Is This Art?

[idreamofcherrypies]

I thought of something and was going to post it in the 'What is art?' thread but then I thought seeing as there's so much disagreement there maybe I should start a new thread and it could be like a game (like the infamous bang or pass but not sexual), just because it's so subjective where we post various art 'things' (paintings, exhibitions, stunts, whatever) and the next person (or however many people have an opinion) gives it like a 'yes' or 'no' or 'art' or 'crap' or whatever, and maybe the poster and the person who replies get to defend their points of view, and then it goes on with people posting theirs. Sorry if this is boring! *hopes it doesn't fail*

Anyway this is what initially gave me the idea

A performance artist who suffers from epilepsy was facing growing criticism last night over her "dangerous" plans to induce a seizure in front of an audience live on stage.

Rita Marcalo, who was born in Portugal, has been affected by the potentially fatal condition for 20 years but has stopped taking her medication and plans to bring on a fit as part of an Arts Council-backed project exploring the relationship between epilepsy and dance.

The audience at the Bradford Playhouse next month will be invited to film her convulsions, which she intends to bring on by a variety of methods including alcohol and staring at strobe lights. She said she will also deploy techniques common in animal testing.

But the piece, entitled Involuntary Dances, has been condemned by the charity Epilepsy Action which called for the performance to carry a health warning because it is feared others could be hurt if they were inspired to copy. Yesterday Marcalo, 37, defended the project, for which she received a £13,889 grant from the Arts Council England and a £7,000 commission, saying she wanted to educate people about epilepsy because sufferers normally fitted in private.

The award-winning choreographer, who is artistic director of her own company, Instant Dissidence, based in Leeds, said: "As someone with epilepsy the threat of seizure is something I deal with every day of my life. It is an invisible disability but most of us know someone with it. My intention is to raise awareness of the condition by making it visible. People will have their own opinion but I am doing this from an artistic perspective."

She denied what she was doing was dangerous and said: "I am interested in creating work that makes people consider certain things they don't normally think about. It raises questions. I knew it could be controversial but I am doing this because it is personal to me."

The audience at the 24-hour event which includes other artists and a DJ, will be alerted to her seizure by the sound of an alarm which will trigger the music to stop and two cameras to roll. She said she was shocked to see "voyeuristic" footage of people having fits downloaded on to the internet, recorded without the sufferers' consent. "I am inviting the audience to be voyeuristic of me," she said.

[wakefromthysleep]

No, this is not boring at all. sounds like fun.
I'm looking for a photo of a sculpture made of a dead dog. I'll return when I've found it.

[jadeface]

This epilepsy thing sounds interesting. Anything is art if the 'artist' says it's art.
If your nan had 5 old photo's and she put them in the right context they will be viewed as art. Blah blah.

But personally, I wouldn't want to see someone having a seizure, art or not art. But I understand from their perspective they want to raise awareness.

It's like abjection in art, it is sometimes a different way of making protest against something, but doesn't necessarily make any change to the issue it is raising.
I'm tired so I won't go on.

[wakefromthysleep]

Mar 28, 2010 15:23:34 GMT jadeface said:

Anything is art if the 'artist' says it's art.

I think it doesn't obligatory have to be the artist himself to proclaim his work as art. some artists deny that what they do is art.
I think you were right with saying "it will be viewed as art" because if there's anybody who thinks that something is art then it acctually is - at least for this one person.

[jadeface]

Yeah I didn't just mean in terms of the artist. So yeah if someone think it is, then it is

But if anything was placed into a gallery setting, then regardless to whether people liked it or not, it would mean it was art.

I study art, I make things, but I don't call what I do art. I also write and would never call it poetry. I'm not sure why this is, I think I just don't think it's up to me to decide on what it is that I'm doing, as it's just something that I do. Also I'm too young to feel established enough

[wakefromthysleep]

I study art too and refering to what I produce nowadays most of the time I'm too self-critical to call it art, even though most people around me seem to like it. But I won't hesitate to post new stuff in our art thread. You should do the same. What we do is made to be shown.

I know your books. I really like what you've made with facebook screencaps! Why not call it art if it actually is an artist book?

[jadeface]

Ah but they're not artist books as artist books are in the realm of bookbinding and mine are more, ziney. more ziney and amateur than carefully bound or experimentally put together books but I am interested in artist books.

My work is mostly video and film, which is why I don't have much to show... I do have one. But agh, maybe I'll post it at some point

[Aly]

What type of film and video jade?

[sarah]

anything you want is art, shit on a canvas? IT'S ART. as long as you can make up some bullshit to go along with it you're sorted

[jadeface]

Mar 28, 2010 18:00:52 GMT Aly said:

What type of film and video jade?

What I make seems to be quite far away from my interests, but currently it's either been collage (I made a piece that was video from me as a child, old cinefilm, mixed with 'current day' stuff I collected of my family, recordings of crazies on public transport, with improv music that I made) or sort of really mundane observational pieces with text (I made a video of just a standard shot of people on a bus and I made up stories about them. Not happy with the stories at all as they ended up sounding really negative about life, but it was an experiment so I guess it works as just that)

I'm quite interested in independent cinema overall, or anything that's visually really satisfying.
All sorts

[Aly]

I like that, it sounds pretty cool, especially the part about the bus. I'd like to see that...
well, regarding labeling art, I was talking about poems that might not be considered poems like William Carlos William poems which are very simple everyday things put into a poem. There was even a parody of his poems.

