what do i know


sorabji.com: Is it art?: what do i know
THIS IS A READ-ONLY ARCHIVE FROM THE SORABJI.COM MESSAGE BOARDS (1995-2016).

By droopy on Tuesday, October 10, 2006 - 02:19 pm:

    last night i made a my first trip to the fort worth modern art museum to see a performance of "just because your paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you."

    beforehand i had about 3 vodka sours with a friend. when we got to the museum, the first thing we did was see the big sculpture called "vortex" on the grounds outside. it's 67 feet tall and is made up of, i don't know, 5 or 6 bands of steel welded together in to make sort of a cylinder. there are openings for you to step inside it. when you look up, it's like being at the bottom of a deep well. it made me think of the novel "wind-up bird chronicles" by haruki murakami. a few more people came in and they showed us how great the acoustics were. there was a great echo when you stomped your feet: DAH dah-dah-dah-dah-dah. we started stomping out a rhythm and a woman sang long, operatic notes.

    then we went inside to wait for the show to start. i had a $6 glass of wine and listened to a mostly ignored classical guitar player.

    the performance was a one-woman show (with a piano player). it was bits of monologue and lots of songs like "everything has side effects" and "someone's got it worse than you". the woman doing the show had only gotten the job ten days before and sat on a stool reading the script/lyrics from a stand in front of her. she really wasn't able to sell the paranoia. and the monologue parts were too sparse. it was more like a collection of songs than a paranoid cabaret rant. it got boring after a while. the say it's a "work in progress", though. there will be a performance in new york on oct. 16 in a place called 'don't tell mama' on 46th street. if someone sees it, tell me if it gets any better.

    as we were leaving my friends steered me over to something in a dark corner (the museum was closed). it looked like a tarp thrown over a pole and i flicked it with my finger. immediately, somebody with the museum said "don't touch!" - turns out it was a sculpture. "and don't run over it!" one of my friends said (parts of the "tarp" spread over the floor. i think what i said was: "goddamit, i'm tired of art like this. i'm sure that somewhere in this building there's a bronzed compost heap with a little plaque next to it with the artist's name on it. at least when marcel duchamp put a urinal up on a pedestal and called it art, you could still piss in it."

    then i went home and had a sauerkraut sandwich.


By kazu on Tuesday, October 10, 2006 - 02:28 pm:

    "then i went home and had a sauerkraut sandwich"

    I think I would have liked seeing this part the most.


By eri on Tuesday, October 10, 2006 - 02:53 pm:

    "at least when marcel duchamp put a urinal up on a pedestal and called it art, you could still piss in it."

    Yeah, I miss the days of pissing on "art" LOL


By heather on Tuesday, October 10, 2006 - 03:11 pm:

    what days were those?


    i <3 duchamp and i want some sauerkraut and a little kielbasa


By droopy on Tuesday, October 10, 2006 - 03:23 pm:

    dada movement, early 1900s. duchamp would pick up everyday objects and junk and display them as art

    http://www.beatmuseum.org/duchamp/fountain.html

    sauerkraut on toasted bread with mustard. a great late night after drinking snack. but not portable like an onion sandwich, as the kraut makes the bread soggy.


By heather on Tuesday, October 10, 2006 - 03:55 pm:

    my question was for eri, droop, which i am only pointing out in hopes that she will answer it


By droopy on Tuesday, October 10, 2006 - 04:03 pm:

    i hadn't thought of that. i'd like to hear the answer, too.


By eri on Tuesday, October 10, 2006 - 04:14 pm:

    It was a joke. The comment droopy made about the urinal art but you could still urinate in, just brought to mind a mental image of peeing on art.

    It was tongue in cheek. Though the "art" on top of Bartle Hall out here is worth piss, but that's another story.


By Dougie on Tuesday, October 10, 2006 - 04:19 pm:

    Piss Christ comes to mind.


By Spider on Tuesday, October 10, 2006 - 06:48 pm:

    Did you see the Ed Ruscha piece that's there? HUH?

    It's probably not worth it. What was it again...I can't even remember.


By Nate on Tuesday, October 10, 2006 - 07:04 pm:

    duchamp did not make art.

    i find dada discomforting.


By heather on Tuesday, October 10, 2006 - 07:30 pm:

    isn't that kind of the point?


By droopy on Tuesday, October 10, 2006 - 07:32 pm:

    i didn't see the ruscha piece because the museum itself was closed. i only saw the tarp thing because it happened to be in a corner of the foyer. i get a catalog called daedalus books and they have some ruscha thing for sale called, should I get it? the called her styrene

    i have no great feelings about duchamp, but: 1) do you mean he did not make art with the "ready-mades" or in any work he ever made (like 'nude descending stairs); and if so, what is art that duchamp did not make it. 2) as heather points out, the art of dada was to cause discomfort. and if it can discomfort nate (in what way?), then there may be art in that.


