Thornton writes:
It is missing the fact that art should be reproducible.
Ever listened to a CD of a symphony that you were moved by and found it coming up flat? I thought it was science that had to be reproducible. [JH]
The fact that science needs to be reproducible does not tell us that art does or does not. It doesn't have anything to do with art.
Everyone has heard music in one venue and found it wanting in another. You seem to be selectively leaving out the fact that I acknowledge this when I wrote:
"Certainly its meaning will be altered when it is reproduced, perhaps significantly, but some of its original meaning should still be discernable."
No two pieces of art will ever be identical but to imagine that a symphony, unless played by completely talentless musicians, you enjoyed on CD has none of its meaning when heard live is implausible in the extreme.
Were the farting exhibition to move to a gallery in San Francisco would it lose its meaning, assuming it has any? {JT}
Installation pieces are tricky.
What would Cheap Trick 'Live At Budokhan' sound like in Madison Square Garden?
How do you feel about Jenny Holtzer?
/jordan
I don't know Jenny Holtzer and while I like Cheap Trick I wouldn't call all of their concerts art. And again changing venues would strip it of all of its meaning. Entertainment, even well performed, isn't always necessarily art. You seem to want the apply the term art far to loosely and strip it of its meaning. Odd isn't it, here on LBO people are quick to state that to use the term racist too often will cause it to lose its meaning but we can label so many things art that the term loses its meaning.
John Thornton
This email was cleaned by emailStripper, available for free from http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm