture what it is attempting to account for. Such considerations include, imaginary and unreal forms. Take for example aboriginal art, which was handed down from the Dreamtime.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamtime
*I restricted it to the artist here for simplicity, I do consider that the art establishment can deem something art, also.
I summed it up here:
Quoting Noble Dust
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
No, not at all. Interpretation by the performer has always been an integral part of classical music, for instance; improvisation used to be pretty common place, even. The concept, within classical music, of a rigid, platonic ideal of the piece represented through notation is just an ossification; the formation of an orthodoxy. And that's to say nothing of stuff like this (John Cage):
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
LOL, is sci-fi not art?
Have you been to an art museum or gallery lately?
It's scary how much I agree with you on this topic, but also nice to not feel like I'm going insane here.
But this comment brought to mind another aspect of the artist statement, to get back on track to the OP. Often times, this impulse to explain away one's own artistic work is actually a bright, flashing red sign that the artist is insecure, that she lacks confidence in her work. This is surely not always the case with an artist statement or explanation, but often times it can be; even in the form of a seemingly confident statement, which actually masks the insecurity.
Of course self-doubt and artistic creation do tend to go hand in hand, but there's a certain barrier that an artist needs to overcome in order to make great work; self-doubt will never magically disappear, but, as you say, the artist needs to work their ass off for a long time, and eventually the barrier is broken through, and there is a feeling of assurance; assurance that the work is good. Self-doubt will remain, but not the type of self-doubt that leads to the impulse to explain away the work to the audience out of insecurity.
Maybe it's true that a lot of artists and art appreciators never break through this initial barrier; the artist statements then work like a comfort blanket.
How would you present something imaginary as art, if not in a physical form? And, the physical form is the artwork, not the imaginary thing which is represented.
Quoting Noble Dust
I don't see any argument there.
Quoting Noble Dust
Sure, I agree completely. And, representations of various pieces of music morph over time.. But then the music played is not the same as the music written by the artist, and we cannot truthfully say it is the same piece. We call it an interpretation.
Quoting Noble Dust
The art is the physical thing, the written material, not the interpretation of it.
I know I won't change your mind, and I'm just about done going over and over the same points here. But I'll mention here that this is such a depressing over-simplification of art. I also don't understand what position on your end would even make this distinction important. In the case of a novel, if the art is the physical thing, what exactly are you referring to? The words in a specific language used? The grammar? The ink choice of the publisher, and their choice of paper type? By "written material" do you mean the whole thing, the "novel"?
Right, the novel is a composition of all those things, the paper, the ink, the binding, etc.. Now you can get a novel on line, and it will be the words on your screen. So the important part of the novel is the arrangement of words, because this is what these two forms have in common, the same arrangement of words. Therefore the choices of paper, ink etc., are not essential aspects, in the case of the novel, we can call them accidentals, the arrangement of words is what is essential. In the case of a painting, the choice of ink is an essential aspect. And if the painter includes words in the form of a statement, this is most often not an essential aspect, but an accidental.
Much to my regret, no.
If artist's statements are more a rule than an exception then it might be a very big hint that the task of making the art speak for itself is either very difficult or maybe even impossible. I find the artist to be in a similar position as many of us find ourselves in during day-to-day conversation: we want to say something but the words are simply inadequate to get the point across and so we resort to other methods - a diagram, a picture and germane to the discussion, a painting. So, if art can be used to augment verbal or written communication then why can't artists have the corresponding artist's statement? After all there seems to be a limitation to how effective communication can be.
I really don't think this is the case. I live with a painter. I go to galleries reguarly in the two countries I nearly straddle. And I can look at new and old works at have them speak to me, give me both aesthetic pleasure AND make me think, though the latter usually is slower, unless it is more modern conceptual art.Quoting TheMadFoolThey can, and I would fight to allow them. I see it as a bad trend, and as an increasing trend. Part of a trend towards a diminishment of investment into the sensual aspects of art and a seeing art as getting messages and ideas across as the main idea. Since a beautiful work can do this just as well, as one put together with one with less skill, this means a general trend to a net loss.