By droopy on Tuesday, October 10, 2006 - 07:33 pm:

    i don't how that last paragraph got screwed up.


By droopy on Tuesday, October 10, 2006 - 07:34 pm:

    or rather the first.


By jack on Tuesday, October 10, 2006 - 08:11 pm:

    this is getting good


By Spider on Tuesday, October 10, 2006 - 08:49 pm:

    Droop, that's the book I have. I got it on sale for $7.95, and I'd say unless you're a word geek like me, it's not worth more than that. It seriously is just page after page of single words painted in different fonts. Well, some pages have whole phrases. But That Is All.


By Nate on Tuesday, October 10, 2006 - 11:01 pm:

    duchamp did not make art because dada is not art. that is the whole point.

    dada pieces themselves aren't uncomfortable. it is philosophy behind it. and it is recent, that i feel this way. i used to be all up in the dada.

    btw, heather: if it is still running you should go check out "travesties" at ACT.


By jack on Tuesday, October 10, 2006 - 11:53 pm:

    i can't agree that duchamp = dada.
    i would venture to say that there is more to duchamp than "dada"



By Nate on Wednesday, October 11, 2006 - 12:31 am:

    but the urinal. neo-dada? fuck if i know. i took one art class and got a d-.

    dada still disturbs me.

    who the fuck are you jack.


By droopy on Wednesday, October 11, 2006 - 01:57 am:

    i still want to know why dada disturbs you. sometimes hearing people's reaction to art is more interesting than the art itself. maybe the urinal and all the other stuff was just a stunt, and any surviving pieces are more important of artifacts than art. but i think it was a worthwhile stunt. i think it helped give the art world a useful kick in the ass toward to modernism and a broader perception of what art could be.

    i can see why it would disturb you, though. you always struck me as the kind of person who is at heart hostile toward disorder and ambiguity.

    i'm not sure if i will truly appreciate the ruscha, spider. i'm not sure i'm all that sensitive about fonts. words are either easy to read or they aren't, to me. i think i may need glasses, though. there's only so long i can read any kind of text before i feel discomfort.

    or maybe it's just me. i get the impression that your artistic tastes are more formal than mine.

    who the fuck are any of you people?


By heather on Wednesday, October 11, 2006 - 02:31 am:

    heather = disorder + ambiguity


By Nate on Wednesday, October 11, 2006 - 02:31 am:

    "you always struck me as the kind of person who is at heart hostile toward disorder and ambiguity."

    i'm sure that has a lot to do with it.

    i seem to have found myself with faith in the higher order of things.

    who the fuck? who aren't we.

    aesthetics. my preference.

    ...

    the maple tree
    had one ginkgo leaf
    i sat and i stared
    and i wondered
    at what was once
    impossible


By Nate on Wednesday, October 11, 2006 - 02:35 am:

    my heart is not hostile to heather.

    heather the dada soul.

    hm.


By sarah on Wednesday, October 11, 2006 - 11:49 am:


    at the time i'm sure dada was really revolutionary.


    now it seems like the majority of contemporary art is dada-esque. maybe a slight majority, but a majority.



    what original, material dada art (or non-art or whatever) i've seen, nothing about it is offensive to me. most of it i don't find to be that disorderly. ambiguous, maybe. but all forms of art can be ambiguous.


    the performance art stuff isn't that interesting. maybe a little disturbing, but only like a science fiction movie can be disturbing. the feeling i get from seeing stills of the performance dada is similar to how i felt the *first* time i saw the movie Brazil (i think i was 14 years old?).


    i knew i was supposed to appreciate it as art, but mostly i thought, "i don't get it."






By sarah on Wednesday, October 11, 2006 - 11:51 am:


    see also, Fluxus.


    that, i get.




By Dr Pepper on Wednesday, October 11, 2006 - 11:52 am:

    I don't get it


By kazu on Wednesday, October 11, 2006 - 12:25 pm:


By heather on Wednesday, October 11, 2006 - 01:15 pm:

    i am not dada

    and what i said was not meant to reflect negatively on nate but on myself


    the first time i saw brazil i thought, yes

    finally

    something i get


By Nate on Wednesday, October 11, 2006 - 01:40 pm:


By patrick on Wednesday, October 11, 2006 - 01:48 pm:

    so if dada isnt art, is theater of the absurd theater?

    i don't really know.

    i think it's interesting though....nate's take. i can't help but consider his exploration of photography as a factor in his recent rejection of dada-ism.

    for order, light and clarity nate, maybe maholy-nagy will make nice for you. he, along with others in the bauhuas seem to be an antithesis to the whole dada thing.

    http://www.moholy-nagy.org/ArtByPeriod_4.html



By agatha on Wednesday, October 11, 2006 - 02:24 pm:

    Dada is art. Anything that is presented as art is art. That's the whole point, and the whole point of dada was to thumb a nose at art by identifying as art.

