One could argue that you have your equation all wrong.

It could read; style + originality = art.

"We must remember that art is art. but then again, water is water, isn't it? And east is east, and west is west, and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce, they taste a lot more like prunes than rhubarb does." - Groucho Marx.

Another marx explores it right here in this thread.

Thanks for the thoughtful read.

IMHO, "originality" is a 20th century/modern concept. In that sense, I think your equation might read art+style="originality" (with the inevitable ironic postmodern quotation marks.)

When everything has been "done," there is still room for original derivativeness. One can make something new from the detritus of the old. Warhol did this too, but he was among the "first"--hence the "modern" shock of the new.

I don't know if I can agree with that one, Elvira.

The first time some caveman stuck a feather in their hair to be different than others, wasn't that "originality"?

Could just be me.

As far as I can tell, art is whatever the art establishment chooses to call art.

And as far as the 20th century is concerned, Bernard Smith argues that the significant change was that modernization and rediscovery of ancient forms and styles drove what became a "Formalesque" style throughout the last 100 years.

Form came to dominate 20th century art, while it had historically been content that drove it.

D'oh:
Oy, you gave me a good chuckle whether you realized it or not. All I can see is those "so easy a caveman could do it" commercials in my mind's eye now...

Anyway, arguably the cave dwellers in France may have been the first artists. But not everything original is artistic. I'm thinking within the paradigm of 20th century art only.

I think I'm not sure what you were trying to get across...sorry.

Jonathan:
Form yes--including, I would say, anti-form--the ultimate modernistic rebellion against the old order.

Elvire, glad to bring a laugh.

You had said "IMHO, "originality" is a 20th century/modern concept."

And I was saying that originality is as old as man.

That's all.

D'oh:

Yes, indisputably true...and I'm no art historian, but from what I understand, modernism put an anxiety-driven emphasis on the "original" as a break from the academic/figurative established order of the art academies.

Since this was mostly the late 19th/early 20th century, art was not "original"--hence the obsession with creating something totally new.

Plus, the modern era was so radically different technologically, historically (world war and all--a new concept for sure), and so on, that the art world could be perceived in totally different ways--rebellious ways. And each "generational" art movement of the 20th century had to "rebel" against and "outdo" all predecessors.

Or, as Pollock said in his drunken stupor (at least in the film version): "Fuck Picasso!"

Jonathan, I agree that the "art establishment" (whatever that is; it makes me shudder just thinking about it) try to dictate what is art. But I think that the public is getting smarter and more educated. The artist is only one part of the equation. I don't know if he is even the most important part. (I said this once on a artist website and got roasted for it. But my wife and I are both artists.) Too much emphasis is put on the artist these days instead of his work. Art has become too pretentious. But that is a subject for a future article...

Elvira, D'oh: It is very true what you both say. I choice to stress originality because that is the silver bullet we need in our fight against the rampant commercialization of the art world and every other aspect of life for that matter. The industrial revolution brought on the need for originality. This was not a concern for the cave man. Right now, we are been feed into complex algorithms in order to determine what we like and what we will buy next. Originality is our greatest defense. We must stay original...

J.Scanlan wrote: "As far as I can tell, art is whatever the art establishment chooses to call art."

Right ... witness the Tate in London: Tracy Emin's dirty, unmade bed (yuck, doesn't bear thinking about, that one), the shark in formaldehyde in a perspex box ($10.50 at the hardware store) and the light installation that inolves turning lights on and off - just like in your own lounge roonm - and Sir Nicholas Serota's refusal to cop any criticism over the whole sorry spectacle.

I like the views of the stuckists, founded by punk rocker/artist Billy Childish, Emin's ex-boyfriend. The phrase was coined when Emin asked him to go to a performance of conceptual art in London and he refused, saying he could see the same thing in the toilets at the pub (or something like that). She told him his art was "stuck, stuck, stuck"

The stuckists believe that to be called an artist, you actually have to be able to paint, rather put a lump of sh.t into a shoe and call it art - and they demonstrate at the Turner Prize (conceptual art) each year outside the Tate Britain gallery.

I agree with Childish and his mates ....

Pollock may have said "Fuck Picasso" but only because he realised Picasso was one of the greatest painters of all time and he wasn't!

Yes, Christopher, I think Picasso is hands down the master of the moderns. BG told me (so I'd have to look it up to confirm) that when it came to Picasso, Dali declared that the world wasn't big enough for both of them--apparently they had quite a rivalry going on. For my money, you just can't touch old Pablo in the 20th century for sheer breadth of scope and innovation.

Chris Rose said: "Pollock may have said "Fuck Picasso" but only because he realised Picasso was one of the greatest painters of all time and he wasn't!"

Yes. I read a story recently about a woman buying a Pollock unknowingly in an art shop for a few bucks.

