Pop Art

[speed]

Seditious made a very interesting comment in another thread, in which he posited that art was perhaps only effective in a popular form. This question has been lurking about my subconcious since.

Thus, I ask, is Seditious right? Was Andy Warhol right and incredibly prescient? Baudrillard states that art has transcended itself, and now embodies everything--commercials, on cereal boes, you name it--everywhere, there's art, but it has lost its special value. And furthermore, thousands and thousands (millions even) of artists, writers, comedians, and actors etc, create art everyday, yet with such a proliferation, does it have any value if no one reads it, or experiences it but a handful of persons?

I just read an essay by Milan Kundera, a czech writer, who takes the position that literature must reinvent, must challenge form, must be different, to be any good. But, I think, does anyone but a few writers and lit buffs, even care? Has this elite, or special status of art vanished? Should instead revert to set forms as it did in the past and in the classical ages?

Music is the same way. Schoenberg and Webern were once the innovators of music, yet no one, including the elite music community, cares anymore. In fact, the elite music community has returned to the more melodic and romantic classics. And, lets not forget, 99% of music lovers and listeners, listen to rock or rap, pop or country.

Hence, I wonder, have we entered a new age of art? And what is an artist to do?

 

[Seditious]

Before I rant, I'd like to thank you for the compliment

I've always had a bias against that experimental for experimentalsake stuff. Opeth for example, to some people they're ubercreative gods, but to me they're just a band who can't make a handful of riffs which carry a song so they put 14 weak riffs together and call it 'progression.' In my eyes trying to focus on crative style suggests to me a lack of creative content. I'm more of the sort to love something perfectly done, rather than some thing which is completely new (I'm a fan of the folk/viking metal bands for example with their folk melody structure, which nonetheless make unique songs). I think of that form of painting where you get to touch the brush to paper only once, how it represents the idea that the limitations in art forms bring out true creativity. music with no tempo or rhythm or melody or, take your pick, you can probably ruin something standard and create something original, and appear creative for having done something too many people thought was unworthy of being done... but while that impresses some people, I'm not one of them.

sex is essentially and in-out-in-out process, but we all know how creative love making can be. Maybe all an artist can do is make what he can of what he finds the form he understands (me I love music, but I can't for the life of me think of anything to draw). Sometimes I wonder how much free will they even have, how much they aren't just passive to the forms put in front of them, the styles they grew up with, and their natural talents and likings. What can artists do but be as waves accepting the general current of the ocean playing their part because they like it? It seems that is what everyone does, we have pop bands and abstract textural paintings and human statues, and orchestras, and pastural real life paintings, everyone just continues to do what they love and try to make something new of it, and as the majority hear and like goes the age of art itself. People don't go out for a night at the orchestra since we have movies and whatnot now, and people don't sit through whole symphonies (if you're like me, you listen to songs, not albums end to end with your full attention) and I think one's art tends toward such tendendies, and if the majority like it the same, then it all changes more toward that end as more and more are raised by it. Seems to me all an artist can ever do is bring what he likes to what he understands, same as always; the artist himself never changing through the ages, just the medium.

lol such endless dancing around whatever my point was supposed to be is what happens when I should have been in bed many hours ago

 

[speed]

Before I rant, I'd like to thank you for the compliment

I've always had a bias against that experimental for experimentalsake stuff. Opeth for example, to some people they're ubercreative gods, but to me they're just a band who can't make a handful of riffs which carry a song so they put 14 weak riffs together and call it 'progression.' In my eyes trying to focus on crative style suggests to me a lack of creative content. I'm more of the sort to love something perfectly done, rather than some thing which is completely new (I'm a fan of the folk/viking metal bands for example with their folk melody structure, which nonetheless make unique songs). I think of that form of painting where you get to touch the brush to paper only once, how it represents the idea that the limitations in art forms bring out true creativity. music with no tempo or rhythm or melody or, take your pick, you can probably ruin something standard and create something original, and appear creative for having done something too many people thought was unworthy of being done... but while that impresses some people, I'm not one of them.

sex is essentially and in-out-in-out process, but we all know how creative love making can be. Maybe all an artist can do is make what he can of what he finds the form he understands (me I love music, but I can't for the life of me think of anything to draw). Sometimes I wonder how much free will they even have, how much they aren't just passive to the forms put in front of them, the styles they grew up with, and their natural talents and likings. What can artists do but be as waves accepting the general current of the ocean playing their part because they like it? It seems that is what everyone does, we have pop bands and abstract textural paintings and human statues, and orchestras, and pastural real life paintings, everyone just continues to do what they love and try to make something new of it, and as the majority hear and like goes the age of art itself. People don't go out for a night at the orchestra since we have movies and whatnot now, and people don't sit through whole symphonies (if you're like me, you listen to songs, not albums end to end with your full attention) and I think one's art tends toward such tendendies, and if the majority like it the same, then it all changes more toward that end as more and more are raised by it. Seems to me all an artist can ever do is bring what he likes to what he understands, same as always; the artist himself never changing through the ages, just the medium.

lol such endless dancing around whatever my point was supposed to be is what happens when I should have been in bed many hours ago

ALthough I do support digestable and accessible art, I still think Pop art, belies a certain crass commercialness. however, it seems this is all that matters these days. Its almost impossible to make art that will be seen by anyone, without making it Pop art (or message nonsense)/

 

[Seditious]

ALthough I do support digestable and accessible art, I still think Pop art, belies a certain crass commercialness. however, it seems this is all that matters these days. Its almost impossible to make art that will be seen by anyone, without making it Pop art (or message nonsense)/

which brings up the question, for what end do we create art? I do it because I enjoy it, I enjoy it all the more when others appreciate it too, but I never make anything others like which I do not as if hoping to sell a product to gain emotionally or financially from their appreciation.