    Performance art-wise, I was a big fan of Ana Mendieta. I can get behind shit like that. Too bad her egomaniac husband threw her out the window because she was more talented than him.

    http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/mendieta_ana.html


By Nate on Wednesday, October 11, 2006 - 02:42 pm:

    dada isn't presented as art. that was my point.


By patrick on Wednesday, October 11, 2006 - 02:43 pm:

    but....

    her being thrown out the window was perfomance art, was it not? i mean.....where do you draw the line miss k?


By patrick on Wednesday, October 11, 2006 - 02:43 pm:

    and is that line you draw art?


By patrick on Wednesday, October 11, 2006 - 02:43 pm:

    if nate calls a fart art, is it art?


By agatha on Wednesday, October 11, 2006 - 02:58 pm:

    Dada was presented as art for the mere fact that they chose to show it in art shows and in the art community at the time. If they really didn't want it thought of as art, they would have shown it in their bathrooms. Or something.

    I don't know, Patrick. I tend to frown on throwing people out the window, but maybe it was art. Who the hell knows.

    If nate calls a fart art, then it's art. Especially nate's fart. Although, I'm betting that dave's are stinkier.


By patrick on Wednesday, October 11, 2006 - 03:15 pm:

    so art is defined by where it's shown?

    i'll chase you around the room with this one miss k, not because my opinion is right and yours is wrong. i think the whole pretext a fools errand.


By heather on Wednesday, October 11, 2006 - 03:28 pm:

    this is why i hate "art"


By agatha on Wednesday, October 11, 2006 - 04:13 pm:

    That's my point! It can only be defined by how the creator chooses to define it, which is why the whole concept of defining art is relatively pointless. It's like trying to define "meaning." I believe I'm agreeing with you, Patrick.


By sarah on Wednesday, October 11, 2006 - 04:16 pm:


    one man's art is another man's fart.




By Nate on Wednesday, October 11, 2006 - 04:40 pm:

    i ate a can of bush's vegetarian baked beans and a belgian ale for dinner last night. artistically.

    un pedo repugnante.

    i just don't understand dadaism. i thought it was anti-art. like a trick for the aristocracy of art appreciators who do not understand what art should be. is it new art because it rejects pretension?

    is it applicable in this world where the president gives speeches full of "uhms"?

    i think that society has become dada and the struggle of the artist is to uncover the beauty and vitality of the world unseen by the blinded masses. and that struggle is severe.


By patrick on Wednesday, October 11, 2006 - 04:47 pm:

    see agatha, i dont think its the creator. i think its the view. because isnt that whole point? art is for the viewer? i mean, its a process and an experience wholly belonging to the creator but when its out for public consumption, it's no longer the creator's is it?


    a lot of people like to give warhol shit for his art. a lot of people don't consider it art. how many times have you heard the "how is a campbells soup can art? thats not art? thats copyright infringement!" or anything along those lines? what made warhol's work art relavent was the time and space in which it occured.


    so what im saying is, if a blast from nates ass, in the proper context, in the right time and space, yes, most definitely could be art.


By patrick on Wednesday, October 11, 2006 - 04:50 pm:

    isnt the point of art communication? so shouldnt that ultinately define it?


By heather on Wednesday, October 11, 2006 - 05:24 pm:

    i don't know if society was ever not this way. i think this "discussion" was left to a very small percentage until recently.

    i think the struggle of the "artist" is the struggle of all [or most, hopefully many] and it is personal.

    anything that rejects pretension fairly quickly becomes it.

    i can't believe i have used so many quotation marks.


By heather on Wednesday, October 11, 2006 - 07:14 pm:

    tickets acquired

    and for a special anniversary price

    nice


By agatha on Wednesday, October 11, 2006 - 11:09 pm:

    What?

    I agree with everything Heather said, except for her last posting, which I didn't understand.


By Nate on Thursday, October 12, 2006 - 02:30 am:

    hooray. i think you'll like it.


By dave. on Thursday, October 12, 2006 - 03:57 am:

    god dammit, tell me i didn't just read a "what is art" thread.


By Dr Pepper on Thursday, October 12, 2006 - 03:59 am:

    As a art, my heart go out to you,as well as my fart.


By sarah on Thursday, October 12, 2006 - 09:45 am:


    are you guys getting back together or what?




By Nate on Thursday, October 12, 2006 - 10:56 am:

    that seems rather unlikely.


By sarah on Thursday, October 12, 2006 - 11:38 am:



    just teasing.




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