And it also assumes that getting that main idea across is the best thing to do, rather than allowing a range of cognitive, emotional and aesthetic experiences in one's audience. If you tell people what it means, it will limit them. It is distrusting everyone. It's like making a rock song and then telling people how you want them to dance to it. (yes, a few songs actuall did this)
If you want people to have these thoughts and not those thoughts, these associations and not those, you'd be much better off in another art from, one that uses language. Write an essay, give a lecture. Visual art inspires rich individual experiences and I think are diminished when treated as non-fiction or propaganda or specific confession: here's what this means it relates to when this happened to me. If I want to tell people that sexism is bad because of X and I think the causes of this are Y and Z, I am much better off writting an essay rather than diminishing something I have put years of training into creating and limiting it. In general. Of course some works of art this may work. It is the trend that I think is a sign of decay.
But I've gone through this in much better detail in earlier posts.
Yes, art as fundamentalist worldview; apologetic art, wether religiously apologetic, atheistically apologetic, or otherwise.
All the avenues of imaginary, or conceptual art were explored, covered and represented by artist during various art movements during the 20th Century.
For example, at a Sentations exhibition at the Royal Academy, which I attended in the 1990's. There was a gallery in which the lights were turned off and on again every few seconds. I don't know where, or what the physical form of the art piece was. There were no additions to the gallery space and the lights were controlled remotely. As the viewers passed through the gallery, they imagined, contemplated the artwork, while not knowing what, or where the work was. Some read the artist statement, some didn't, I don't remember what it said, or whether I read it. Some viewers will have imagined the physical artwork, some will have imagined a world of conceptual art where there aren't any physical traces of the work, but where the work exists as a concept in the minds of the viewers and the artist.
Wasn't the physical work the blinking of the lights?
In addition to the artist statement, all the works were accompanied by a quote (not specific to the piece) from the artists in enlarged letters. I think it gave a bit of insight into the artist's general drive.
Agreed, (although I haven't visited myself).
But I know that in reference to works like that, there is attention given to the possibility that the viewer/s become part of the work when they are in the room. Making the viewer susceptible to being viewed as part of the work.
I can see how artists would intend to make the viewer part of the work. There are participatory forms of art. Even music, in the sense that the composer writes, and the musician plays what has been written, is a participatory form. These are ways in which the artists push the boundary between creator and audience. However, each of these requires that the artist give explicit instruction to the participants or else the participation will be random. And, the fact that much effort must be taken to push the boundary in this way, and the physical boundary can still be determined through analysis of the instructions, is evidence that the boundary is very real and cannot be avoided.
It's the boundary between your mind and my mind. There is a real medium between us, and as much as we can communicate using words and other symbols, the ideas which you get from reading these words are not the same as the ideas I get when I am writing them.
As an analogy we could say art is like language. If we say that "language" is more than the words and signs which exist between us, as people here want to say that "art" is more than the physical thing in the medium, then we are not really looking at language any more, but something more like "communication". If we replace "language" with "communication", we include what happens within each other's minds as part of what is signified by the term, this is part of "communication". But then "art", just like "language" is a form of "communication".
Now, if we are talking about art as a form of communication, we are talking about something abstract, and not individual pieces of artwork any more. Then we would need to proceed by asking what is the purpose of communication. What would be the purpose of randomness, or even ambiguity in communication?
Again, this is a matter for philosophers, not for artists, viewers, the art establishment, the wider public. At least not as a requirement for art to be art. You suggest it becomes a process of communication, well yes and the artefact might become an irrelevance at some point during the communication. The ramifications would reduce the communication to communication/conversation within the mind of the viewer, even an emotional conversation within the viewer, the artist, is also one of these viewers. One can identify a conditioned response to an artwork, a human nature response,which could become a foil for the mind and the emotions. Leading to a complex reaction, interpretation and response to an artwork, or any comment on it.
Here is a work by one of my favourite artists, if you contemplate this, presumably you will experience all the stages of reaction, interpretation and response that I have outlined.
Really art has become unbounded, which means it can't be tied down philosophically, other than describing it as a human phenomena. To many and perhaps the art establishment, this freedom becomes a curse, an existential crisis. Where do we go now? Where will art go next?
Right, just as the choice of which of the many languages we use in communication, the physical expression of language, is accidental to the essence of communication, which is the relationship between different peoples' ideas, so the physical piece of art would be accidental to the artwork which would be a relationship between the ideas of the artist and those of the observers.