There was some dispute about its authenticity. My question is, how the fu.k would you bloody know if it was fair dinkum or not?

In my view, Pollock's so-called self liberation from the artistic constraints of the time was a load of bullsh.t.

More likely scenario: He couldn't bloody paint so he splashed a bit of colour around a canvas in between bouts of getting on the piss. Some of his works look like he might have been really badly hungover at the time.

The only difference I could spot between Blue Poles and a painting my daughter did at school was that she wasn't on the sauce at the time and he probably was.

An early example of conceptual art, despite the fact he used paint. Had he been alive today, Sir Nicholas Serota would have given him a Turner Prize, and Tracy Emin would probably have taken pictures of him smearing himself naked across a canvas.

Pollocks? Bollocks

S.T.M.:

"Pollocks? Bullocks"--love it!

Abstract Expressionism was a vehicle for some very pompous art critics to trumpet some pretty awful paintings and proclaim them to be geniuine art. Without their stamp of approval, the average Joe would never have been able to "understand" or "enjoy" them. These critics were the real "art stars" of the period--the painters themselves were incidental.

One of the most scathing and brilliant indictments of the modern art critical movement was The Painted Word, written by Tom Wolfe in 1975. The prologue and epilogue are in the link above.

That's BOLLOCKS not bullocks, Elvira. Size is one way to tell them apart...

Har Har!

Christopher, you got me there! But just how big are the bollocks on bullocks, anyway?

Never mind the bollocks...here's the Tom Wolfe link I left out of the last comment. My bad twice over...

Art is what artist do.

Mohjho, I like it. We could put it on T-Shirts and become rich.

Or we could declare the T-shirts as art in an attempt to join the new, young, trendy establishment-supported BritArt movement:

Simple - wear them for a week solid, smear them with Vegemite, chocolate milk, a few things I can't mention, spill coffee, Coke, hamburger and ketchup on them, and then "mount" them (well, just throw them) inside a washing basket and enter them in the Turner Prize ... Sir Nicholas Serota would be sure to look upon them favourably, just as he has the Shark in Formaldehyde, a light installation that you switch on and off just like you do in your lounge room and, last but not least, Tracy Emin's unmade bed.

That's what I want to do when I grow up ... decide what constitutes art, even if it doesn't.

There's got to be a buck in it.

To be honest, I used to love Pollock. It was the colour that really got me. Then I discovered Kandinsky, who was infinitely better because his work had real substance to it.

The main thing to look for with abstract expressionism is the design. If the colours work, then it's good, and if they don't it's poor.

I dunno; "style" has a vapid, trivial MARKETING sound to it. There's plenty of "style" out there -- but very little art, imo.

Originality -- well, that has a nice "artistic" ring to it. Originality is a little harder to pull off these days.

For me -- art -- to be Art -- only has to do something to the ol' synapse connections -- something not found in ordinary, everyday existence. It's best if it causes a NEW connection among the billions of synapses, and even better if the overall effect is ... dare I say it...

Transcendent.

Anywhoo, this is an age-old argument, which I can settle by pointing out that it's a post-Newtonian universe with No Absolute Cosmic Clocks wound by the Hand of God.

ie.
If I call it art, it's art.
If you call it art, it's art.
If I call it shit, it's shit.
If you call it shit -- and I call it art -- you're an idiot.
If you call it art -- and I call it shit -- you're an idiot.

Hope that helps!




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re: "style" --

Forgot to mention:

re: "All Art is Marketing -- and all Marketing is Art."

Andrew Warhola realized this earlier than most -- which is why he was a genius whose work epitomizes art of the late 20th century.

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re: Dali vs Picasso -- Dali didn't believe he had any contemporary "competitors" -- and he may have been right.(!)

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I also predict that when most animals are extinct and we're living in a post-apocalyptic "Clockwork Orange" meets "A Boy and His Dog" world -- (tomorrow maybe?) -- then the likes of Norman Rockwell and folks like these will come to appreciated on a new level.

Seriously.

Lol. Thanks Shark ... classic stuff. Apparently, you can buy all the bits for the box for about $10.50 from a hardware shop; the shark you can get at the fish markets for whatever market price is but here I'd reckon a couple of bucks a kilo at most and the formaldehyde for a paltry sum from a medical supplies outfit.

I'd reckon too you could do the whole thing in a weekend.

How does that compare to the months of agony that went into a Van Gogh, for instance. Tt's all dribble masquerading as art.

I'm sure you already know about the Stuckists ... I'm with them: if you can't (or won't paint) you're not an artist.

I don't include abstract expressionists like Pollock in that, BTW; he couldn't really paint.

It was the equivalent of today's conceptual art with an earlier, wanky name coined by some dopey dickhead of an art critic who thought the only way he could sell the idea was to baffle us with bullsh.t ... a bit like some modern-day IT specialists I've met over the past few years.