I guess we could say that all art has the potential to be good and
bad to some one or groups
of some ones.
mando
On Feb 23, 2009, at 6:21 PM, William Conger wrote:
I can't imagine a case where some artwork, presumably bad, has
never appealed to anyone anywhere anytime. Ditto for so called good
art. The case can't be tested in either the good or bad sense
except via statistical probablilities -- which can't measure
subjective responses with equal parameters or controls.
So we are left with the problem that neither good art nor bad art
can be determined by a measure of its appeal, and is so also partly
because of Cheerskep's reminder that art has no intrinsic "isness"
identity anyway.
However, I stand by the guess based on experience that good art
always appeals to anyone in some way, however trivially or
profoundly, but I'll add that cultural patterns probably need to be
assumed. But I don't want to say with equal faith that bad art does
not appeal to everyone in some way because that would also be a
valid statement of good art. AH...why are we looking at this
paradoxical issue when we know very well that a universal
definition of art is impossible?
WC
--- On Mon, 2/23/09, armando baeza <[email protected]> wrote:
From: armando baeza <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Definable and measurable truths
To: [email protected]
Cc: "armando baeza" <[email protected]>
Date: Monday, February 23, 2009, 7:50 PM
Would it stand that if," Good art appeals to all",
"bad art would appeal to no one".
mando
On Feb 23, 2009, at 5:33 PM, William Conger wrote:
Cheerskep's issue with isness of objects reflects
one form of existentialism which asserts that objects have
no intrinsic meaning. I agree but at the same time there
are other philosophical views that offer some form of
subjective-objective relatioinship to meaning. His
absolutism regarding the isness question is a matter of
(existential) choice.
When I say that all great works of are are accessible
at some level I do assume a willingness on the part of the
experiencer to subjectively experience a proposed work of
art regardless of response. Thus it is ok to say in effect
that while I am willing to experience Waiting for Godot as
if it were a work of art, my pervious experience in doing
that left me with a negative art response and that previous
response can be quite different from my judgment that the
play does indeed have the high-to extraordinary capacity to
be experienced as if it were a great work of art by others
or even by me at some other time (production. What I am
saying is that a great work of art can be accessed by me at
some level --- in this case a judgmental level and a
separate negative response level -- without engaging me at
the aesthetic level I might prefer. (I think I claim that
all experience has some subjective-aesthetic content.
WC
--- On Mon, 2/23/09, [email protected]
<[email protected]> wrote:
From: [email protected] <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Definable and measurable truths
To: [email protected]
Date: Monday, February 23, 2009, 5:17 PM
I wrote: "I can't agree with William when
he says,
"Good art appeals to all,
I mean it offers something -- some access -- to
any viewer.
That has always
been true of the best art.""
I prefaced the explanation of my disagreement by
saying:
"The assumption, the reification, of an
entity or
category that is art, is a
big problem."
I then cited WAITING FOR GODOT, which some have
called the
greatest work of
theater art in the twentieth century. I remarked
that it
does not appeal to me
on any level. I then argued in effect that if
William means
if a work is
"accessible" then it must have appeal,
that seems
to me wrong. GODOT is fully
accessible to me, I said, but I still loathe it.
Chris responded:
"I question the example ("Waiting for
Godot") which Cheerskep has offered
as an exception to William's
statement." As a
reason for his doubt, Chris
states:
"Although, like Cheerskep, I loathe that
play, I see
no reason to concede
that it is among "the best art" just
because
"Some (presumably famous critics)
have called it the greatest work of theater art
in the
twentieth century."
My response to Chris: But I DIDN'T concede
"it's among the best art". Indeed,
my preface was meant to convey it's a flat
error to
believe ANY entity is
"art". To say that something
"is"
"art" -- as distinguished from our just
CALLING
it "art" -- is to assume there is a
mind-independent metaphysical
"category",
"art". Those who think this way believe
every
object either IS art or it is
NOT, regardless of what any individual or group
calls it.
Artsy recently posted a column -- Encorebuzz, in
the Nashua
Telegraph -- that
said this: "Art is the creative expression of
an
artist who tries to paint
his own impressions of something seen visually or
mentally." The correct way
to
counter this is NOT by starting, "No, no --
that's
not what art IS! Art isb&"
and then give another would be description of what
"art" "really is".
Consider other judgmental words like
'delicious' or
'disgusting' or
'impolite'. Wouldn't it seem silly to
believe
in some quasi-Platonic
metaphysical
domain wherein there's a set of all the
impolite acts,
and another set of all
the
other, non-impolite, acts?
Picture this category as either the set of all
objects that
ARE "works of
art", or picture it as "the quality of