But this brings us full circle because if we remove the physical piece of art as unimportant in this way, then what is important is that the right ideas are communicated from the artist to the observers. Now the artist's statement is even more important. We might remove the physical piece of art altogether, but then we would have nothing without the artists statement telling us what this "nothing" was meant to convey. Otherwise we might just create random thoughts, but we wouldn't need the artist for that.
So the way I see it is that there are two extremes. The first is that the physical piece of art is the work of the artist, it is "the statement". Of course any further "statement" would just be redundant, or else simply part of the work. The second is that the artwork is the communication of ideas between the artist and the observer, and then the physical piece is irrelevant, as some sort of placeholder. But then "the statement" is necessary ore else no ideas will be communicated.
I would dismiss both of these extremes. I think that art in its truest form is not designed to "communicate" in any way at all. I would say that it is designed to inspire the observer to create one's own ideas. It is not meant as a communication, but as a catalyst of inspiration. As such, it may or may not include a "statement". But I think that any critical analysis which focuses on subjects like correct interpretation, what the artist meant to portray, or even interpretation at all, are looking at art as a form of communication, and this is the mistake. We ought to look more at the feelings and thoughts which the art helps us to produce, regardless of whether the artist intended to produce these particular ideas, as in communication. Notice the difference between recognizing and interpreting one's own feelings and thoughts inspired by the art, and interpreting the art. Then the art becomes a feature of the observer's own ambition, spirit, and creativity, rather than the observer becoming a feature of the artist's work. The highest quality appreciation is without interpretation.
Now I'm confused as to how/why you disagreed with my points this whole time.
It should be evident from what I said, that I do not view art in the same way that you do. I look at it as something which can inspire me, like any of the numerous other things which might inspire me, sunrise, sunset, cows in the pasture, birds in the woods, a severe storm etc.. You described a shared experience between the artist and the viewer, as if the artwork is some form of communication. Remember, I said that you are solely responsible for the creation of your own phenomenological experience of the art, the artist plays no role in this. That I believe is the difference between art and communication. In communication we expect that the author imposes restrictions on our experience, and we respect this. That is meaning. In art we provide our minds the freedom to appreciate and be inspired by, the beauty, in whatever form it takes, rather than constraining our minds toward apprehending the meaning.
Quoting Punshhh
Actually I glanced at it and found that it wanted to draw me in, as if it had depth, 3d, and I wanted to see the bottom of it. I had to resist this inclination and move on because I felt it as a type of deception.
It should be, but it's not, because there's a deficit of communication between us, clearly. And that was the polite version. :heart:
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I feel the exact same way.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Nope, I never described a "shared experience between the artist and the viewer". Maybe I communicated poorly, or maybe you interpreted poorly.
But yes. Art is communication. But not any sort of communication that you would understand.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
When did you say this? I seem to remember @Coben calling you out on a phenomenological issue, rather than you concocting one. Bullshit.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
That would be nice, but without getting into an entirely different debate, this is oh so clearly false.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Again, you're singing to the choir here, talking about not apprehending meaning. Dayuuuumn, when zero meaning is apprehended, I just get... *edited*
He did say this to me, don't know if he did to you. I thought it was odd that he now was explaining a position that was more radical than ours, after we defended a more modest co-creation model. I do understand that he is adding in this idea of phenomenologically (and one could actually argue NEUROGOLICALLY it is the case) and so he didn't think he was conceding anything, since he thought we were arguing, somehow, that the viewer actually made the physical sculture, say. But it seems like having this idea, he could have responded to us in a much less dismissive way. I did respond to his 100 percent idea and disagreed with it, while thinking and saying that argument has merit. Given that what we create in our minds will defnitely carry over relationships between parts in the physical artwork, color patterns and more from the original, even if some of these are qualia - since the artist also experiences quaiia he or she is presenting us they tried and true dyanmics with and between qualia -, we are not just being stimulated and then freely doing whatever with the original. What we, yes, create in our minds, is controlled and led in many ways by the physical artwork. I can certainly concede. and did. that fifty percent is a stab in the dark, but it represents to me the idea that we co-create the experience of the artwork. It is not the same as sitting in a dark room and making up a painting just in our minds. That virtual image in the mind is something based very much on the artwork, though feelings, portions of the painting that we focus on, our own unconscious associations and more come from our, the viewers side. That to me is a kind of cocreation. And one that many artists want to have happening. In fact, I have been working on a play. When writing plays you want to avoid writing on the nose, you want subtext, and the better plays are filled with subtext, with just the occasional, often climactice moments where on the nose statements arise. Why? Because on the nose does not allow for the audience to co-create as much. It tries to eliminate this cocreation. It can't of course, given that our minds must recreate the play inside us. But it limits this cocreation as much as it can. It is similar, in a way, to the artist statement.
