For what purpose, art?
Apr. 27th, 2006 11:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drwexYesterday, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tisana posted something that caused myself and deadwinter to exchange briefly about the purpose of art. I figured it was probably crass to continue hijacking her LJ comment thread so I'm moving it to here. Also, I have a number of artist friends whose opinions I'd value hearing.
For this I'm going to define "art" quite broadly, as all sorts of creative forms. Written and spoken word, visual arts, you name it, everyone gets to play.
Thesis: Art should not be deliberately obscure in its purpose of meaning or message.
dw states it somewhat more gently but I think that's a sentence he'd agree with. On the surface I'm initially tempted to agree with him. Art is in many respects a communicative act; if it fails to communicate it seems reasonable to say the art has failed.
But the minute I start to dig on this it turns into a slippery slope, thus: _who_ is being communicated with/to? What are the criteria by which we'd judge deliberate obscurity? If I make a picture that no one but me gets is that a failure in my picture or in the viewing audience? What if I'd shown it to a different audience? What if just one person out there gets my message/meaning*? Is that a failure? What if I only intended to communicate with that person? Is there a tipping point somewhere on the "no one gets it" to "everyone gets it" spectrum where I get to relax and say, 'Yep, did it; I communicated with my audience.'
(*Classically this is what cryptography is about - ensuring that only intended recipient(s) can read messages. One might argue that cryptography is art, or is the antithesis of art. I think I could argue either side. Or both.)
This derived from a thread about art that was posited as superior, in the sense of "ha, I get it and you don't" more or less as a kind of "in joke". But it also touches on the fundamental conflict between so-called "high" art and so-called "pop" or mass culture art. Is one form better than the other? From the point of view of snob status the ballet might be better despite its much more impenetrable messages than, say, a music video with great broad audience appeal. Conversely, the fact that ballet (or opera) is inaccessible might be deemed a mark of its failure.
This also assumes that obscurity of message is something that can be controlled by the artist. People can try to make something accessible and end up missing the mark completely; or, they might labor in obscurity for years only to suddenly be "discovered" and have their message heard and understood by a huge new audience. Conversely, if an artist deliberately makes something she thinks only a few people will "get" is she necessarily doing something wrong/bad/less than trying to make the message clearer and more explicit? Isn't there something to be said for the reward of an effort made to understand the message? Isn't that somehow better than having the message "handed" to you?
Oh, did you think I was going to have answers? Nah, just questions.
tisana posted something that caused myself and deadwinter to exchange briefly about the purpose of art. I figured it was probably crass to continue hijacking her LJ comment thread so I'm moving it to here. Also, I have a number of artist friends whose opinions I'd value hearing.For this I'm going to define "art" quite broadly, as all sorts of creative forms. Written and spoken word, visual arts, you name it, everyone gets to play.
Thesis: Art should not be deliberately obscure in its purpose of meaning or message.
dw states it somewhat more gently but I think that's a sentence he'd agree with. On the surface I'm initially tempted to agree with him. Art is in many respects a communicative act; if it fails to communicate it seems reasonable to say the art has failed.
But the minute I start to dig on this it turns into a slippery slope, thus: _who_ is being communicated with/to? What are the criteria by which we'd judge deliberate obscurity? If I make a picture that no one but me gets is that a failure in my picture or in the viewing audience? What if I'd shown it to a different audience? What if just one person out there gets my message/meaning*? Is that a failure? What if I only intended to communicate with that person? Is there a tipping point somewhere on the "no one gets it" to "everyone gets it" spectrum where I get to relax and say, 'Yep, did it; I communicated with my audience.'
(*Classically this is what cryptography is about - ensuring that only intended recipient(s) can read messages. One might argue that cryptography is art, or is the antithesis of art. I think I could argue either side. Or both.)
This derived from a thread about art that was posited as superior, in the sense of "ha, I get it and you don't" more or less as a kind of "in joke". But it also touches on the fundamental conflict between so-called "high" art and so-called "pop" or mass culture art. Is one form better than the other? From the point of view of snob status the ballet might be better despite its much more impenetrable messages than, say, a music video with great broad audience appeal. Conversely, the fact that ballet (or opera) is inaccessible might be deemed a mark of its failure.
This also assumes that obscurity of message is something that can be controlled by the artist. People can try to make something accessible and end up missing the mark completely; or, they might labor in obscurity for years only to suddenly be "discovered" and have their message heard and understood by a huge new audience. Conversely, if an artist deliberately makes something she thinks only a few people will "get" is she necessarily doing something wrong/bad/less than trying to make the message clearer and more explicit? Isn't there something to be said for the reward of an effort made to understand the message? Isn't that somehow better than having the message "handed" to you?
Oh, did you think I was going to have answers? Nah, just questions.
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*shrugs*
Date: 2006-04-27 06:57 pm (UTC)Most fine artists don't have target audiences. There's usually more intrinsic value involved.
"Or to at least be willing to accept comments of 'I don't get it' instead of airily defending said not-gotten work and accusing those not getting it of being ignorant monkeys."
Thankfully most artists do not accuse their viewers of being ignorant monkeys, or there wouldn't be any art at all because they'd be beaten up. As for airily defending, the best way to avoid having an artist explain their art is not to ask them what it's about by saying, "I don't get it." It's such a neutral statement that it implies that you want an explanation. Artists don't get offended (at least I've never known them to) when people say they don't understand their work. Although, approaching them at all implies that you are looking for a dialog about it. Artists do get offended when someone passes uninformed judgments about it while attacking it or them. This again opens up a dialog where the artist tries to make the viewer into an informed viewer by offering an explanation.
Most viewers don't have an extensive knowledge of art and don't understand that shapes, colors, and textures, etc can have an emotional effect on people. You may not be the type of person who is moved by the abstract. You may be the kind of person who associates meaning only with things that you can directly relate to your experiences, like faces or scenes. This doesn't make you an ignorant monkey. In fact, since you can distinguish between appreciating and liking a work of art, that makes you way more informed than the average viewer. I don't know any artists, and I know hundreds, who seriously takes offense to having an open dialogue about their work depending on how they are approached. I've heard some viewers approach art with a nasty tone, mostly those insane snob types that you were commenting about earlier.