Quote:
|
Originally Posted by demonrail666
I half agree with you on that. I agree that within art education the question 'what is art?' has been largely abandoned. I'm not sure if that's such a good thing though. Someone applies to study art at an art school so it obviously means something. If someone were to turn up at an art school and then have to write essays about quantum physics for three years they'd be justified in saying that this isn't art. They should therefore be encouraged to look at what art actually is. The fact that there's no single answer to that question shouldn't mean that it's avoided as a question altogether. When Duchamp created R. Mutt he had a clear enough understanding of what art was meant to be on an establishment level at that time in order to oppose it. My fear is that many contemporary artists have little awareness of the various discourses surrounding 'what art is' now and, as such, are prevented from making conscious moves either to reinforce those ideas or oppose them.
|
Is it something particular to the nature of art that you wouldn't ever say 'well, it's not
really astronomy, is it?'
I tend to feel that, while there's clearly a lot of fraudhattery in the (visual, gallery-based) art world, I can't think of another field which comes under so much scrutiny by people who largely don't
actually care. By which I mean, I almost never read any articles complaining that the LHC (or whatever) are a fatuous and superfluous use of money (it probably isn't, I neither know nor care) but people seem to think that galleries they haven't visited are fair game for accusations of emperor's new clothes.
Which isn't to say I don't sympathise with your opinion I just... well, it's odd is all.