HOOPS! EXPLAIN YOURSELF!

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I like the idea of performance art better than I like most performance art itself.

Now, here is a question that has been rolling around in my head for some time; is it still performance art if no one sees you do it? Or does it become conceptual art?

[Eater of Clowns]

I like the idea of performance art better than I like most performance art itself.

Now, here is a question that has been rolling around in my head for some time; is it still performance art if no one sees you do it? Or does it become conceptual art?

It becomes self indulgence.

[Jenne]

You can perform art for yourself.  Musicians do it all the time.

[Jenne]

...and I'm glad the thread didn't die.

[hooplala]

I like the idea of performance art better than I like most performance art itself.

Now, here is a question that has been rolling around in my head for some time; is it still performance art if no one sees you do it? Or does it become conceptual art?

I think it's still performance art.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I like the idea of performance art better than I like most performance art itself.

Now, here is a question that has been rolling around in my head for some time; is it still performance art if no one sees you do it? Or does it become conceptual art?

If an interpretive dancer falls in the forest, does anyone care?

[Jenne]

I like the idea of performance art better than I like most performance art itself.

Now, here is a question that has been rolling around in my head for some time; is it still performance art if no one sees you do it? Or does it become conceptual art?

If an interpretive dancer falls in the forest, does anyone care?

1) her orthopedist
2) her insurance agent
3) worker's comp check issuer

[Phox]

I like the idea of performance art better than I like most performance art itself.

Now, here is a question that has been rolling around in my head for some time; is it still performance art if no one sees you do it? Or does it become conceptual art?

If an interpretive dancer falls in the forest, does anyone care?

1) her orthopedist
2) her insurance agent
3) worker's comp check issuer

So.... no?

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I like the idea of performance art better than I like most performance art itself.

Now, here is a question that has been rolling around in my head for some time; is it still performance art if no one sees you do it? Or does it become conceptual art?

I think it's still performance art.

That's where I'm leaning, too.

Furthermore, I think it has the potential to be conceptual art, if the performance leaves physical artifacts. Or, if the performer later describes the performance as part of the piece.

[Cramulus]

THREAD RELATED: http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=20959.msg708388#msg708388

[AFK]

You can perform art for yourself.  Musicians do it all the time.

Yep, I do it all the time.

I find it to be very therapeutic.   

[Cramulus]

from the thread I just linked - a moment in time when I was a bit better at articulating why Dada was so important:

The dadaists. Absurdism. Nonsense.

It is common to think of these things as meaningless, effete gestures at the rational order. Random nonsense is often decried as a masturbatory means of expression, satisfying the communicator but boring the communicatee. Many people have a similar distaste for "modern" art. "Anyone can draw a single dot on a canvas, how is that art?" In part, they are reacting with frustration at their inability to grasp the expression with their rational mind. In this essay I hope to illustrate the intent of much "meaningless" expression.

I don't think that you should lump "modern art" and dadaism together in that manner. Modern art generally takes little or no real effort to produce, whereas Dadaism, (as I understand it), entails a concerted effort to be as bad as possible.

err, you know Dadaism is a form of "modern art", right?



a long long time ago art used to be entirely about skill. You were a good artist if you could paint realistic portraits or landscapes or whatever. The conceptual element was kind of minimal.

Many artistic movements are based on people coming up with a new way to conceive of something visually. Like the impressionists - that was the first time anybody tried to paint the "impression" of something. Largely, most artistic movements are in response to other artistic movements. The real story is invisible unless you understand the piece's context. Which means that most art isn't really meant to be understood by us chumps with no art history background.

In the 1930s, a cavalcade of renegades came along, including Marcel Duchamp and friends. They decided that the concept of the painting was more important than the technical skill involved in its production. By creating art that consisted of stuff like a single dot on a white canvas, they actually changed art. I think that's pretty impressive! Yes, it takes no technical skill to make a single dot, but they were saying that's not as important anymore. It's a new world.

It really irritated the art market, who was used to getting their pretty pastoral paintings to hang in the foyer and everybody thinks its lovely.

Mondrian (a "modern artist" whose paintings basically looks like lines and colored boxes) rejected symbolism entirely, trying to make paintings without even representing anything. Now you can look a a Mondrian painting and say "what a bunch of crap, any teenager could do that", but it's kind of missing the point. It's like criticizing ee cummings for not writing poetry in traditional rhyming lines and stanzas. It's not that he doesn't know how to capitalize. It's that he's intentionally breaking step from the last 2000 years of poetry.

Now, nobody can come along and make a single dot on a canvas and call it art again. Somebody already did that. You still have to be original to be an artist, although the current fad ("reappropriation") challenges the definition of originality.


that was kind of a tangent, and I'm sure I didn't do justice to the Dadaists. (like I said, I don't really have an art history background) But the point is that, critiquing the lack of technical skill involved in the production of "modern art" is missing the point.


Bringing it back to the topic, it only appears like nonsense if you're unaware of the piece's context.

[hooplala]

Good rant, if it can be considered a rant.

I like this thread.  I'm glad it has my name on it.

[Jenne]

You can perform art for yourself.  Musicians do it all the time.

Yep, I do it all the time.

I find it to be very therapeutic.   

A generic definition of "art" from dictionary.com yields the following:

the quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance.


I think this can be done alone, with no one watching, and still be considered an expression.  I think such expressions seem to get a lot of flak because the relation and significance the observer takes away from it might not always have the impact the observer was looking for.

[Eater of Clowns]

SO, I'm sure a few of us have heard about the "Piano Bar" incident.  There's a thread about it in High Weirdness and a few posts about it in Internet Shenanigans.

Basically a grand piano was left on a sand bar in Florida and unexplained for some time.

Later on, a 16 year old kid fessed up and took credit for it, citing that he liked the idea and was also trying to build up his art portfolio.

A few of us, myself included, loved the actual deed to death.  I thought it was a great bit of surrealism; that it's just the kind of thing that will get people to stop and look and really think about for a while.  On top of it, the stunt gained national attention, albeit shortlived.

Then we find out it's some rich kid's ploy to get into art school.  He was going to leave his name out of it, it seems, but someone indie filmmaker tried to claim credit for leaving that and several other pianos at various locations as some kind of publicity for a "controversial" new movie.  So the reactions, it seems, are that the stunt itself loses value because of the person that did it.

I agree that it's a disappointment that it's some prospective art school kid instead of, say, a group of culture jammers.  But is the value of it actually less because of who did it?  Now this filmmaker, who comes across as all kinds of pretentious AND tried to steal someone's credit - would it have been worth even less if it was him instead of a 16 year old being helped out by his dad?

I'm not convinced that the effect is changed because the story is changed.  If the piano was some kind of viral marketing attempt, the fact would remain that it got people's attention in a very real way.

And Able has already pointed out that this was apparently a Muse album cover?