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I wonder if this guy is an artist?

How to Tell Good Art from Bad
By Caleb Jacobo

I recently read an article on BBC about technology and the arts by Eyal Gever, a digital sculptor. The article brought up a question that I feel is extremely relevant to modern Americans and the modern world: What is true art?

The question used to be much simpler. Before the age of information and computers, we took art as we could get it, and the simple existence of a painting or sculpture was proof enough of the piece demanding at least some kind of attention. Now, with technology providing new tools to artists, and the massive accessibility of any and all people’s “art,” we have information overload. As a result, art in the last twenty years, has lost vital respect and attention by ourselves and our government.

So the question I found so compelling was that of the definition of “true art.” People need to understand how to identify “true art” and have a comprehensive definition to define what they are looking for. I would like to offer a definition of art and an explanation to support it which is as follows:

“True Art is an organized piece of work that effectively communicates a genuine human experience.”

There are some important concepts that the general public should make themselves aware of in order to appreciate the exciting new canvases that technology offers the art world. Here are some tips on identifying the real deal, without any outside influence or help.

1. Know the medium : Now with technology offering so many avenues to painters, sculptors, and the like, it is vital to know what you are looking at. Knowing
the medium allows you to evaluate the kind of work required to produce the piece.
2. Know what you feel : Did the piece effectively communicate an emotion to you? When you experience the piece, no matter the medium, you should feel
something. If you don’t, the piece may not be “true” art.
3. Can you experience the piece in different ways: This is one of the big clues that what you experience is art. If you can evaluate a piece more than once to gain
more insight on it, you may well be experiencing true art.

These tips are all given openly for you to take what helps and trash what doesn’t. My goal in this article was to give the public some guidelines on judging art for themselves so that we can enter an artistic renaissance and advance our culture’s art sophistication and refinement in the all important struggle for us to communicate with each other.
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*This article was published at NationofChange at: http://www.nationofchange.org/how-tell- ... 1349623155. All rights are reserved.

His audience is the mass, consuming audience of art buyers, or artists? Informing the public, who does not want to know and does not care, is like teaching a pig how to read. For myself, I found it educational and I may present it to my classes, but I'm a little wary of defining art. When I taught poetry, I would tell my students a good poem would elicit emotion, while a sorry poem would use sentimentality to provoke emotion.

Dude gets a little full of himself at the end there doesn't he? Yeah, Shawn, I'd guess he's an artist.

Interesting , as I'm studying, and at the stage, again, of thinking about what makes up my arts practice.. Best take on looking at art is a short one and I cant remember where I found it.

What is the artist trying to achieve ?
Do they achieve it ?
Was it worth doing ? the big one.

Ben Shahn put out a good comment in his book The Shape of Content.
"Forms in art arise from the impact of an idea upon material, or the impinging of mind upon material. They stem out of the human wish to formulate ideas, to recreate them into entities, so that they will not depart fitfully as they do from the mind, so that thinking and beliefs and attitudes may endure as actual things,"

I think times are a changing, in the art world too. Lots of funding cuts to education and arts projects, that may have gone too far into the anything goes realm. Seems to have relied on the networks of elitists that I've detested for a long time. I wouldn't want the lot thrown out, just a sort out.

Peter.

It is not that confusing.
Art should immediately impress and have an emotional recall.
What is this good art, art is art, it its not art it is craft or crap
Here in Australia a $100,000 prize was given for a ridiculous sculpture becaue it had a philosophic title.
Without the title it would be seen as crap.
If the piece cannot speak for itself it is NOT art.

Yep it seems that big prizes and public funding is a form of censorship, in reverse. Sort it out or get rid of it. Too much crap is alienating the public completely. I've heard the game, "if the public like it it can't be art". So get a factory job and pay for it yourself.A smaller population in Australia means less private collecting but doesn't mean we have to overdo the public spend to the point of a parasite class.
Peter.

Thank you Peter,
I love your comment "if the public like it it can't be art".
In the painting art industry as least you see a "trickle down effect"

In the Australian Sculpture industry? it is all about "who you Know"
The elites looking after themselves.(up themselves, with Government money)

I love the comment. " I don't know anything about art, but I know what I like"
What is wrong with that, its Real.

If the public will not buy your art, you are either too expensive or its not ART.

I hate the American term of "good art etc" too much spin. (call a spade a spade)

I like this sort of stuff. Cut the beaurocracy and get it straight out there. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X32TAPulJkM
Turns ot I'm not too bad with a paint brush, so I'm going to push that, and print making (glass plates) and when I do glass it will be in the galleries other than glass or direct.
What part of the country are you from Beau?
Peter.

