Exercise 5: Finding out more

We are asked to find two examples of still life work that include pictures of fish, so I chose two pieces from the Bridgeman site and sketched them in my notebook (there is a reason why I am interested in writing and photography, rather than in painting or drawing!).

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Sketches of two still lifes with fish, 05/03/2016

The two images and notes are as follows:

1. Sandra Lawrence, Starfruit and Fish, 1999 (acrylic of canvas)
   I liked the symmetry of the fish in this image and the way their curves contrast with the angles of the starfruit. There is also a hint of realism about the painting.
    
2. Reuven Rubin, Still Life with Anemones, (oil on canvas)
   This image appealed to me for quite different reasons—I liked the stylized flowers and fish lying on a copy of the Haaretz newspaper. The painting is evocative rather than realistic and I think a boat and a tree are to be seen through the curtains. To be honest, I didn't even notice the boat-like shape until I started to make this rough sketch of the painting. Perhaps one value of sketching is that it forces us to slow down and be more attentive to what is in front of us.

The other part of this exercise involved watching a Khan Academy video on Damien Hirst's The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living. The speakers on the video discussed possible interpretations of Hirst's piece as well as meaning in contemporary art. Like me, one of the participants wondered if the title of the work was a piece of wordplay and mentioned that he could interpret, but felt "like I would be making stuff up."

One of the participants gave a useful quotation from Marcel Duchamp to the effect that "a work of art is completed by the viewer." I think that is a helpful insight: the artist makes some choices for the audience (one participant says Hirst "has framed the shark for us") but it lies with the audience to bring something to the exchange. Once we get away from the older still life that we saw in the previous exercise, where there is a familiar frame of reference, the artist can suggest possibilities to an audience that may reply with a range of interpretations, expected or unexpected. I think this can be both exciting and unsettling all at once.

The other line of discussion had to do with the fact that we all face death and don't like it. Hirst's shark is a physical demonstration that in spite of extreme measures—up to and including formaldehyde tanks—we cannot escape the effects of time and, ultimately, death. One speaker mentions how mummified Egyptian kings are an example of how constant the fight against impermanence has been in human history. This brought the discussion back to the issue of meaning and how much of contemporary art turns around issues of philosophy, aesthetics and the limits of interpretation: "is this a grand joke if nothing is off-limits?" Well, if the viewer is responsible for helping to bring meaning to art, then there is likely no final and satisfying answer to that question.

The additional contextual information about The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living was helpful in reassuring me that there is probably no final "meaning" for a given work of art and that we are instead drawn into a discussion. Some points of view may be more informed, richer and more suggestive than others, but none is likely to be "correct."

Grayson Perry — "Beating the Bounds"

The second of Grayson Perry's Reith Lectures explores the boundaries of art: what sort of things do and do not qualify as contemporary art? 

Perry acknowledges that establishing the limits of art is not easy and that "art" itself has only existed as a self-conscious category for the last few centuries. And although anything can be art (for example, Duchamp's Fountain), art can stop being "art." If this is the case,  there must be boundaries even if these are sometimes emotional in nature rather than intellectual. And we want to know where the bounds lie. As Perry says, "I want to know when to put on my art goggles."

To help us do that, Perry proposes eight tests for art: 

1. Is it in a gallery or art context?
2. Is it a boring version of something else? 
3. Is it made by an artist? 
4. Photography is problematic: is the subject smiling? Is there any staginess?
5. The Limited Edition Test: "if something is endless it gives away some of its art quality." 
6. The Handbag and Hipster Test: who is looking at it? Is there a queue? 
7. The Rubbish Dump Test: would anyone notice it and pick it up? 
8. The Computer Art Test: would it cause anyone to pause and think rather than click through? 

No one test is sufficient to establish the "art"label, but Perry sees them forming a Venn diagram "and the bit in the middle is art."

I think that, while we might quibble about one test or another, this is a helpful approach to identifying art. It combines a cluster of judgements that take in the creator, the created object/event, the venue and the audience(s). And although Perry doesn't mention it, it also acknowledges implicitly the role of time: if a piece is "a boring version of something else," enough time must have elapsed for multiple versions to have been created and become boring. The audience/response tests (numbers 6, 7 and 8) also presuppose that an audience has had time to gather and make judgements. Some of those judgements will stand the test of time; others will pass quickly.

