Yes, I am guilty of the ART IS phrase but only because my aggressive, imperious and demandingly nasty professorial former personality drips into my mouth now and then from my stuffed up head - - like snot to be spewed upon the bewildered and ignorant masses who cringe at the foot of my pedestal.
I don't really MEAN it. I mean I don't mean to say ART IS. Forgive me Canon Cheerskep. It was a slip of logic, a failure of wit. It's merely a silly hypothesis. It's not --in my new born-again guise of humility -- my real opinion that anything material can literally acquire subjective attributes, although I am still troubled by the mind-body split this position implies. Nevertheless, that is the essence of my much maligned view that all objectve existence is meaningless and the more we recognize that and train ourselves to see that when looking at artworks, the more fully we can evoke our subjective, creative, spiritual, metaphorical, and essentially aesthetic capacities and by making believe we can indeed regard them as if real and objective we enjoy a greater sensation of aliveness, self-worth, societal affection and optimism. I have said it many times: My goal is to make something as meaningless as I can. I know I really can't do otherwise but because most folks expect the artist to embody his work with meanings, it's assumed that artworks should be "unpacked" to find those meanings when in fact it's really a matter of how much of their subjectivity can be pretended to be packed in, as if it really could. 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, 8:54 PM > William writes: > > > 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 > > > > I'm feeling a bit like Chris in observing how many > things you've been saying > lately I agree with. Of course, there are things you've > put forth that I don't > agree with, but I can pass over those the pursuing of which > strikes me as > counter-productive. > > Meantime, that's another good mini-essay from you about > copyright, patents, > trade marks. (If anybody is interested in crushingly more > they can Google all > three.) > > Just to show I haven't gone all mellow in my mature > years, I claim your > postings reveal that you too believe that some works ARE > art, and others > absolutely > ARE NOT. This belief, in you and many others, is not > precluded by an > awareness of the impossibility of a valid universal > "definition of art". > And, > indeed, I agree that you shouldn't accept that as a > preclusion. The > impossibility of > such a definition is not a proof that there ain't no > such thing; it's a > RESULT of there being no such thing. > > > > ************** > You're invited to Hollywood's biggest party: Get > Oscars > updates, red carpet pics and more at Moviefone. > (http://movies.aol.com/oscars-academy-awards?ncid=emlcntusmovi00000001)
