posted
Had a discussion with a poetry professor recently. He gave me a poem to read. I thought it was nothing but crass, he thought it was "art". So I wanted to pose the question here concerning art and the profane. He stated that it is the role of art to provoke. I think using the profane or trying to shock is simply cheap and easy. Any thoughts?
posted
I've met a few people like that who think art is only useful if it provokes someone, usually implying anger. I agree that using profanity or making shock art is mostly just taking the easy way out. I think it is harder to illustrate the power of love than it is to illustrate the power of hate.
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posted
It's possible but not required for something to be both profane and artistic. Without knowing the poem in question, I can't really give you my opinion.
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posted
I think your professor is partially correct in that art needs to violate aesthetic and societal norms to a degree. However, the simple blanket statement of: "it is the role of art to provoke" is too general. To "provoke" is something subjective to the viewer of the particular piece and cannot be the sole purpose of art. What is provocation with no meaning? A man walking down the street waving a gun will provoke. In my opinion it would be better to define art as something that foments some sort of social awareness/change. Many artists will use provocative imagery to attempt to get the attention of the viewer, but this is to cause the viewer to think about the piece, draw from personal experience, bridge the gap between the piece and the viewer. The provocation is not the purpose, it is a means to an end. the end being the entire spectrum of aesthetic judgment drawn out of one person viewing one piece of art. In my opinion to say that art needs to provoke is only a half-truth, in that all art needs to have a reaction to function. art is not art when no one is observing it. and in this regard you professor is correct. I just think he tried to make too general of a statement.
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Art's purpose is to communicate. It's a sad little person who believes that art must be limited to what can provoke. What about art that celebrates? That comforts? That is joyful?
posted
If we look at classical art of the Renaissance, what is provoked? It seems that art has been severely limited by its use of shock. It is almost as though nothing can simply be viewable or entertaining and still be art.
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quote:Originally posted by Ramdac99: one could also paraphrase: "the best art is that which defies artistic norms."
I disagree with this, though...
originality and/or influence does not make art great (there's some crossover with the "greatest rock band" thread here).
I assert that Beethoven's 9th symphony is not great because of its imitators or because it challenged the standards, but because it is beautiful.
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I think this is correct depending on the definition you use. To provoke can mean to "stir to action or feeling." In that sense, yes the main purpose of art should be to create thoughts and feelings, even if it is something as simple as feeling and appreciating the fact that you are alive.
Sometimes shocking imagery might be appropriate, depending on the subject matter and the overall message. However, in many cases it seems to reflect the artist's inability to communicate effectively with the audience.
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posted
It is just as easy to provoke love as hate, or any other emotion. It is extremely difficult to do any of it well. I think good art does provoke something, an emotional or intellectual response of some kind, that's what makes it good. It doesn't have to be crude or profane to do it, but it can be.
As far as what is profane that depends on the individual, and the society. Many people thought the Sistine Chapel was profane when it was painted. Elvis was obscene when he danced. I don't know where the line is. I guess if it is only profane then society will not embrace it and it quickly be forgotten.
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posted
Art should make people have an emotional response of some kind. The emotional response that is meant to be felt is a matter of skill and experience. It's easy to provoke people into anger or hatred, we know that, but it is an emotional response. But limiting art to the profane and controversial limits the skill of the artist as well as the reach of the artform in my opinion.
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posted
"Provoke" is an accurate term, but it's more provocative than it needs to be. Art should make you think. Evoke is perhaps a better term.
I think artists like the word provoke because the people they'd like to affect are the people who are least likely to agree with them. They don't want to preach to the choir, so they produce art that generates controversy, and that forces those that wouldn't otherwise listen to pay attention to the issue, whatever it might be.
What comes to mind here is Serrano's "piss Christ" and the Ofili's "Virgin Mary." Provocative? Sure. Profane? Well, both of the artists consider themselves deeply religious. Why then would they risk blasphemy? Well, I'm not sure that either of them has ever explained the intended meaning of their art, but I've got some ideas.
