animal collective / 'freak folk' / manitoba etc.

[kid cue]

Originally Posted by Strangelet

one thing that kind of strikes me as paradoxical in your thoughts is that you don't allow for pollock to be speaking an "obtuse language to express an arcane worldview" but you also admit that you have no choice but to accept that "his art is an extension of himself." I'd argue that this extension is too similar to one's worldview. to debate this would require we drudge up all the nuanced differences of the world's affects and one's opinion of it and one's "self"

i have to consider Pollock's obtuse methods as an extension of himself because he demonstrated through example that these methods could produce great results. these great results are radical paintings that are incredible visually, emotionally, physically, and intellectually. as an artistic sensibility, i don't see why these horizontal splatter-gestures need to have anything to do with a "worldview".

in a sense, we're both talking about authenticity, but mine is more about the artist's methods vis-a-vis their manifestation in the work (whether the approach works artistically), while yours seems to be about relationship between the artist's claims and how these are expressed (whether the approach literally makes sense)....

The fact that you "have to accept" means it's kind of giving the benefit of the doubt for lack of contrary evidence that it isn't an extension of his "self". but I have to ask: who is Jackson Pollock anyway? what is his self? How is this communicated to you as the audience so that you have a certain understanding? So that you feel something was communicated?

i only see Pollock's "self" tangentially--in his methods. i don't feel the need to connect his artwork with any concept of who he was as a person, because the work is its own entity. i look at the work and then i stop. i might conjecture as to what kind of person he was, but it seems almost irrelevant to me. he left this work, and this work is what i care about.

But because there are no visual clues, no common, shared iconography, its kind of a crap shoot what that visceral power entails and what its nature is. Is it hopeful, is it a staggering critique on racism? Is it expressing his jubilence at being alive? No it isn't so important that the paintings are any of these things, but it is important to know what they actually are.

why must visceral power need to be attached to a "critique", a theme about Pollock's life, or a one-word emotion? it is what it is; that is its nature. we know what these paintings are--we are looking right at them. they are incredibly pure that way. they are also great in that they still allow us to make connections to other ideas, but ultimately, these connections are irrelevant to the bare, physical, visual facts of the paintings themselves. they are about a pure visuality. Pollock worked the way he did because he cared about the way his methods looked. i once took a course in which we looked at some Pollock under UV light, and saw that he had actually extended & embellished his some of his gestures after the splattering with a small paintbrush, which is more proof than we actually needed to show that what he cared about was how the paintings literally looked--i mean composition, surface, texture, rhythm, etc.

This is the problem with the abstract expressionism movement as a whole. Its esotericism is the ultimate form of selfism, a demand that the audience shouldn't even be bothered or trusted to understand the meaning. They should just sit back and enjoy it, like the sounds of humpback whales communicating. It's supposed to be freeing to the artist to more perfectly express themselves, because they are no longer fettered by the ambiguities of a shared language. but this is a cop out, imho. And at best we can say that the movement was important, it brought up several questions about the relationship between artist and audience, but the answer was that art was required to move on, to accept the responsibility of communicating something. To intend to communicate something.

i disagree with this 100%. the "meaning" of an abstract expressionist painting is exactly, literally, what the audience sees before them. the extent to which the audience "understands" this relates directly to their visual fluency with the painting medium. it has nothing to do with being able to deconstruct the artist or his intent, as if his visual gestures are supposed to contain some kind of symbolism that simply isn't there, and supposedly should be. i don't agree with that at all. this seems like an act of projecting certain arbitrary notions about what art is or should be, to justify not understanding a given artwork on those arbitrary terms.

music is inherently 100% abstract and no one tries to make these arguments, because the emotional effect of sound is more intuitive to most than that of sight.

If for no other reason than how obvious it is that these artists were *not trying* to be meaningful to us. That was tangential to the point of the art.

well, i agree--because your "meaningful" is not their "meaningful". how can this be a crime?

Art is a language. Its intention should be to communicate. My favorite artists are those who have said something to me and I know what they said. I understand their world (which is also the world I live in) more clearly because of them.

i would probably say the same, except i get the feeling that your understanding of this phenomenon is a lot more right-brained than mine, going on the critique you've spun in this post.