But then his last post to me I read, he 'summed up' my position in way that meant he either was not reading my posts or for some other reason did not want to actually respond to my position, but rather strawman positions, so that ended that, coupled with the suddenly now having a more radical position than ours while at the same time talking down to us for supposedly having an idiotic position, just led to my saying bye, bye to him. It feels like he just wants to win and concessions, if they come at all, are going to be framed as 'here's something you didn't think of moron.' I'd prefer someone who can manage to be collaborative even in disagreement.
The non-polite version is to tell me that I speak like a kindergarten student?
"That's a pretty picture. I can see a man and a woman in there, a horse and a barn. Am I missing anything?"
I suppose there's even less polite versions.
Quoting Noble Dust
You are Noble Dust aren't you? This is where I first engaged you:
Quoting Noble Dust
Quoting Noble Dust
If "the audience is half the work", and "their inevitable 50% contribution to the work itself", doesn't imply that "the work" is a shared experience, then what could "the work" possibly refer to?
Quoting Noble Dust
Sure, it was a reply to Coben, but it was over a number of posts. Here:
.Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Coben seemed to be somewhat receptive of this position, but said "I don't want to go over to the 100 percent camp. I think it is a collaborative creation, at the level of experiencing the work of art."
Quoting Noble Dust
Then are you ready to release the idea of collaboration between artist and audience, as if each contributes to the piece of art? If it is wrong to say that the art has "meaning", and correct to say that there is no shared experience, then where does the idea that the audience is half the work come from? Furthermore, you ought to dismiss this notion of "interpretation" completely, as there is fundamentally no meaning to be interpreted.
Once we establish a clean slate as a starting point, then we can proceed to address the issue of appreciating a piece of art, and whether or not a "statement" is acceptable as a form of art. You do recognize that some so-called "artwork", poetry for instance, consists of statements? If some people might see meaning in those statements, are we to dismiss this type of artwork as not "true art", just because it is not "pure art" (perfectly without meaning)?
I think that "pure art", absolutely without meaning, might be a little boring. What interests me is how the artist introduces meaning into a medium, which is essentially meaningless. Do you see that "meaning" is the basis for the claim that there is something shared? And, that "interpretation" only starts to make sense after we've made the judgement that there is meaning?
Of course there's no shared experience; there's the private experience of the artist making the work, and the private experience of the audience experiencing the work.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Not only am I not ready to release the idea, I never suggested the idea in the first place. All I'm ever talking about is the existential reality that art requires both artist and audience, and that art itself as a philosophical concept only exists with both; mover and moved. There's no collaboration; collaboration is when two artists work together on an artwork. The reality of the artist and audience relationship is closer to a sexual relationship, by analogy.
I think I know why we disagree so much; my approach is existential, and yours is not.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Back to kindergarten we go. Analogous to poetry in this example is physical artwork; so analogous to the artist statement about a physical artwork would be a written artist statement about a poem.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I confess I always work from my musical background. From there, I don't believe there's such a thing as art without meaning. Because it's clear that there's no music without meaning, existentially (i.e. this is realized by listening to music.)
:up: :heart:
This is the falsity which you refuse to acknowledge. No audience is required. The artist can create without an observer. The art exists with or without the observer. Your "philosophical concept" is faulty.
Quoting Noble Dust
This analogy doesn't work. The piece of art exists as a medium between the act of the artist and the act of the audience. This separates the two acts as distinct. There is no such medium in the sexual act, unless you are using a condom. You need to account for the fact that the piece of art is a real thing existing between the artist and the audience.
Quoting Noble Dust
Your "existential" approach seems to involve a faulty definition of "exist". You require that something be observed by an audience in order to exist.
Those who make shallow art or art of ideas only can have more control over 'the meaning', but even then not all and may be quite off when it comes to what the work of art conveys.
And no work of art can be created without the artist also being a viewer.
But this is not an 'observer' in the sense that Noble Dust is talking about the audience. The artist, as one's own observer has inside information on one's own piece, so that "the statement" is completely irrelevant. If the artist is allowed to be one and the same as the audience, then there is nothing to discuss here, regardless of whether the artist is aware of what oneself is doing.