Tthe first thing that strikes me about the piss Christ is that it's a beautiful photograph. Forget the name for a minute, and just look at it. Why would any Christian object to the image itself? But of course, Serrano has thrown a curve ball by giving it the name he did, and telling us how he made the photo. Just goes to show you, just because it looks like Christ doesn't mean it is. The crucifix is cheap plastic, obscured by urine. How often are good christians taken in by con men who use christian imagery to sell a cheap plastic product, obscured by smoke and mirrors? Taking God's name in vain finds a new meaning. Serrano is issuing a warning against blasphemy, not the other way around.
"Virgin Mary" has a number of issues, not the least of which is that Mary is black. 'Nuff said.
But then there are those little butterfly-looking things, that on closer inspection turn out to be female rear ends, complete with genitalia, clipped out of pornographic magazines. What's that all about? Well, like I said, I don't know what Ofili had in mind, but do you remember the first time you learned just what the term "virgin" means? Boy I remember that. I also remember explaining what virgin meant to my son. He gave me a really strange look, because the reason the word came up was that we were reading the bible. Why would such a sexually uptight religion go around using a sexually explicit word like that? Make no mistake, "virgin" is a sexually explicit term. So why not surround it with sexually explicit photos?
As for the elephant dung, your guess is as good as mine. Maybe better.
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posted
What is masturbation, after all, but pointlessly stimulating a part of your brain without any grander purpose? Is creating art for shock value all that terribly different? Once you learn to set off a sensitive part of the brain (yours or another person's), it's tempting to do it again and again, just to get an easy reaction. But more mature people typically rise above this sort of behavior, and devote themselves to more productive pursuits Posts: 1539 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
People are bandying about words like "creating art for shock value," but I feel they are meaningless except as applied to particular works of art. What poem are we talking about?
What's true that nobody else seems to have said yet in this thread, is that nearly all the art we find very acceptable and mainstream today was once shocking and offended the sensibilities of the times.
Stravinsky's Rite of Spring (one of my favorite pieces) was so offensive to the taste of the time that the audience rioted on opening night, and dear Igor was forced to jump out the bathroom window to escape an angry crowd.
The impressionists, who are as mainstream as you can get nowadays, were ridiculed in their time and their work was called cartoonish. It was said that they weren't technically capable of making realistic paintings, so they did childish fingerpaint-style work.
There's not a whole lot of documentation about Bach's life, but we do know that he was reprimanded in written form, early in his career, for putting strange notes into his organ playing that upset and annoyed the choir, and threw them off.
Before we dismiss art that's shocking to us today, and decide there's nothing to it but a cheap desire to shock, I think we should look at what has shocked people in history, and see if we are falling into the same mistakes they made. Obviously there was more to the impressionists, Bach, and Stravinsky than a simple desire to be shocking.
It can often be cheap and easy to do something shocking. Quite often the reason something has never been done before is that it sucks.
But sometimes an audience needs to be awakened to something... whether literally, as in the infamous "Surprise Symphony" or just figuratively, as with Stravinsky's (or for that matter, Trent Reznor's) work.
I personally think John Cage had to fight back laughter when his "4:30" or "Concerto for 9 tuned Radios" (pardon me if I have the titles wrong) were performed in front of large crowds of somber people in formal wear... but I have also heard work inspired by his that is haunting, eerie and frightneningly beautiful.
But being original is NOT everything. That way lies the thought process that cut off Christian Haroldson's fingers and cut out his tonuge rather than let him compose "derivative" work.
Posts: 3846 | Registered: Apr 2004
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posted
John Cage, though, was an entirely serious artist, even though some elements of playfulness are evident in his work. He was not poking fun nor being silly. He wanted to let sounds be themselves instead of shoving them around and imposing his will upon them all the time. His thought was influenced by Zen Buddhism and other philosophies. I really love John Cage! Seriously, his stuff makes your eyes pop out sometimes. He's terrific.