But to me it's important that the art should speak so clearly that you wouldn't even need to query the artists intentions external to experiencing the art. The degree to which you need to is the degree to which the art failed to express itself in its own language. In this line of thinking, art truly exists as an independent entity - the existence of the art's meaning is not dependent on the existence of the artist.

this is one exact reason i feel Pollock's work is so amazing and successful. as intricate and esoteric as it is, its effect is absolutely clear. it--the paintings themselves, not so much ideas that can be reduced & expressed on paper--is forceful, joyous, conflicted, ambitious, etc etc. IMO any attempt to reduce this to a specific theme or idea would contradict the fundamental notion of art. and again, i don't feel as if i'm letting myself understand something less clearly than i want to (i.e. giving the artist the 'benefit of the doubt') -- far from it -- the language of art such as Pollock's is not "its own"; it's a universal language because it's purely abstract. at least, that is probably what all abstract expressionists believed, and what i certainly believe too. that art can be understood without being coded.

But none of this was the intention of the sunset. Just like a lot of how we experience art is not the intention of the artist. We don't call the sunset art because there was no intent behind it to be art. beautiful yes, but not art. Likewise we can judge art by its ability to evoke what the artist intended. (not to mention judge our ability to be open to the experience)

okay, but for those of us who prefer to experience art independently of its purported intent, i don't see why the sunset or any of the below matters.

so yes the two pursuits are different and should be. But the fact that you have to go outside of the work to discover pretentiousness is not a problem with pretense being dependent on intent. It's a problem of the artist being incapable of expressing his intent. But a lot of the times, because of the dishonest core of pretense, the audience has no choice but to investigate the intentions of the artist because they are lying in their art. Britanny spears suggest virginal innocence at the same time having dancers lick sweat off her body. This is a clear pretense. A dishonest attempt to affect a reaction of blossoming womanhood at the delicate and dangerous point of being plucked. Moby packages detailed essays that read like instructions on how to see his art as pretentious with every album.

why did millions (incl. myself) enjoy "I'm A Slave 4 U"? was it because they weren't critically smart or astute enough to avoid being tricked by her pretensions at virginhood? or was it because we simply couldn't resist the pure pop pleasures generated by her superindustry? does it matter if Mobb Deep weren't really thugs and thus had no real right to rap about thug life? etc etc.... i have to run, but i know there are countless examples of good art that threatened to "lie" to the audience via your definition.......

[Strangelet]

Originally Posted by kid cue

i have to consider Pollock's obtuse methods as an extension of himself because he demonstrated through example that these methods could produce great results. these great results are radical paintings that are incredible visually, emotionally, physically, and intellectually. as an artistic sensibility, i don't see why these horizontal splatter-gestures need to have anything to do with a "worldview".

Like I said above you say tomato I say worldview. YOu argued for "extension of self" as more important than worldview as something the artist communicates. I think i clearly argued that it in't worth the time to argue the differences.

Anyway, are you able to explain his results? Are you able enumerate the qualities and properties of the visual, emotional, physical, and especially intellectual results? And what's your criteria for proving that there's an objective reason for your response? Especially when you agree there's nothing he intends to communicate? This is the sunset thing i mentioned. You can find visual, emotional, physical, intellectual responses from nature. it wasn't intended. intention is the creative spark of art. Without it, its just the audience making shit up.

Originally Posted by kid cue

i only see Pollock's "self" tangentially--in his methods. i don't feel the need to connect his artwork with any concept of who he was as a person, because the work is its own entity. i look at the work and then i stop. i might conjecture as to what kind of person he was, but it seems almost irrelevant to me. he left this work, and this work is what i care about.

tangentially? you just said above that it was a perfect reflection of his methods and thus his results

Originally Posted by kid cue

ultimately, these connections are irrelevant to the bare, physical, visual facts of the paintings themselves.

exactly my point.

i disagree with this 100%. the "meaning" of an abstract expressionist painting is exactly, literally, what the audience sees before them. the extent to which the audience "understands" this relates directly to their visual fluency with the painting medium.

who care's about the painting medium? that's like saying I can throw a bunch of words together and call it a serious exploration in the literary medium, and say its up to the audience's fluency to "get it". Anyway I've always read that the intent of abstract expressionist painters generally and jackson pollock specifically is to make visual the subconsious. IE the inner states of the artist. which means you really should, if you want to know if the artist was successful, know what the inner state of the artist is. which is absurd, meaning art as communication is NOT abstract expressionism.

music is inherently 100% abstract and no one tries to make these arguments, because the emotional effect of sound is more intuitive to most than that of sight.

if any art is 100% inherently abstract then all artforms are. I mean seriously, its all sense data being processed by our brains.

i would probably say the same, except i get the feeling that your understanding of this phenomenon is a lot more right-brained than mine, going on the critique you've spun in this post.