[mimicry]

this is just to say

I have seen
the art
that was in
the gallery

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
it was shit
so awful
and so cold

[Aly]

EXALT.

[mimicry]

real contribution: Marina Abramovic is having a retrospective at MoMa right now and I need need need to make a pilgrimage to go sit across from her and stare at her for a few minutes.

re: art/not art: saying that anything is art, or that if the artist calls it art it is art, is, frankly, bullshit. The artist doesn't have a privileged position over the viewer (or doesn't anymore); just because they made something doesn't mean they know what's up.

In this book I'm reading (Body Art: Performing the Subject by Amelia Jones, SO GOOD) defines art as "a mystifying process". So, basically art is a tautology-- art is art. Art is art only because it is art and not anything else. The only reason we know art is art is because it can't be anything else, but we don't actually know what art is so things can only be art if we don't know why it's art. Because that's art. I kind of want to write a logical proof of all this because it would be so anti-art it would come back around and become art again. Maybe.

But anyway, there's a really good introduction to a book by Arthur C. Danto where he talks about the End of Art (!) which veers into this discussion of what makes art art. "End of Art" is misleading, since he's more talking about an opening of art than anything. But basically he has this epiphany in a gallery in 1964 staring at some of Warhol's Brillo boxes, because the Brillo box was indistinguishable from a regular Brillo box. He talks about Hegel a lot (ugh) because Hegel had a thesis that was basically once something (an object, medium, field, etc) discloses or discovers "its true philosophical nature," the single question or concern that ties the whole field together, that object/medium/field's history is over. It has achieved itself. Like, Modernist painting was supposed to have done this, if anyone's read Greenberg's essay where he outlines the history of erasure in painting. However, Danto theorizes that art's "true philosophical nature" is what makes art distinguishable from other things? And art has, henceforth, been able to explore this question ad infinitum et ad nauseum.

So anyway, there is no hard and fast rule, no border, no line one must be on one side of to determine what is art/what is not art (which is a reason why Modernism is dumb) because all art at its core explores, to some extent, the reason why it itself is art and not art.

THE END (of this post)

EDIT: I READ THINGS AND IT MAKES ME HAPPY, jsyk

[jadeface]

Mar 28, 2010 19:36:30 GMT mimicry said:

re: art/not art: saying that anything is art, or that if the artist calls it art it is art, is, frankly, bullshit. The artist doesn't have a privileged position over the viewer (or doesn't anymore); just because they made something doesn't mean they know what's up.

I'm aware I say things casually on here, and that others take more time into things they post. Because of that people may think I'm a bit stupid or just inferior intellectually. I'm not the best at explaining what is in my head, but I will try.

If someone makes a piece of work, regardless to whether thought has gone into it or not, or whether it has been well executed or skill has been used, placing it into a gallery space, makes it art.* Therefore, if I did a really shit drawing and somehow it got into a gallery, people would try to look at what the work is about, the lines, the details, the reasons, whether it is about anything or not. People do that when standing before something, we try to read and take something from it. But also, not all work has a concept and therefore it may just be about skill, like photo-realism, which doesn't really interest me but it's about capturing someone or something as they were, or wanted to be viewed, blah blah.

* Obviously the audience can then look at it, and disregard it, but the fact that a gallery has chosen it to be art, adds to the fact that this is what is it defined as.

Really vague, I know, but I know what I mean and I'm sure other people will get the gist of what I'm trying to say.

[Aly]

real contribution: Marina Abramovic is having a retrospective at MoMa right now and I need need need to make a pilgrimage to go sit across from her and stare at her for a few minutes.

Aw man, I usually every cool at MoMa, because I'm so lazy. I go there when nothing is going on!

one time, I went to a gallery and there was this one piece of work that was completely blank and some kid was like "is this really art?" and some guy was like "oh, this is too complex and deep for you to understand" I thought it sounded like a pompous thing to say. there's no reason to act like an "art snob" or intellectual and attack people for questioning whether it's art or not. I don't think it be taboo subject. No matter what, no matter how abstract something is, people will find something, anything to look into, because they want it to seem like they don't understand the motive.

[jadeface]

Yeah I don't like it when people say someone lacks intellectually for not 'understanding' something. Some people draw things out from work, and some don't. Sometimes what you're drawing out comes from within yourself, and the artist isn't always there saying 'these were my thoughts and processes, my reasons and concepts...'
I think sometimes people need to step back and not try to 'understand' something. Depending on the work though I guess. But no I don't think not 'getting' something means you lack intelligence. We all like different things afterall.

[wakefromthysleep]

Mar 28, 2010 21:53:14 GMT Aly said:

one time, I went to a gallery and there was this one piece of work that was completely blank and some kid was like "is this really art?" and some guy was like "oh, this is too complex and deep for you to understand"

I'm like this kid towards Rupprecht Geiger. I like red too but I really don't get his obsession with it.. Probably it's too complex and deep for me ;D

[jadeface]

One could question whether this is art, but I'm going to see it on Tuesday
www.barbican.org.uk/artgallery/event-detail.asp?id=9713

But I have such an adoration towards birds, and therefore birds and music = awww. The video's a pretty good inkling in itself but I'd like to see it for myself.
Has anyone seen it?

[wakefromthysleep]

^ I've seen the video before but not the installation(?) in reality. I think this would be quite fun because you never know what the birds will play for you .