On Art

so what makes something art? nowadays you see a lot of this postmodern stuff, like a 10 foot pot filled to the brim with cigarette butts, for instance, and a lot of people are thinking, what the hell is this crap? it's like anyone can take some piece of garbage and sell it for thousands of dollars and say its art. so does something have to take skill to make to be considered art?
the same goes with literature--ever read(or try to read) finnegan's wake, by james joyce, for instance?
and the constant wars between the punk rockers and the metal-heads or whatever in modern music. does a song have to be complex to make it good? is it possible for a 3 or 2 chord song to be considered good, or does its lack of skill just make it crap?
i personally think that if somebody creates something that makes you feel good or at least experience some higher-plane emotion, then it is art. the creation of this art is really just a means to this end. for example, a really musically intelligent band could get together and spend months creating this perfectly complex song, and some dude could pull out a guitar and bang on it and shout out some lyrics and both sound equally good to me. yet most people would be like, well the first band is more talented, so what they created is better than what the other guy created.
same with all the other arts.
i guess it comes down to a difference between art and craft. being artistic, i think, is the ability to have a kind of intuition about what is going to get across to people. being a good craftsman is having the knowledge, the hand-eye coordination, whatever, to take this skill to its highes potential. i think the former is more important.

The Ramones were famous, and if you've heard many of their songs, you know it isn't the most complex music around.

The Sex Pistols barely knew their instruments, and they're legendary.

I guess with music, it depends on your talent to actually create music rather than to play your instrument or sing well. I really don't think it has to be complex. That's just my opinion.

With physical art, well, I admit I don't see anything in the post modern art you mentioned, but to some people it's genius. I guess I can't say it has to be incredibly complex to be art, considering what I just said about music. What they try to teach now is that anything is art if you want it to be. Of course, not everyone calls every piece of music or sculpture a "work of art."

"being artistic, i think, is the ability to have a kind of intuition about what is going to get across to people."

i have to disagree with you on this
artists don't just get things across to people, everyone sees the same piece of art differently, and some people might think it's crap, some might think it's great.
some people don't even know how to look at it, now how are you supposed to get something across to them ?
say, paiting
i never knew anything about painting at all
i didn't get it , to me it was about copying what to see on paper
but then someone showed me how to look at it
and now i can actually get a certain feeling from looking at a painting, and sometimes even argue about it


i posted a picture of a monument ( if you wanna call it that) i made in another forum, it was two people laying down , facing in opposite directions with their heads next to one another
you know what a couple of people said ? " they look dead" .........
............ yup....................
that's what they said


i still think that it's a pretty good piece, it was actually about two people that love each other and will always be together
but did i get the point across ?
not really

As a craftsman, I see art as being part of the craft.
I work with light, in photography the art is to give or form a preception. But being critical of my own work, I don't find most of it as worthy of being called art. When someone says it is good, I think they don't know anything about it. they are just saying so to be pleasant.
Having no musical ability on the other hand, I enjoy what is midiocre because I feel that just to be able to play an instrument is a talent. Not that I like much of what is called music but rather I enjoy hearing someone playing a flute or strumming a song on a guitar.

this is a really good thread, especially the points brought up in the first post. i dont know the answers to the questions but thought this should be reintroduced and ( hopefully )have more input.

Art is actually within us. It is the sense perception of all things. Art when painted, etc. is a medium between the painter and the viewers. Therefore some artists are naturally more artistic being more in tune with nature and themselves; some are more skilled in methodical ways. If we wish to judge how good art is purely it is how skilled the person is at recognising themselves and nature and how good their method is at communicating this. Becuase art is however a medium when expressed as a painting for example, the technical goodness of the paainting is down to ones ability to master method. This is first and foremost. Beyond this, the underlying brilliance of the painting is a product of the painter's akinness to imagination.

yes art is our perspective on the world. but where there is possible fame youll always have fakers. some take all of their inner understanding, thoughts, beliefs and knowledge of their materials to make - something- and sometimes, it doesn look like anything, doesnt make an obvious statement, or doesntlook like they put a lot of time into it. by just looking at something with no explanation, its nearly impossible to properly call it art. but if we do mistake crap for art so what. its just a title.
what does make me mad are people who abuse the awe factor. the unknowns of art. they glue a fork to a paper plate and try to get tons of money for it. ok sure, i love every kind of art, but when i smell greed rather than proper creation, it makes me hate the obviously weird or simple pieces of art. which is unfortunate.

if their work is 'genus' test their method. if they can't replicate work which is supposedly worse than theirs (in terms of value-not cost) sufficiently then their skills are not of an artst in the skill of the hand. yeah-cut the crap!

dude you guys are fucking retarded
anyone who thinks that they can get away with exploiting art should fucking burn in hell.
an art is something that one practices often, they want to perfect themselves with what they choose to do, some fuck hole cant just come around and throw paint on a fucking trashcan and put it on a wall and call it fucking art! and whoever thinks so should fucking die, im not even kidding, you guys are fuckin retarded for saying all the stupid ass shit youre saying. GAHHH
fuck you wannabe artists, and fuck those of you who support them!

art - one word - minimalism - not very complicated there. All it needs to do is invoke or provoke a response in someone to fit the category - individualism is labeled such for a reason. And pool is right in one way, you can't exploit art, all you can do is fool ignorant people into thinking something is art and then wasting their money on it. Course, a fool and his money.........

Art, to me, is a relative thing. There probably will never be one work of art that is seen the same by everyone. Perhaps the complexity of art can be measured by how many different things people are able to see in it. It's not about how long it took to build or how many chords it has, it's about the effect it has on others.

There's things I see as art that lots of other people thing is merely garbage. At my school, I found some really beautiful pottery in the dumpster and I took it home. Obviously someone thought it was bad enough to throw away, but now it's decorating my room, despite my parents' objections to my dumpster diving habits.

Poetry is also art. A lot of people look at poetry with less structure and say it's not as good because there isn't rhythm or rhyme. But if it makes its point and has an effect, that's what shows that it's a strong piece of art, because it causes others to /feel/ something.