Right brained? wtf? please explain this? Because to me its just reasonable and devoid of elitism. I'm not saying you're being elitist or unreasonable. I am saying that I really can't follow a lot of your arguments because this really doesn't need to be so complicated. Art as communication doesn't seem right brained. It seems common sensical and lacking any elitist notions of fluency.

this is one exact reason i feel Pollock's work is so amazing and successful. as intricate and esoteric as it is, its effect is absolutely clear. it--the paintings themselves, not so much ideas that can be reduced & expressed on paper--is forceful, joyous, conflicted, ambitious, etc etc. IMO any attempt to reduce this to a specific theme or idea would contradict the fundamental notion of art. and again, i don't feel as if i'm letting myself understand something less clearly than i want to (i.e. giving the artist the 'benefit of the doubt') -- far from it -- the language of art such as Pollock's is not "its own"; it's a universal language because it's purely abstract. at least, that is probably what all abstract expressionists believed, and what i certainly believe too. that art can be understood without being coded.

Its very tempting to point out that calling splatters of paint conflicted and ambitious is no better or worse than calling drums and chanting in animal collective's music religious. Seems like that could be just as painfully obvious if not cloying. all I've ever argued is that art is meant to communicate something. You're debating me on this by taking it to mean I think everything should be a doctoral thesis at oxford.

why did millions (incl. myself) enjoy "I'm A Slave 4 U"? was it because they weren't critically smart or astute enough to avoid being tricked by her pretensions at virginhood?

why is she so viscerally hated by like everyone now that she's older, a mother, fatter and bald? Possibly because the suspension of disbelief has been popped like a balloon and no one likes to have their disbeliefs all of a sudden unsuspended?

[kid cue]

Originally Posted by Strangelet

Like I said above you say tomato I say worldview. YOu argued for "extension of self" as more important than worldview as something the artist communicates. I think i clearly argued that it in't worth the time to argue the differences.

the difference is worth the time when the entire point of everything i'm writing is about attempting to outline a paradigm that is completely different from your paradigm. you keep repeating the things i am saying under the terms that you have presented, which i have been arguing all along are not the same as my terms. for example, i did not argue that "extension of self" was "more important" than "worldview". when i said that i consider Pollock's splatter technique to be authentic to his "self", i was not at all saying that was the ultimate virtue, much less the point, of the work. in fact that's contradictory to everything i've been arguing--which is that when thinking about the quality of the work, it has and should have total autonomy from the author. if i were saying that "extension of self" were the most important quality, i'd be saying that the degree to which some concept of the artist-as-person/soul/whatever shows through is what i cared most about. that's much closer to what you're saying.

Anyway, are you able to explain his results? Are you able enumerate the qualities and properties of the visual, emotional, physical, and especially intellectual results? And what's your criteria for proving that there's an objective reason for your response? Especially when you agree there's nothing he intends to communicate? This is the sunset thing i mentioned. You can find visual, emotional, physical, intellectual responses from nature. it wasn't intended. intention is the creative spark of art. Without it, its just the audience making shit up.

are you serious? when you say Pollock is pretentious, are you able to quantify the degree to which he fails to "communicate" his worldview with his paint? or any other criteria you've presented in your own framework? how can you quantify the degree to which an artwork is a lie? (further, how can you even compare Britney lying that she was a virgin to Pollock somehow not sufficiently communicating some presumed 'worldview' by painting in too obscure a manner?)