As someone with an interest in photography, I'll need to chew on number 4 a bit more. I think this is the weakest of Perry's tests, but it reflects some of the lengthy discussion about the art status of photographic work. Perhaps part of the answer is that a photograph is just as susceptible to Perry's other seven questions as any other piece of work. It would then be up to him to demonstrate why photography doesn't fit his Venn diagram. If a urinal can meet the tests, why not a photograph?

Exercise 2: What is art?

What is art?

This is obviously a tough one, but I think that almost anything that is a human creation or the result of a creative effort could be called art. But perhaps it takes more than that: perhaps there has to be some kind of intent on the part of the creator. I'm not sure about this, though—if enough people judge the result to be "art," does the one who performed or created it have to have intended it to be seen that way? How self-conscious do you have to be?

How do we know it is art?

I'm not sure about this, either. As I mentioned above, perhaps all creative work has the potential to be art. Grayson Perry's lecture ("Democracy has bad taste") suggests that quality in art is arrived at by a tribe. Could the same hold true for judging whether or not something is art at all?

Who decides what is art?

I'm not sure there can be an ultimate answer to this, but the judgement of the tribe or guild might be one place to start. The challenge with any guild, though, is that can become a closed shop—once it decides who is worthy it can then close the door to new people, ideas or approaches.

Does intent matter when judging what is art? Is reception the key? Is it enough if I decide that my work is art, regardless of what everyone else thinks?

If the simple fact that an item appears in a gallery makes it art, all we have done is hand over judgement to the gallery owner. Perhaps that is a good place to begin, but he or she is just one possible source of validation. Would others then be swayed by the gallery, rather than thinking about the value of the work itself?

Duchamp's statement about wanting "to put art back in the service of the mind" makes me wonder what he is opposing. Does he think that art has been in the service of the emotions? of sentiment? of fashion? of settled opinion? Perhaps he viewed his art as an opportunity to provoke thought. If that's the case, he must have seen Fountain as a success: it is not immediately clear why the artist views this piece as art, how he can offer it as his own work, and what the viewer is supposed to take away from it. The viewer can either reject the piece outright or be forced to think about questions of meaning.

Grayson Perry — "Democracy has bad taste"

I've just listened to the first of Grayson Perry's four Reith Lectures delivered in 2013. From the BBC podcast it sounds as though the lecture was great fun for all involved and Perry made a number of important points while entertaining his audience.

Through the series Perry promises to give his hearers some "tools to understand and appreciate art" from the standpoint of a practitioner rather than a member of academe. He suggests that the art world is often a "closed circle" and believes instead that "anyone can have a career in, or enjoy, the arts."

In this first lecture—"Democracy has bad taste"—Perry raises three questions related to quality in art:

1. How do we tell if something is good?
2. Who tells us?
3. Does it matter?

Some of the biggest challenges arise from conflicting criteria for quality and a perceived tension between popularity and quality. "Quality," then, often breaks down to what Perry suggests has become an "empirical measure of art": the market. And the market's assessment depends on a series of actors who "validate" the quality of art: artists themselves, critics, the media, the public, collectors and dealers. Above them all come the curators who decide which art if of "museum quality."

"Seriousness" can be another measure of the quality of art, but Perry sees a couple of problems with this approach. One is that modern artists have been far too self-conscious about producing "art" and have become captive to complex theory and "international art English" to justify their work. Another problem is that the category of "seriousness" is not helpful when trying to assess some activities, such as participatory art.

Perry ends his lecture by suggesting that perhaps art is good when "enough of the right people think it's good" and that "good taste works within a tribe."

I think that Perry is on to something that helps us to bridge the gap between objective and subjective measures of quality. The decision that something is "good" doesn't just come down to anyone's opinion ("what I like"); it also depends on a gradually settled opinion among several broad groups of people in the art world. Ideally, these different groups will have seen enough art and considered it deeply enough that their opinions will be well-informed. As Perry says in answer to a question after his lecture, "should we expect to understand art right away?"

This also brings us back to the overarching theme for this course: time and place. A settled opinion on quality takes time to develop among particular groups of (hopefully informed) people. But settled opinions can change over time, so what was "museum quality" in one era might not be seen the same way in another.

All told, the lecture was provocative and a lot of fun, so I think I may end up listening to the remaining three in the series. Good stuff!