[lbo-talk] art world in crisis!

andie nachgeborenen andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com
Tue Jan 30 15:24:28 PST 2007


There is no such thing as a nonsociological answer to What Is Art. Art is what people self-identified as artists do when they are doing something identified as making art, at least if they can get enough other artists and interested people -- curators, collectors, critics, art historians -- to agree. Some people confuse the question Is It Art with Is It Good, which is of course a different question. Good Art is what respected people who can talk in ways regarded by the community as an intelligent and informed way about the stuff that artists make like.

What makes Art Good is whether it comes up to the variable and changing standards adopted by these groups. The standards themselves are always up for grabs.

Cultured people, so called, are people who have reasonable familiarity with several sets of standards, some knowledge of how they are applied, and some awareness of and ability to talk about central exemplars of what various art communities have considered to be especially good or important.

(This is straight, unadulterated pragmatism.)

--- Alex <zap_path at yahoo.com> wrote:


> --- bitch at pulpculture.org wrote:
>
> > see, in my efforts to become cultured, I have
> asked you wankers over and
> > over again, how on earth do you know what Capital
> A Art is anyway. And it's
> > not just you, but the folks with art and lit
> backgrounds at the Pulp
> > Culture list: everyone who's ever insisted that
> there is such as thing as
> > timeless Art or even hinted at it. The best answer
> I've ever gotten is
> > something stupidly pithy like, "It speaks to a
> universal
> > experience." Whatev. I think people who say such
> things are utterly full
> > of shit. Art is what people define as art and as
> andie suggests, to be seen
> > as Capital A art, there always had to be
> gatekeepers to define what belongs
> > and what doesn't: A supremely human endeavor and
> certainly nothing etched
> > into the universe as Essence.
>
> Yup. There's a good book that's makes this argument
> among others: "What Good
> Are the Arts?" by John Carey.
>
> -Alex
>
>
>
>
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