If Mort Divine ruled the world

lol of course but it's a concept introduced in a socy 101 class. You guys are really wild though, wondering if Bob Ross was actively non political for political reasons. You guys need some fucking hobbies we all should be too old for this kind of shit :lol:
:lol:
 
lol of course but it's a concept introduced in a socy 101 class. You guys are really wild though, wondering if Bob Ross was actively non political for political reasons. You guys need some fucking hobbies we all should be too old for this kind of shit :lol:

Does it really annoy you this much when people have a conversation that doesn’t include you?
 
lol of course but it's a concept introduced in a socy 101 class. You guys are really wild though, wondering if Bob Ross was actively non political for political reasons. You guys need some fucking hobbies we all should be too old for this kind of shit :lol:

I have plenty of hobbies. This might shock you but it's possible to work, have hobbies, and post here. There are these things called phones and you can use the Internet on them outside your house, pretty wild right grandpa?

Yikes what a whiny cunt. :rofl:
 
That's hardly a "subjective" matter, to quote Dak's earlier comment.

Well I agree with this actually, but was rolling with what people tend to Motte about. My Bailey is the same as yours, it's just on a different continent. It's not that I'm ignorant of art philosophy - quite the contrary. I just find the accepted versions hilariously bad.
 
Fair enough.

I want to stress I wasn't trying to "psychologize" you earlier. I've read Lacan, Baudrillard, etc, and what Fine Art students must profess in general. I can't speak to all of your personal intricacies but my point was that regardless of what we might like to have in terms of flexibility of thought, we have career constraints in terms of what is promoted, or accepted, or funded, and it's hard to serve two masters (as the proverb notes).
 
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I think (generally speaking) conservative-minded people judge art based on talent/skill and liberal-minded people judge art on meaning or lack thereof, whether it be personal, cultural or political. Which is how you get views like "modern art sucks, anybody can fling paint on a canvas" while simultaneously having people like Ein exclude Bob Ross' paintings from the category of art.
When it comes to modern art, I wonder if I'm in that 'lack thereof' camp more than anything. At least when the artist sets out primarily to "make art" above anything else. Eg. a gallery has a weird-shaped room to fill, so they ask a familiar artist (who'll conform to art world conventions) to make art for it. Or something like that. It feels forced. The meaning the artist tacks onto their art seems like an afterthought. Whereas if an artist sets out with a statement to make from the beginning, or a story to tell, or to entertain, or to decorate a space (that serves some purpose other than just to have art made for it), then any artistic merit in their creation emerges naturally. But once they're somewhat renowned in their field and given a brief to curate an exhibit and make the centrepiece for it then it's hard not to see their art as just a self-congratulatory wank.

A similar thing happens when renowned experimental musicians set out to "experiment". They take obscure instruments gifted to them by tribes on their travels to far reaches of the globe, maybe play them in an unconventional way, combined with sounds of Western objects or some electroacoustic setup patched at home, and most importantly describe their entire process and its parallels to society in a press release or liner notes of several dozen paragraphs. It's hard to call it an experiment when they began with the conclusion: that what they make will be received as important art because they've made it to the art world's formula.
 
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I want to stress I wasn't trying to "psychologize" you earlier. I've read Lacan, Baudrillard, etc, and what Fine Art students must profess in general. I can't speak to all of your personal intricacies but my point was that regardless of what we might like to have in terms of flexibility of thought, we have career constraints in terms of what is promoted, or accepted, or funded, and it's hard to serve two masters (as the proverb notes).

I appreciate that, and I also didn't mean to imply that I felt psychologized. I took it as playful sparring re. professions.

You're right, too, about working within a set of disciplinary expectations. When it comes to this stuff, my thinking is pretty firmly fixed.

