Pornography

Originally posted by moonbus
Liking something or not liking something cannot be the criterion whether it is art. I don't like Degas' ballet dancers either, but I agree that they are art.

There's no technical skill and it looks awful. A requirement for art is that it should be aesthetically pleasing, there's exceptions to that rule but this isn't one of them. It's like Damian Hurst's pickled shark, the only art is getting people to think it's art.

Originally posted by moonbus
Liking something or not liking something cannot be the criterion whether it is art. I don't like Degas' ballet dancers either, but I agree that they are art.

It's ironic you should mention Degas' dancers in this thread because

"The gentleman that I showed you in the Daumier cartoon a moment ago famously came to the opera just to look at the girls. It was the sight of a woman with bare arms in the 19th century, don’t forget, it was an erotic experience, and famously the stalls were full of dirty old men who came there to enjoy the sight of the half-naked bodies. "

http://www.dallasmuseumofart.tv/program_recordings/transcripts/20091022_RichardKendall_DegasDanceDallas_PUBLIC.pdf

Originally posted by DeepThought
There's no technical skill and it looks awful. A requirement for art is that it should be aesthetically pleasing, there's exceptions to that rule but this isn't one of them. It's like Damian Hurst's pickled shark, the only art is getting people to think it's art.

your gamer tag seems like an oxymoron when you make posts like this.

Originally posted by stellspalfie
your gamer tag seems like an oxymoron when you make posts like this.

Try arguing with the substance of my post rather than throwing insults. That pale green balloon is not art. I'm not commenting on the rest of the stuff he's done. In Damian Hirst's case the exhibit was the people looking at a pickled fish, not the fish itself.

Originally posted by Rank outsider to DeepThought
You misunderstand me.

I am distributing it by hand in plain envelopes to those in need who request it.

Apparently what the envelopes contain is not pornography now.

BUMP for DeepThought

So, now you have had a chance to think a little deeper, is what is in the envelopes pornography or not?

Originally posted by Rank outsider
BUMP for DeepThought

So, now you have had a chance to think a little deeper, is what is in the envelopes pornography or not?

The discussion has moved on since then. No I don't think that exhibitionism, which is what you are describing, is the same thing as pornography. People send each other pictures of themselves in the all together using the internet. I don't think this makes a large fraction of the population pornographers.

(I significantly edited this post as I changed my mind about what I wanted to say.)

Originally posted by DeepThought
Try arguing with the substance of my post rather than throwing insults. That pale green balloon is not art. I'm not commenting on the rest of the stuff he's done. In Damian Hirst's case the exhibit was the people looking at a pickled fish, not the fish itself.

okay, you are correct, my apologies for the insult.

art is art regardless of the viewers thoughts. it becomes art due to the intent of the artist. if you or i create a picture with the intent of it being aesthetically pleasing or to use aesthetics to convey meaning, it is art. regardless of how successful it is at being aesthetically pleasing or how well it conveys meaning.

so you are fine to say the pale green balloon is bad art, but you are wrong to say its not art, you do not get to decide that, only the artist does.

i loved hirsts shark, it creates a very unsettling feeling, surreal, hyper-real while juxtaposing life and death. i dont know if you ever went to the old saatchi but the huge white rooms made the colour of the shark mix with the tinge of formaldehyde seem so vibrant, i found it aesthetically pleasing (not that it needed to be).

Originally posted by stellspalfie
okay, you are correct, my apologies for the insult.

art is art regardless of the viewers thoughts. it becomes art due to the intent of the artist. if you or i create a picture with the intent of it being aesthetically pleasing or to use aesthetics to convey meaning, it is art. regardless of how successful it is at being aesthetically pleasing or how ...[text shortened]... e of formaldehyde seem so vibrant, i found it aesthetically pleasing (not that it needed to be).

Thank you. I'll concede the point on bad art because it's a good one, but with a slight quibble, surely whether it is art or not depends on the audience as well, so what about the converse? Suppose someone made something intended to be purely functional, would I then be justified in thinking it art even though its creator had not intended art?