Is it even really art when it is created as if by formula, hoping it has meaning to someone, but as its creator oneself having no such intent behind its creation? Does some distinction need to be made between things appreciated as if art, things aesthetically pleasing, and things created as art, which may be artistic to no one at all?

Should we consider taking from our preferred forms our creativity embodied within and translating in the pop mediums so as for it to be valued? Should we create art for other people or for ourselves? Are we having sex to give to others, or to amuse ourselves? (I always find myself thinking or sex when I think of art for some reason, sumn to do with the creation of beauty from nothing or some shit)

 

[JoeVice]

Before I rant, I'd like to thank you for the compliment

I've always had a bias against that experimental for experimentalsake stuff. Opeth for example, to some people they're ubercreative gods, but to me they're just a band who can't make a handful of riffs which carry a song so they put 14 weak riffs together and call it 'progression.' In my eyes trying to focus on crative style suggests to me a lack of creative content. I'm more of the sort to love something perfectly done, rather than some thing which is completely new (I'm a fan of the folk/viking metal bands for example with their folk melody structure, which nonetheless make unique songs). I think of that form of painting where you get to touch the brush to paper only once, how it represents the idea that the limitations in art forms bring out true creativity. music with no tempo or rhythm or melody or, take your pick, you can probably ruin something standard and create something original, and appear creative for having done something too many people thought was unworthy of being done... but while that impresses some people, I'm not one of them.

sex is essentially and in-out-in-out process, but we all know how creative love making can be. Maybe all an artist can do is make what he can of what he finds the form he understands (me I love music, but I can't for the life of me think of anything to draw). Sometimes I wonder how much free will they even have, how much they aren't just passive to the forms put in front of them, the styles they grew up with, and their natural talents and likings. What can artists do but be as waves accepting the general current of the ocean playing their part because they like it? It seems that is what everyone does, we have pop bands and abstract textural paintings and human statues, and orchestras, and pastural real life paintings, everyone just continues to do what they love and try to make something new of it, and as the majority hear and like goes the age of art itself. People don't go out for a night at the orchestra since we have movies and whatnot now, and people don't sit through whole symphonies (if you're like me, you listen to songs, not albums end to end with your full attention) and I think one's art tends toward such tendendies, and if the majority like it the same, then it all changes more toward that end as more and more are raised by it. Seems to me all an artist can ever do is bring what he likes to what he understands, same as always; the artist himself never changing through the ages, just the medium.

lol such endless dancing around whatever my point was supposed to be is what happens when I should have been in bed many hours ago

the audience's place isn't to judge the artist, but to judge the art. condemning an artist's motives is ridiculous. the artist creates what he creates for a reason.

style and content are totally different ballgames that shouldn't be compared. genre wars are based on this comparison.

the present state of art is just that, like it always has been. some artists like to create new forms, some like to mix, some like to immitate.

technology obviously has a huge impact on art. it provides new avenues in learning methods and styles. we can get our hands on all kinds of art thanks to the internet, which fuels artists' inspiration and expand's their influences, if they so wish.

 

[Justin S.]

the audience's place isn't to judge the artist, but to judge the art. condemning an artist's motives is ridiculous.

No, bounding off the context and the creator of art from thought is ridiculous and entirely artificial.

 

[JoeVice]

No, bounding off the context and the creator of art from thought is ridiculous and entirely artificial.

can you elaborate?

 

[Justin S.]

Evaluating the experience alone (i.e., aesthetics) of a phenomenon is only an aspect, not the entirety, of its existence (and one tied to the observer). One must also account for its enabling conditions, the creator, its economy, its relationality, etc.

What is the justification for restricting thought to sensuous apprehension alone?

 

[JoeVice]

Evaluating the experience alone (i.e., aesthetics) of a phenomenon is only an aspect, not the entirety, of its existence (and one tied to the observer). One must also account for its enabling conditions, the creator, its economy, its relationality, etc.

What is the justification for restricting thought to sensuous apprehension alone?

when judging art, it is important to make a distinct separation between the substance of the art and speculation over the artist's motives. the experience alone is art. "the enabling conditions, the creator, its economy, and its rationality" is politics which should be kept separate from the experience. those aspects are fun to study and discuss, but consciously tying those aspects to the experience is a block. there is no rational to the aesthetic experience.

for example...i obviously disagree with what you are saying, but i do enjoy your choice of words, phrasing, and the way your sentences role off my mind's tongue. the latter is art.

 

[Blowtus]

Hasn't art always been 'pop' to a degree? Do we, to some vague degree an intellectual elite, perhaps find ourselves prone to the illusion and wistfulness of what we think art 'should' be, rather than realising it is as it has always been? Do the many thousands / millions of those with the leisure time to create 'art' combine to show how average and mundane it all really is, when in earlier periods it was perhaps less common and thus less obvious? Was art once of great value, but the value must be sought elsewhere now?

As seems often the case, I have only questions I thought the first post by Seditious made some good points.