When it comes to modern art, I wonder if I'm in that 'lack thereof' camp more than anything. At least when the artist sets out primarily to "make art" above anything else. Eg. a gallery has a weird-shaped room to fill, so they ask a familiar artist (who'll conform to art world conventions) to make art for it. Or something like that. It feels forced. The meaning the artist tacks onto their art seems like an afterthought. Whereas if an artist sets out with a statement to make from the beginning, or a story to tell, or to entertain, or to decorate a space (that serves some purpose other than just to have art made for it), then any artistic merit in their creation emerges naturally. But once they're somewhat renowned in their field and given a brief to curate an exhibit and make the centrepiece for it then it's hard not to see their art as just a self-congratulatory wank.

This speaks to the commercialization of the art world and the unavoidable overlap between museums as institutions of culture and institutions of profit. It's a dilemma that goes back decades, and part of the reason why certain artists in the '60s began trying to make art beyond the museum. Of course, even that winds up at the mercy of donors, and ultimately finds itself curated by some kind of foundation.

There's an ongoing debate (starting back in the 1940s, roughly) about the autonomy of art--whether it escapes the constrictions of institutionalism or whether it's always bound in some way to the demands of funding and expectations of culture. It's a fascinating question with no easy answer.
 
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O0DIauw.jpg
 
Big whoop, they're pussies for cancelling it.

Is it bizarre and in bad taste? Feels that way, but without willing blood donors it wouldn't work anyway. It's a shame it got pearl-clutched into oblivion by indigenous "community leaders" and artists before the average indigenous person got to decide whether they'd even want to donate some of their blood in the first place. Once again the self-appointed speak for all of us.
 
It's like a modern demonstration of colonialism where whitey is still in charge and gets the most benefit out of whatever indigenous people give up, comparable to popular evangelists flaunting wealth that their followers gave them. A valid artistic statement I guess, but then it seems equally authentic if their modern colonialism is subsequently condemned or even punished.
 
All artists can do is reveal the aesthetics of their souls, which in the contemporary west is heavily selected for, and constrained by, the culture. Like the contemporary western culture, the artist is quite sickly, and can only vomit forth the evidence.
 
All artists can do is reveal the aesthetics of their souls, which in the contemporary west is heavily selected for, and constrained by, the culture. Like the contemporary western culture, the artist is quite sickly, and can only vomit forth the evidence.
Nice sweeping generalization there. When has western culture ever been "healthy" in your view, what would you point to as artistic evidence of a healthy culture, and what even makes that a useful standard for judging art?
 
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Nice sweeping generalization there. When has western culture ever been "healthy" in your view, what would you point to as artistic evidence of a healthy culture, and what even makes that a useful standard for judging art?

Fractal yet orderly, ordinary yet elevated. A perfection of the forms. Harmony.

The opposite can be seen in the trend towards chaos and flattening. Maude and the brutalist hab-block. Celebrations of deformity and sickness. I should clarify that there can be art which renders chaos, flattening, and sickness, but in the appropriately abhorrent light. "Nurgle" can be enjoyed as a part of the nature of things but within the category of the abhorrent. Same for Chaos and flattening. It's not about erasure but placement.
 
Fractal yet orderly, ordinary yet elevated. A perfection of the forms. Harmony.

I doubt forms can be perfected, in which case failure would always be a component of art. I'd also be curious who determines perfection.

But supposing forms can be perfected, why shouldn't art be a process of discovering new forms--in which case, experimentalism and imperfection are a constitutive part of the aesthetic process? Perfection is rather boring, after all.

The opposite can be seen in the trend towards chaos and flattening. Maude and the brutalist hab-block. Celebrations of deformity and sickness. I should clarify that there can be art which renders chaos, flattening, and sickness, but in the appropriately abhorrent light. "Nurgle" can be enjoyed as a part of the nature of things but within the category of the abhorrent. Same for Chaos and flattening. It's not about erasure but placement.

This assumes a set of normative values that art should preach. Order and harmony aren't transparent and apolitical concepts; they can be appropriated for political ends. The problem with art in service to normative values is that it never challenges us to think otherwise.

This all sounds a bit Platonic and utopian, which is unusual for you (although the ideas about art are vaguely familiar).
 
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