let's be clear about this: the only objective marker in Pollock's work is the object. i will never pretend to be making an "objective" argument about the nature of that work. however, i will argue with you when you try to project other notions of objectivity--these notions of truth, statement, idea, theme, language (syntax?), communication (as in, "talking" an idea to a "listening" audience)--onto that object. to put it simply, i largely don't find Pollock's work pretentious because it makes no pretense to being a hoity-toity abstract vehicle (language) for conveying any of these ideas that you have suggested. only when you suggest that it does, and then fails, does it become pretentious.

i also can't agree that "intention is the creative spark of art". not one good artist i know can actually tell you, before making something, what exactly he or she intends to do, in anything more than extremely general & vague (for a reason!) terms. (sometimes they pretend they do, which means that it seems like a good idea to them, and they hope it maybe works, but really they just want to feel like they know exactly what they're doing. a normal human impulse, but it's too rational for art.) the entire process of art-making is so much more abstract and left to chance than that. creativity is the creative spark of art. one of the most common feelings in making any kind of art is ending up someplace where you never expected to be when you started. considering that, how can you even take seriously an objective framework for judging art whereby the artist's original intents are successfully or unsuccessfully communicated in their results?

intention isn't even necessarily the creative spark of procreation (hormones are). intention is the creative spark of science and engineering.

tangentially? you just said above that it was a perfect reflection of his methods and thus his results

refer to beginning of post.

who care's about the painting medium? that's like saying I can throw a bunch of words together and call it a serious exploration in the literary medium, and say its up to the audience's fluency to "get it".

you are going to have to deal with thinking about the painting medium, if you're going to think about modernist painting, which was totally about how to change people's preconceptions of that medium (such as, the idea that painting, or art in general, is meant to "show" or convey some image or theme--as opposed to being a purely visual phenomenon. purely visual, NOTHING ELSE.)

if any art is 100% inherently abstract then all artforms are. I mean seriously, its all sense data being processed by our brains.

okay, all art functions in some context. but music is the least physical, the least burdened by (again) preconceived ideas, thus the most direct. at least, that's what many artists and critics believe. it's really a whole other can of worms.....

\Right brained? wtf? please explain this? Because to me its just reasonable and devoid of elitism. I'm not saying you're being elitist or unreasonable. I am saying that I really can't follow a lot of your arguments because this really doesn't need to be so complicated. Art as communication doesn't seem right brained. It seems common sensical and lacking any elitist notions of fluency.

no ... it seems reasonable and devoid of elitism because it seems practical and simple to think of Art as being a literal vehicle for conveying idea-bodies from one mind to another. i didn't say i disagreed with the idea of art-as-communication-of-ideas, but i've been saying that the nature of that "communication" and those "ideas", as exemplified in Pollock's abstract expressionist work, which is less about transmitting some ideas from Pollock's brain to our brain than about the paintings-as-objects being the ideas in and of themselves, is NOT limited to (what i perceived to be) your more literal definition of what art is.

Its very tempting to point out that calling splatters of paint conflicted and ambitious is no better or worse than calling drums and chanting in animal collective's music religious. Seems like that could be just as painfully obvious if not cloying.

again, I AM NOT SAYING each splatter embodies some "conflicted" or "ambitious" emotion straight from Jackson Pollock, like a language. i am saying my very general, subjective, emotional reaction to his best paintings, and his work as a whole, comprises some of these feelings. if you want me to go into a much more rigorous, in-depth formal analysis of one of these paintings and why exactly i think the whole thing makes me feel those feelings, i could probably try, but i'm not sure i have the time right now.

why is she so viscerally hated by like everyone now that she's older, a mother, fatter and bald? Possibly because the suspension of disbelief has been popped like a balloon and no one likes to have their disbeliefs all of a sudden unsuspended?

i think we can all agree not many of us were made surprised by the sight of fat bald Britney as much as we were made disinterested. she looks ugly AND she isn't making music anymore. she can't be the vehicle for our self-centered fantasies anymore. as a celebrity, she's been shifted into the loser pile. this one REALLY isn't that complicated.

[kid cue]

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]

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]

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.

[kid cue]

i'm a thread killa

[adam]

thread killa? I just thought that you guys had talked this into the ground...

[jOHN rODRIGUEZ]

Amen. Word

[kid cue]

well, talking stuff into the ground what i do. it's "my thing". i wish i could get paid for it.