No, as I and Coben have said, the artist themselves is an audience member to their own work, so it's faulty to say that no audience is required. Actually it's not even the right way to express it; there's no "requirement" or not; there's just the reality of the artist as audience, which forms the basis of the symbiotic relationship between artist and audience. In other words, at minimum there's an audience of 1: the artist. From there, the audience naturally grows into whatever size it happens to become. Look to @Coben's explanation of this reality in their most recent reply to you above to get a sense of why this is true (i.e. the part of their post that you didn't respond to).
In other words, you must have missed all of this:
Quoting Coben
What's amusing here is we have 3 actual artists trying to demonstrate these aspects of our work, and then we have 1 (apparently) non-artist attempting to explain to us that we're wrong about our experience of our work. This is getting boring, to be honest.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
...do not contradict what we are saying. Yes, an artist has insights into his or her work. On the other hand so do other viewers of that art. A smart artist will not want to narrow down the range of insights or put other viewers in the position of having to overcome the artist's necessarily limited set of insights about that work. Further as we have pointed out repeatedly it's pressing the mental verbal mind to the immediate prioritized fore by having the artist's statment. You want people to have a felt and sensual experience and telling them what to think and feel diminishes this and its range and actually sets the wrong portions of the brain going when first encountering a piece of art. The idea of the art is not just to generate thinking. At least it used to be. Now you can go to museums and see whole shows which are primarily about generating ideas - with sensual and aesthetic facets radically diminished over other kinds of shows. That would be fine if one had to choose between aesthetic and meaning/conceptual factors, but you don't. So we have diminished one facet of great art for no reason. The occasional piece that does this could be and has been an interesting contrast, and those first artists who did this often created a powerful effect. But that this has become more of a rule is a loss. And the artist's statement is a side effect.
This isn't marketing where there is, behind any image, for example, one goal - get them to buy a product. Get them to buy an idea.
I think he actually thinks that art is primarily getting people to think certain things and he is not alone. One it it put blankly like that on a page, I doubt most would agree, but if you listen to them in galleries, that is what the talk sounds like. Idea wanking. That's not why Cezanne spent so much time painting that mountain, as one example amongst hundreds of the artists who will last through time as opposed to those who won't.
Here's what to think when looking at my art is damaging, it reduces the experience. And it affects even experienced artists.
An artists does have insights into his or her own art, but if that artists has paid any attention over time, they will have noticed that they realize things later they did not then, even missing the core part of the artwork. But regardless, even if the artists knew everydamnthing, it is a confused idea about
what
experiencing art
is
about.
It's not
think in words first and get the right thoughts in place.
It's not a test.
Jeez just hand museum goers your great thoughts and don't waste time making a painting.
Of course, if you are a trained artists, rather than a text polemicist or other kind of writer, why not let your skills in your chosen field speak for themselves.
i could tell the woman I love what I mean with each particular kiss - with this kiss I am trying to tell you what I feel when you are away - but I guarantee the smart wife or girlfriend is going to tell me to shut up and kiss her.
Man, it's rare for me to agree so much with someone here, but I really do feel that you're speaking my own mind here, and it's very encouraging, which is why I bring it up. Thanks.
Quoting Coben
Yes, I've experienced this in a pretty profound way in my own work. There's sort of an accidental trio of records I've made over the past 8 years which form a very spooky narrative that was not at all intentional. They basically narrate my own experience of moving from religious doubt, all the way to completely "losing my religion" (despite the annoying cliche there). 8 years later, I can look at these 3 collections of songs (around 40 minutes each - i.e. two piddly hours of music created over an 8 year period!!!) and see the logical progression that completely maps against my personal experience; but none of this was conscious. That's because the specific experience of moving through stages of religious doubt, all the way to a lack of belief is a complex, malleable experience; at no point was I saying "a-ha, I'm now no longer religious; therefore I'll write this song that represents this". No, I was "in the trenches"; I still wanted to believe, for instance, in certain complex ways, and so I wrote songs, unconsciously, that reflected all this complexity of experience. I was writing honestly. To the point that I was afraid to share the songs with people. I didn't want people to know about what I was experiencing, because I didn't even really understand what I was experiencing, and then writing about, anyway. I still don't, although to a lesser degree.
