One review down so I can play some football.
I also said there were no hard and fast distinctions. It's like
discussing the differences between poetry and prose: the more you
look, the more elusive they are.
But as a general rule of thumb, yes, for me, art is what exceeds
practical function. So a chair might be a chair, something you can sit
on without it falling over, and it may also be an art object: but what
makes it an art object is not its practical function, but its
expressicity. (Sorry, can't think of a better word, although I'm sure
they're out there). Realise I'm saying that art is useless, but in
those terms of usefulness, I think it is. Muriel Rukeyser talks about
the "use" of poetry in her series of essays on The Life of Art, in
ways I thought illuminating, so it's not as if those effects, whatever
they are, are without use. Of course there are uses for expressivity.
But - as you will know in talking to any arts bureaucrat - the devil
is in the measuring of that use. It doesn't match function in any
graphable way, although, believe me, some people have done their best.
xA
On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 10:59 AM, Mark McGahon <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Dear All,
> I have been intently following this. A quick question for Alison, if you
> have the time to reply (it sounds like you're incredibly busy):
>
> You seem to suggest that the difference between craft and art can
> essentially be traced to utilitarianism. "He [a cabinet-maker] makes thing
> that have
> specific functions, and designs and crafts them so they fulfil the functions
> - usually practical functions - that he intends" and again, "things that
> were craft objects often become art objects when their usefulness no longer
> applies". Do such statements negate the usefulness of art simply because
> that usefulness cannot be physically measured, i.e. in the same way as a
> cabinet may be said to be more effective than another because it has more
> space to contain more items? Or can a piece of art not have a utilitarian
> purpose? Or perhaps I misunderstood you?
> Best,
> Mark.
>
>> Date: Sun, 28 Feb 2010 09:22:37 +1100
>> From: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: Re: Response
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>>
>> Peter, I see your point. But I don't accept that art is a privileged
>> category, although it has certainly been (but by no means always) a
>> decoration of privilege.
>>
>> (Excuse my brevity and any subsequent crudity, but I have to write a
>> review of John Waters, whom I saw last night, by lunchtime, and then
>> polish an essay that I have to finish today before I pack to go to
>> Adelaide to see some ... art. *Cough*).
>>
>> Maybe at a brute level we're talking about function. I don't make,
>> even if others do, a hierarchical distinction between craft and art,
>> ie, claim that art is "better". I do claim that art and craft are
>> *different*, even if the borders are far from clear. I have a friend
>> who is a master cabinet maker, and I love and admire the care with
>> which he invests his work. He makes beautiful things - cupboards,
>> kitchens, doors, on one occasion picture frames with inlaid mirrors
>> for some collages of my daughter. He doesn't claim that what he makes
>> is art, although he has great pride and satisfaction in his work and
>> certainly doesn't feel it is *inferior*. He makes thing that have
>> specific functions, and designs and crafts them so they fulfil the
>> functions - usually practical functions - that he intends. Sometimes
>> that crafting may become art.
>>
>> Although art (may) incorporate many aspects of craft, it does
>> something else as well: it is always primarily an articulation of
>> human expressivity, and that expressivity may not serve any practical
>> function whatsoever. Art is always excessive. This isn't a hard and
>> fast thing - things that were craft objects often become art objects
>> when their usefulness no longer applies, etc. That needn't be elitist
>> - in fact, in my heart of hearts I believe it is not elitist at all.
>> Art is there for everyone: the desire to express, to make something
>> that isn't *oneself*, is about as basic a human drive as there is.
>> There may be people who claim it it as some social privilege, but they
>> always seem to me to obscure the possibility of art when they do. Jim
>> makes some good points.
>>
>> Better go now - hope that makes sense -
>>
>> xA
>>
>> On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 1:26 AM, Jim Andrews <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> > Hi Peter,
>> >
>> > I enjoyed your post.
>> >
>> > I've been wondering about some related issues.
>> >
>> > You write of a distinction between "art" and "craft". And of the
>> > historical
>> > 'highness', aka 'power' or social status, or sometimes economic status,
>> > of
>> > "art" over "craft".
>> >
>> > I've been thinking about certain contemporary art in related terms. For
>> > instance, there is a sense in which net art is perceived as "folk art".
>> > Even
>> > your main BBC arts editor, Will Gompertz, could recently hazard that no
>> > artist had yet made a significant work of net art (see
>> > http://tinyurl.com/ycvpel9 ). I presume the sort of 'significance' he
>> > had in
>> > mind has to do with the valorization of the work in the 'highest' of art
>> > circles and institutional support reserved for the 'very best' of art.
>> >
>> > Whatever sorts of arts are barred entrance to these sorts of elite art
>> > valorizations are not necessarily outside all art, as it were, but
>> > simply
>> > outside of something that risks its own continuing relevance by barring
>> > the
>> > door to some of the best contemporary art.
>> >
>> > Sometimes arts remain strongly marginalized, such as mail art.