I have the sheet music to 4'33", that I practice from time to time. One day I'll master it. Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Tatiana: I have the sheet music to 4'33", that I practice from time to time. One day I'll master it.
(for those of you that don't get the joke... the piece is 4 minutes and 33 seconds of absolute silence)
Edit: and, Tatiana, you will never convince me he was "entirely serious". Brilliant? Yes. With a real message to be seriously considered? Sure. Absolutely serious? never!
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quote:Originally posted by Tatiana: People are bandying about words like "creating art for shock value," but I feel they are meaningless except as applied to particular works of art. What poem are we talking about?
The poem was something written by a student in the class of a professor friend of mine. I don't have permission to reproduce it and frankly if they were aware of what I thought of it I would probably never get the permission. So sorry on that account if any of you were really interested.
I was more interested in the conversation surrounding it. What role does art play in society? Why is anything shocking considered art?
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I'm not sure this is what your professor was saying. I think it's more likely that your professor was saying that something must be shocking to be art, not that all things shocking are art. I still disagree with even that statement, but YMMV.
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posted
Art is supposed to wake you up and make you more fully alive. It's supposed to engage as much of you, of your heart, mind, and spirit, as possible. Any art that lulls you into complacency may be pleasing to you, which is nice for its own sake, but the most important art you will ever experience will change your whole way of looking at life, it can change who you are, even.
I try to imagine whom I would be had I never read a book, listened to music, seen a painting, or watched a movie. I would definitely be someone altogether different, someone less thoughtful and aware, someone less.
The best art is often surprising and perplexing. It challenges what we think we know. It evokes responses from deep within, and is sometimes highly charged emotionally. This can have the effect of angering or outraging some people.
All art offends somebody. I know this for a fact because the sort of art that's specifically designed to offend no-one, stuff like Muzak and Disney, I find highly offensive myself, by nature of its blandness and insipidity.
It's not true that anything shocking is art, otherwise pornography would count as art, and highway accidents would be an art form. But what is true is that much of the best art is surprising or shocking in some way, for if you only see what is familiar, old, and expected, then you haven't gained much from the experience.
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posted
In my opinion the role of art is to make one think. This thinking can involve things such as invoking certain emotions, or viewing things from a point of view which had not previously been examined.
I think that "art" used solely for shock value is no more art than an unexpected slap in the face or someone blowing raspberries in the library.
Posts: 4548 | Registered: May 2001
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posted
As I've said before, Art is a way for us to feel vicarious emotions without risk.
We like to feel. We even like to feel bad emotions, so long as there is no risk. We enjoy feeling sad when a character in a story is sad. We enjoy feeling elated when the same character is triumphant. We go to a scarey movie to feel scared.
If art makes you feel, it is successful art.
However, It's soooooo easy to make people mad. If that's all you're doing it for, find something else to do becuase you have no real talent. Provoking art is just cheap art.
None of the people you mention went to art school. The economics and discourse of art has changed. That doesn't mean that there still won't be great art that shocks or surpises, but it's hard to see beyond the hype and the vainglorying and the posturing. It'd also be nice to see more craftsmanship and extending of the tradition.
Or to put it another way -- bombast has to be backed up by serious skillz and a desire to be apart from the crowd.
Or to respond more precisely:
quote:But what is true is that much of the best art is surprising or shocking in some way, for if you only see what is familiar, old, and expected, then you haven't gained much from the experience.
I completely agree. And actually I agree with pretty much everything you've said.
But I want to approach this from a different angle.
When there is a culture of shock -- when transgression becomes almost mundane -- what is unexpected varies. For instance, I think that _Gilead_ is one of the best novels of the past decade. And yet it carries none of the hallmarks of shock. In fact, in somes ways it is both old and familiar -- just unexpectedly and powerfully so.
Granted, my perspective is shaped by living in the Bay Area, but in my opinion, the performance art that LDS missionaries engage in every day on the streets of San Francisco is more interesting and shocking than the artist who coats her nude body in chocolate or the pseudo-hip-hop artist who drones on about Che Buevarra.
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