If anyone cares to "be an audience member" of this 8 year process, here's an example from each (chronologically ordered):
[as I listen to this I just now, 8 years later, understand for the first time why I used this little sample of a woman saying "yeah, that's me, I talk to the trees" in a few songs on this record. No joke]
Quoting Coben
...As being perhaps the hallmark of @Metaphysician Undercover's mistake.
Yes, this nails it, along with the fact that an artist is informed by previously being a viewer of art.
So art is a touch stone through which artists and viewers of art live an aesthetic narrative. I see the spiritual angle come back into view here.
Gahh, you and @Coben need to stop speaking my language so much! (no worries, metaphysician will be along shortly to bring back the Eeyore vibes [luv u MU]).
Indeed, there's a mystery here that deals with the connection between the artistic the mystical. If I can be so bold, I would almost say that this connection is the crux of, not only the misunderstanding here in this thread, but even of the breakdown of communication within artistic circles of various mediums over the past century. Does the mystical play a role in good art? Does anyone even have an inkling of what "mystical" means, other than culturally acquired taboos? If anything, the best we can do is turn to the artists who have demonstrated the connection between the artistic and the mystical; I naturally look towards music, and some of the clearest (and culturally acceptable examples) would be the Coltranes:
John himself:
And Alice:
And her influence on her grand-nephew, Flying Lotus:
And Fly-Lo's influence/collab with Kendrick...
Nice...that was a sick historical lesson.
I agree with your observation of an artist not knowing what he/she is creating subliminally. I have an insight with many artists of how they are trying to reach this subliminal narrative. For me Picasso is the clearest example. I can see how his style developed, what he was trying to achieve, how he struggled and so often failed to grasp his vision. Also his subliminal messages.
Indeed he addressed this directly in his Vollard Suite, a collection of drawings in which Picasso explores the artist's studio of an artist attempting to capture the beauty of life itself with the aid of his lover and muse. Over the course of the suite he lays his psyche bare, I doubt it was his intention, but it is there for the perceptive viewer to see.
Here is one of the earlier sketches
And here is one towards the end of the suite where Picasso( in the subliminal viewing) has become a blind, impotent Minotaur, a figure he was to become in his later years. Crippled by his loss of virulence, youth and new vision.
Oh man, Picasso is such an excellent example. I'll never forget a few years ago, at MoMA, there was a special exhibit of hundreds of Picasso's sculptures. I went with some friends on literally the final night of the exhibit; it was open until midnight. We walked through for a few hours, and I was entranced. His guitar sculptures were some of my favorites; this one is apparently not a better known example; I could only find this google image, but the one on the right was one of my favorites:
If you look at the artist and observer in this way, it only renders your earlier statements, that the artist makes up part of the work, and the observer makes up part, as completely nonsensical. There is now no sense in dividing the art into part which the artist contributes, and part which the observer contributes because the artist and observer might be one and the same. And if they might be one and the same then there is no point in talking about a difference between them, as if they each make up a part of the art. We can't divide the artist into two, as if part of the artist is observer and part is creator. They are simply one and the same person. So the artist is all that is required, for there to be art, because the artist acts as observer as well as creator, and any other observers are irrelevant.
So, can we start from this position, which you have described? Any member of the audience, other than the artist in person, is irrelevant to the piece of artwork, because the artist makes up a completed work of art by being both producer and observer.
Quoting Noble Dust
I didn't respond to this because under this new principle, that the artist is both creator and audience, the piece of art is entirely complete right here, at this moment in time. Any other audience, later in time, is completely irrelevant to the artwork, and whether or not the audience grows, how it grows, or how the artist views the creation at a different time, is completely irrelevant, unless the artist changes the piece, Therefore this further audience need not be discussed.
Quoting Noble Dust
How ironic!
The person railing against the artist's statement, as if the artist ought not be telling the observer how to experience the art, is now insisting that the artist's experience of one's own work is the true, or correct experience of the work. Please don't make me sick. That type of irony, which might better be called hypocrisy tends to have that effect on me.
Quoting Coben
If this is part of the work, then it's part of the work. Where's the problem? It makes no sense for you to say that the artist ought to set one part of the brain in motion, and not another. That, is narrow mindedness, explicitly. It's like saying that the artist should not have used this colour of paint here because it's making me think that it's the wrong colour, and this is getting the wrong part of my brain going, thereby ruining my experience. It ruins my experience, therefore it's wrong for artists to do this type of thing. If a particular technique leads you to the belief that the technique is wrong, then that is your opinion. But your opinion doesn't make the technique wrong. Who are you to say that a particular technique is wrong?