Hi Peter,
I am a Grey Nomad, Travel north in Winter, South in Summer, Currently in Brisbane.
I have just returned from Cruising through Northern Indonesia, an adventure, not fun.
I lived in California for 10 years, now pleased to be back in Australia.

Got part way through a doco on death row inmates, but found an interesting quote of De Vinci that was made and was the only highlight. It's not what you see but more about how you see it. There are usually only two people living at home where I make stuff, and sometimes we just can't agree.
I create a canefire from childhood memory into glass, when you get a homesick dutchman all he can see is a tulip. He likes the tulip, so it's a tulip.
peace, haydo

Interesting video Peter, thank you.
Sheryl

I'm reading Frank Stella's new book. He questions :" Does it have to be good to be Art?"

Babette (Shawn) wrote:I would like to offer a definition of art and an explanation to support it which is as follows:
“True Art is an organized piece of work that effectively communicates a genuine human experience.”

DonMcClennen wrote:I'm reading Frank Stella's new book. He questions :" Does it have to be good to be Art?"

It was probably around '97 when I made a trip to New York and spent a couple of hours in the Guggenheim Museum.

At that time, "Shock Art" was prominently displayed. For example, there was a very large model of a human nose fastened to the wall and every
30 seconds or so it [the nose] would make sneezing noises then expel a proportional volume of snot.
I also entered one galley where they had a series of photographs of trans-gender people in sexual positions and/or peeing on the Mother Mary. I don't recall if that was Maplethorpe's work.

Just those two examples sure left an indelible imprint in my mind so I reckon they do qualify as "Art". I left wondering where all the "Good Artists"
were displaying their work.

I wasted my money on that visit.

Jim

DonMcClennen wrote:I'm reading Frank Stella's new book. He questions :" Does it have to be good to be Art?"

that one stumps me. I have to go back a little further to David hume's 'Standards of taste" (precept #20): If I make a piece of crappy glass but YOU are fully engaged and knowledgable and in agreement with me in my complicated content framework (i.e. lets say 'I'm working through the interelationships between male gender archetypal preconceptions and mystical numeric porportions of floppy forms'), and my piece provides you with an ecstatically positive art experience, is it really/still a piece of crap because Frank Stella knows more than both of us and knows that it's crap, even though it has accomplished nearly everything that one could ask of an experience of a work of art? Well hell yes, but is it Art?

Don, you deserve a wider audience.

It is a brave person indeed who categorises the trueness of art according to whether or not the said work complies with criteria 1) 2) 3). Having seen a very memorable sculpture constructed from nothing more or less than PVC pipes, it wasn't the medium or the technique that impressed it was the logical twist that the sculpture conveyed. On the other hand, Van Gough's works in his lifetime were barely appreciated by anyone and some might have said that his technical skills also left much to be desired. How time changes perceptions.

Beau Lyons wrote:It is not that confusing.
Art should immediately impress and have an emotional recall.
What is this good art, art is art, it its not art it is craft or crap
Here in Australia a $100,000 prize was given for a ridiculous sculpture becaue it had a philosophic title.
Without the title it would be seen as crap.
If the piece cannot speak for itself it is NOT art.

Totally agree. Personal experience: I worked for a bronze sculptor as his fabricator when he had commissions, his web guy for his art & antiques gallery. Anyway, we did all the requisite drawings for a commission that was supposed to represent 4-5 of the local trades and their efforts. Ours was very realistic(guy's work is highly detailed, none of that cake frosting finish). They went with a 50' diameter(13-14 meter) black, bronze ring, sitting on a rock. A grand way to use $500k. Our local courthouse has a similar "art piece" - looks like a brushed finish, stainless steel toothpick about 50' tall, that melted a little in the sun. Oh hell, I found a picture. ? What do it mean?

I really do not know.....................
I find that my pieces where I have human faces are 'working ' strongly on those who view them, even though I have not invested too much thinking on them..
I feel that this is not REALLY art, but good technique, at the best case, and a 'nice' piece.
I want to speak more to the viewer's emotions, via the imagery I use, the colors textures etc. Perhaps it is more sophisticated, and not everyone can understand it

Havi

A good read is "The Principles of Art" by R.G. Collingwood who wrote this in 1923 but still has a lot of relevance to this subject today.

Tom Fuhrman wrote:A good read is "The Principles of Art" by R.G. Collingwood who wrote this in 1923 but still has a lot of relevance to this subject today.

I found the Google preview interesting that I might buy a copy - Abebooks.com, $3.47. Oh dear, what floral language - I'll have to keep the dictionary close at hand for this one. Will I too become a hierophant (he uses that)?