Originally posted by DeepThought
The discussion has moved on since then. No I don't think that exhibitionism, which is what you are describing, is the same thing as pornography. People send each other pictures of themselves in the all together using the internet. I don't think this makes a large fraction of the population pornographers.

(I significantly edited this post as I changed my mind about what I wanted to say.)

I am not sending pitctures of myself. I am talking about professionally produced hard core sexual material, but with the profit motive removed.

The idea that this does not constitute pornography is simply wrong, to my mind.

A profit motive is a key element in the production of most vacuum cleaners. But if I were to make one myself, and give it to a friend, it would nonetheless still be a vacuum cleaner.

The fact that something is nearly always associated with a profit motive, does not necessarily make the profit motive part of the definition of something.

Hence why the wiki entry you quoted did not mention the profit element.

I just think you are wrong on this point.

Originally posted by Rank outsider
I am not sending pitctures of myself. I am talking about professionally produced hard core sexual material, but with the profit motive removed.

The idea that this does not constitute pornography is simply wrong, to my mind.

A profit motive is a key element in the production of most vacuum cleaners. But if I were to make one myself, and give it ...[text shortened]... ntry you quoted did not mention the profit element.

I just think you are wrong on this point.

The flaw in your point is that professionals are simply not going to do it for free. In any realistic scenario the people involved would all be amateurs and they wouldn't distribute it widely.

Originally posted by DeepThought
Thank you. I'll concede the point on bad art because it's a good one, but with a slight quibble, surely whether it is art or not depends on the audience as well, so what about the converse? Suppose someone made something intended to be purely functional, would I then be justified in thinking it art even though its creator had not intended art?

i would say that regardless of what the viewer thinks, it is only art if it was created with the intention of being art or artistic, otherwise everything in the universe would potentially be art.

Originally posted by stellspalfie
i would say that regardless of what the viewer thinks, it is only art if it was created with the intention of being art or artistic, otherwise everything in the universe would potentially be art.

I think it would have to be artificial. Natural phenomena wouldn't count. I was thinking of something like a clock maybe. Having said that you've got a neat definition of art - something produced by an artist. Now all we need is a definition of artist...

Originally posted by DeepThought
Suppose someone made something intended to be purely functional, would I then be justified in thinking it art even though its creator had not intended art?

Well that is precisely the question Duchamp poses.
Can an object designed for function be art?
Or does it only become art when signed by an artist?

As a teacher I see lots of art.
My own position is that if one person considers something art then art it is!
(Of course I am left in a difficult position when that person dies!!!)

Originally posted by stellspalfie
... everything in the universe would potentially be art.

I would prefer that as a starting point rather than some artificial and rigid definition.

Originally posted by DeepThought
There's no technical skill and it looks awful. A requirement for art is that it should be aesthetically pleasing, there's exceptions to that rule but this isn't one of them. It's like Damian Hurst's pickled shark, the only art is getting people to think it's art.

Other posts in the meantime have adequately made the point that there must be room for bad art and good art--one cannot simply dismiss bad art as not art at all.

I disagree that art should be pleasing. Look at Hieronymous Bosch's, Francis Bacon's or Mark Rothko's paintings; or in literature: Edgar Allan Poe, Kafka, H.P. Lovecraft; in photography: Diane Arbus. Some art (whether you think it is good or bad) is quite definitely disturbing. And it is supposed to be disturbing.

Technical skill is a point worth elaborating, especially in regard to pornography. In the 'old days' of blue movies one could plausibly have maintained that pornography could be easily distinguished from art because the level of technical execution in pornography was very poor--grainy, poorly lit and exposed, just plain shoddy workmanship. Nowadays that's no longer so; the level of technical skill in modern pornography is comparable to that of films which get awards at Cannes.

I do agree that there are some flimflammers out there whose only claim to fame is that they sell a pile of bricks (or something utterly mundane) to a museum and laugh all the way to the bank. The reason why Duchamp's urinal works as art, and the pile of bricks doesn't, is that Duchamp proved on any number of other occasions that he was capable of producing real art, whereas the author of the pile of bricks didn't and can't.