What do you think people mistake for ‘art’?
“Art, like morality, consists in drawing the line somewhere.”—Gilbert K. Chesterton
Art is art, and even when it’s not art, art seems to still be art in its blatant, contrary non-artfulness. Still, when you take a step out of your deconstructive/postmodern/simplymodern/hipster shoes (c’mon man, just for a second), you’ve gotta have an opinion on something that just doesn’t cut it as ART. I mean graffitti, okay, but elevator music? And what about velvet paintings, I mean, isn’t that just like, um, a souvenir?
There was a photographer in the 30’s and 40’s who went by Brassai. He made his name doing night photography in Paris. I remember reading a piece about his still life setups once and he referred to his photos of smears of toothpaste or a stain on a wall as “unintentional sculptures”. It wasn’t designed to be art, it was toothpaste. But it was beautiful as a print.
- devdreamsmoonbeams
The term art is being used too lightly, almost anything can nowadays be consider art in some retrospect.It can be argued both ways.
- Arceey
I don’t believe that anything can be “mistaken” for art. Art is exists in everything from the most miniscule blade of grass to the well-worn spine of a book being reread. An unappreciative beholder may mistakenly identify absolutely anything as not being art but that does not make it so.
- writersblockgkp
The elephants that paint… yeah not art. That’s just paint and some trunk movement. The paintings are only cool because they were made by elephants, not because they are any good.
- sophmoph
People mistake for art anything that engages, interests or inspires them, regardless of how or why it was created. Randomness and anti-aestheticism are praised and very little of what is created in this way has anything to do with art, and only by accident. Cuteness and cleverness have certain aesthetic possibilities, of course–as do sex and violence–but they are very limited. And there most certainly is an intentionality to art that is required before something can truly be considered Art (big A). Masses of people can be cute, and clever as well, who have no ability or sense of art at all. But just because someone then pays millions of dollars for it does not make it Art. Unfortunately, Art is lost in pop “art” as Sport has been lost in professional “sport”–which is an oxymoron of the strongest kind. Absurdity now reigns, and confusion makes it look good. And the world is upside down.
- plemlit
http://www.soulpancake.com/post/696/what-do-you-think-people-mistake-for-art.html
