animal collective / 'freak folk' / manitoba etc. - Page 3

kid cue · #1 05-29-2007, 12:05 AM

all i'm basically saying here is that i think you place too much stock in what the artist says. an artist's stated influences, ideas, beliefs, or even intentions are interesting to think about and study, but they're really more for art historians than for the rest of us*. ultimately, you have to take the work on its own terms, as its own evidence, in deciding how good it is. as human beings we have the same senses, and the same fundamental creative impulse, so it's completely reasonable to allow each of us to make our own judgments about a piece of art without running it through a system of checks and balances vs. the artist's own claims to NOT be "making shit up". for instance, when you say Pollock claimed to be trying to visualize the subconscious--sure, i can see that that element is probably there in the paintings (i said it before, and it's also sort of glaringly obvious)--but the fact that he accomplishes this stated goal in some way ultimately isn't all that important to the success of the paintings as paintings.

*besides, too many artists are full of shit anyways!

adam · #2 05-29-2007, 08:09 AM

It seems to me that applying rules about when it is valid to look beyond the piece of art to the artist is limiting. There are pieces of art that, for me, are best approached, or engaged with, with minimal consideration of what the artist intended and what was going on in their lives, and there are pieces where a lot of the value comes from the artist.

Henry Darger's work is interesting on its own, but I find looking at his art with a biographical portrait in mind is much more engaging. R Kelly's Trapped in the Closet, by contrast, I find barely interesting at all without taking into account the mind that created it (directly, in fact, through the commentary track he has created to go with it). I haven't listened to Wesley Willis much, but I imagine his work is more interesting in what it reveals of the artist than my immediate reaction to it.

However, there are plenty of pieces for which I feel no need to search past the existence of the individual piece itself. The flexibility in approach seems to me to be crucial.

kid cue · #3 05-29-2007, 09:56 AM

yeah--i'm not against different approaches in principle, any absolute rule about how to look at art is a bad one ... i guess i'm using a lot of words to say that "art" means someone makes this thing (physical or not...) and that thing becomes its own thing, with its own properties, and it's pointless to get hung up on other ideas about the artist as an artist, or a person, etc. the artwork isn't defined solely by the intentions or desires of the artist, because the rest of us are free to look at it our way.

i think a lot of things, like "Trapped in the Closet" or whatever, can be more interesting when you consider them in terms of biography. but i still think that's somewhat separate from the artwork as a work of art. like i think it's interesting that no one cared about Van Gogh and he was tormented and cut off his ear or whatever, but it still doesn't make his paintings very interesting paintings IMO. also, if R. Kelly made his own commentary track for the song, i'd argue that that's part of the artwork as well, as part of his process of self-reflexively riffing on his media persona.

also, the idea of both R. Kelly's public persona, along with an official R. Kelly self-commentary track, is totally as much a creative fabrication as his actual songs. rather than provide real, objective criteria (straight from the real artist) for interpreting his music, i'd argue that these "biographical" aspects (of our idea of the person R. Kelly) add more layers to the work itself.