>> >
>> > One of the main matters in the distinction usually has to do with the
>> > place
>> > of the object within the economy of art. Is it salable? Is it salable in
>> > an
>> > art context? Can it generate economic wealth? No attractive successes
>> > exist
>> > concerning net art and the generation of economic wealth.
>> >
>> > Craft or folk art is usually inexpensive or free. So is net art.
>> >
>> > Also, folk art is often stitched together from already-existing folk art
>> > standards or relatively popular pieces. Similarly, the programming in
>> > net
>> > art is often cribbed together from google searches for code in
>> > programming
>> > languages such as Javascript, Actionscript, Lingo, PHP, Perl, Java,
>> > Processing, and so on. Knowledge of programming is relatively rare
>> > compared
>> > with the need to use functioning code.
>> >
>> > Also, the online 'communities' concerned with net art tend to approach
>> > it
>> > with a kind of a craft-oriented mentality. Lots of videos on youtube.
>> > Lots
>> > of stuff about offline projects but not much real net art. The
>> > self-satisfaction level and group-satisfaction level is folk art level.
>> > There is no significant interest by the group in pushing beyond the folk
>> > art
>> > level. Too scary. Programming. Scary stuff. Something unique? Yes but
>> > will
>> > it play on Facebook? Better a million eyeballs watching one's video than
>> > a
>> > mystery and small audience of pluginned concoction. Media for a very
>> > brief
>> > moment. Firefly media. Around the global village fire. But usually the
>> > audience is quite small, actually, for net art of any kind, not youtube
>> > mega
>> > audiences but networked micro audiences.
>> >
>> > As a net artist, I understand I could make the best net art in the known
>> > universe but still it won't be 'significant' in the terms of a Will
>> > Gompertz. And the sort of analysis you were writing concerning the
>> > "craft"
>> > versus "art" power distinction seems quite strongly related to the above
>> > sorts of questions.
>> >
>> > One of the conclusions I draw from all this is that once net artists
>> > start
>> > being able to support themselves with their work via sales they
>> > themselves
>> > control and promote, the tune will change somewhat, over time. Which is
>> > to
>> > say that the types of power you allude to are regulated less by
>> > aesthetic or
>> > philosophical acuity and judgement as by economic viability in some sort
>> > of
>> > significant economy of art.
>> >
>> > Contemporary music benefits greatly by the connectivity of its highs and
>> > lows. Folk music has its 'high' spots. Joan Baez, for example. Or Judy
>> > Collins, even. Or Joni Mitchell. My favorite contemporary folk music is
>> > by
>> > Vicki Bennett at http://www.peoplelikeus.org . She's a Brit living in
>> > New
>> > York.
>> >
>> > Which is just to briefly say that the connection of net art with 'folk',
>> > in
>> > all the dimensions of that term, is not simply a sentence to artistic
>> > obscurity and inconsequence but a source of life and vitality. The
>> > current
>> > connections among the 'folkish 'and 'art' of various levels is
>> > well-fabled
>> > in the postmodern.
>> >
>> > ja
>> > http://vispo.com
>> >
>> >
>> > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Peter Riley" <[log in to unmask]>
>> > To: <[log in to unmask]>
>> > Sent: Saturday, February 27, 2010 2:19 AM
>> > Subject: Re: Response
>> >
>> >
>> >>
>> >> Well at least, Alison, we know what "craft" is. But "art" -- who on
>> >> earth knows what that is? Most of the arguments I've seen about it are
>> >> circular: Art is superior to design because it's art. Even Heidegger's
>> >> distinction looks to me like special pleading ("forms of truth
>> >> happening" doesn't require any materiality at all.) and I don't see
>> >> that a finely sculpted cornice or a skilled and sensitive jig by an
>> >> Irish fiddler isn't a realisation of incipient truth, a disclosure of
>> >> further world, etc., any less than anything else is.
>> >>
>> >> And didn't "art" earlier mean just that, making something? And didn't
>> >> "poet" mean person who makes?
>> >>
>> >> How about this for an improvised thesis: We've inherited the concept
>> >> "art" from agrarian societies in which a small dominant group had all
>> >> the political power and maintained its separation by linguistic and
>> >> cultural means including religious as well as administrative and
>> >> military, which involved maintaining a separate language and modes of
>> >> understanding inaccessible to the mass of the population. They had
>> >> "art", the peasants had "craft". And that habit is still with us, we
>> >> still maintain our group high-cultures and their languages whether it
>> >> be Latin, Sanskrit, Mandarin, avant-garde, "Cambridge-poetry" or
>> >> whatever kind of language it was or is. Art is always "up", craft is
>> >> "raised" to it. And that up, that above us, means power, whether it is
>> >> actually implementable or not, and privilege, whether material or not.
>> >>
>> >> Pr
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Editor, Masthead: http://www.masthead.net.au
>> Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
>> Home page: http://www.alisoncroggon.com
>
> ________________________________
> Hotmail: Powerful Free email with security by Microsoft. Get it now.
--
Editor, Masthead: http://www.masthead.net.au
Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
Home page: http://www.alisoncroggon.com
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