Your analogy doesn't work. Sometimes a women wants to hear "I love you" more than she wants to be kissed. We can't make the type of generalizations you want to make, that this technique is always wrong, and this one is always right. Variety is the spice of life.
Quoting Coben
You show yourself as extremely opinionated, and I don't have much respect for that. All you are saying is "my art is far superior to their art". Your expressions appear as arrogance.
Quoting Noble Dust
Didn't I suggest, as a starting point, to dismiss intentions completely, and then proceed toward understanding how intention seeps in to the artwork? This is how I got rid of meaning and interpretation, What is "meant". How is it possible that focusing on intention is my mistake, when that's exactly what I said I wanted to get away from?
Quoting Punshhh
Right, this was the point I was making. Fundamentally art is something to get inspiration from, not something to get meaning from. However, this does not mean that art is something we cannot get meaning from.
This is so absurd. Artist and audience member are roles; clearly an artist can play multiple roles. An artist might also be their own PR person, as is increasingly the case. They may run their own record label to release their music; a musician might be a songwriter and a multi-instrumentalist and a recording engineer, fulfilling all of those roles in order to create a work. Being an audience member is another role.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Also absurd. Of course a piece of art isn't complete just because the artist also plays the role of audience. That makes no sense.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
No, I'm not insisting that. An artist making an artist statement and attempting to dictate how the audience experiences the work is not the same thing as 3 artists describing our process and broader existential experience. We aren't forcing specific interpretations of specific work down your throat like an artist statement can be in danger of doing; we're describing the actual experience of creating art, vs. your theoretical ideas about what we do. Completely and utterly different things. Clearly.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
You're completely missing what I'm saying, because you're taking that quote from Coben out of context. Go back and re-read what they said if you want to address that, and then re-read what I said.
I can't see where there is a disagreement between us.
And none of us are arguing that one cannot or shouldn't get meaning out of it.
Yes, but we were talking about the existential status of the art. Existentially, the artist is one existent person, in relation to the existence of the art. The fact that the artist can play different roles in one's life is irrelevant to the existence of the art. But if, in relation to the existence of the art, the artist is both creator and viewer, then all other viewers are unnecessary in relation to the existential status of the art. Therefore we can dismiss all other viewers, their attitudes, etc., as irrelevant to the existence of the art.
Quoting Noble Dust
Don't you see, that the artist's statement is no more of an attempt to dictate how the audience experiences the art than any other aspect of the art? If this is your argument, that the artist ought not dictate how the artist experiences the work, then you might as well argue that the artist ought not make any artwork at all. The statement is just another aspect of the work. If you perceive the statement as the artist laying down rules as to how you must experience the piece, then why don't you perceive every piece of art as the artist attempting to govern your experience?
You really need to lighten up and stop perceiving words as the rules of a dictator. Do you think that words in a piece of music are the composer's attempt to dictate how you experience the music? If having words attached, makes the art unenjoyable to you, because you're extremely paranoid that the artist is attempting to be a dictator, then go look at something else that doesn't make you feel paranoid.
Quoting Noble Dust
Paranoia! Remember, there is no need to interpret any piece of art, relax and enjoy it. You do not need to interpret to enjoy.
Quoting Coben
Right, but what seems to be at issue is how we get meaning, from the art, if we want to get meaning, that is.
Let's say that a purist aficionado of fine art wants to get no meaning from the work whatsoever, only enjoying the inspiration derived from the aesthetic beauty. There is work hanging all over the person's house, because the person simply enjoys seeing it (but not as a status symbol because that would give meaning to it). The person feels no need to interpret the work, enjoyment does not involve interpretation. Any statement of words would probably distract from the beauty of the piece so the person would have to ignore it or avoid such a work altogether.
However, sometimes people want to get meaning from the work, maybe the artist is looked at by some people as having some special knowledge, perhaps even as a sage of some sort. The artist has something to tell us. Now, these people are looking for meaning in the work, they think that the artist has something to say. Some people even believe that artists, having a full compliment of experience, have very important things to say, so they go looking for this.
I would think that there are many ways in which an artist might respond to this fact. The artist might ignore these people completely, trying to maintain that purist perspective, attempting to produce pure aesthetic value without saying anything, no meaning. However, there seems to be a large demand for meaning in art, many people expect the artists to be saying something, and want the artists to be saying something, so they go looking for what the artist is saying. And this can be where the fun begins, for the artist, if the artist is prepared to play that game. We can start with simple tricks, hidden meaning, creating the appearance of meaning where there is none, etc., the artist can do all sorts of things. These people who are looking for meaning must see some evidence that there is some meaning there, in order to go looking for it. If an artist is playing that game, one will always be looking for new ways to create the appearance of meaning. The statement is just another way of playing the game.
Lol, you can't just tack the word "existential" unto the same argument you made awhile back and call it a response to what I laid out about roles.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
No I don't, because it's not. I've demonstrated this many times at this point.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Jesus Christ, stop putting words in my fucking mouth. I don't perceive words as rules of a dictator, and I'm not extremely paranoid. What a fucking uncharitable projection unto my arguments. I'm done with this discussion.
You seem to have a short memory. Look back to the top of the page, the "existential" approach was your argument.
Quoting Noble Dust
When one person plays both roles it's called masturbation. But there's no sexual relationship involved with masturbation because it's only one person, it's a sexual act without the relationship. So if the artist plays both roles, that of the creator and also the audience, the artwork is no longer analogous to a sexual relation, it's a masturbation.
I agree with most of this thread, it seems, in that the statement is just resultant of academic pretense. It's just a means to jot down a lot of multisyllabic words with no agreed upon definitions so as to qualify a work of Art as being of high culture. It's kind of like the Art equivalent to what gets printed on the back of a wine label. Some of them can be quite interesting, though.
However, for the sake of argument and discussion, perhaps the “artist’s statement” can be considered part of the art itself. For example, if one were to look at a painting, who’s to say the art in question ends at the frame? Perhaps the art is incomplete without the aforementioned statement.
There seem to be basic, agreed upon parameters for what defines specific forms of art. A painting on a canvas seems to be traditionally understood as being complete without anything else to it. That's not to say that it must be this way. Artistic forms seem to solidify over time, although always in flux. But I don't think the artist statement is some kind of cutting edge evolution of the painting. It draws the viewer away from the painting. Evolution in the craft of paining would be something more like the use of three dimensional texture within the confines of paint; mixing paint with materials that add noticeable three dimensional texture, for instance; sand, or something. Or scraps of literal garbage. I'm still way more interested in something like that than I am in artist statements.
There are things that are not sayable. That’s why we have art.
— Leonora Carrington
It is also possible for the artist, in addition to fueling cultural memory with his art, making it a vehicle of intelligence and transforming art into a concept. He can do that, although he is not obligated. There are artists who worked with a very clear intellectual awareness of what they were doing, such as Henry James, who wrote an explanatory preface for each of his novel. Sometimes the preface was even better than the book. Others would not even be able to explain how they did the book, because their job is not to explain, but to do. Once done, that genuine, true experience is recorded. Hence you can easily distinguish what is genuine experience from mere copied experience, stereotype repetition (which is a thing that has little memory content and is just word repetition). The artist’s job is to make these experiences available to other human beings. He can go on meditating and deepening it if he wants to, but it is not required for him to do so. Not everyone can be all things.
She also did surrealist writing. Are you familiar with surrealism?
A little. Surrealist writing is part of the effort to shake our world view, to rediscover reality with new eyes. To allow a bit of folly back into our positivist, atomistic modern world. It was — in France at least — a response to the positivism of Auguste Comte (a naïve, quasi-mythical materialist belief in science and technology as saviors, as inherently good, and as the one and only way to truth, what is now called scientism). The first world war had shown that science and technology could be used to pulverize people by the thousand. I believe that somehow, the surrealists knew that Europe — with its hubris, its power-drunkness, its misplaced trust in cold, heartless rationality, its ever-growing technology, its ancestral hatreds revived by modern nationalistic zeal — that this continent was heading to a moral catastrophe. It was vital to err out of the beaten nationalistic and scientific tracks, urgent to find new ways to write, to paint and to think...
Didn’t work, unfortunately. The catastrophe still happened.
Good post. Yet, sometimes the explanatory note ruins the novel, in that it restricts its meaning(s) to one single facet or dimension. A work of art functions at many different levels. Whatever you can say about it is a always a simplification.