An Artform In Its Own Right

(And my argument was (approximately) so the fuck what?)

― Tom (Groke), Thursday, 19 September 2002 11:19 (7 years ago) Permalink

Not this Jon - I posted no that thread but I think another Jon started it...

I am in state of perpetual schizophrenia on this one. I hate the word 'art' - like the word 'canon' - becuase I believe it has more to do with markets than any innate difference between one cultural product and another.

Yet I love making lists.

And - more germane to this thread - I do think 'culture' has the power to do extraordinary things to people, and the high points of this need a name. Redefined that way, I often use the word 'art' because there's no better word. And pop certainly has produced those kinds of high points, though we'll fight for ever about what they are (for my money, both the perfect artifice of Abba and the profound inspiration of Burning Spear qualify for the A word, just as there's room in art for both Rothko and Lichtenstein, or in classical music for both pop Schubert and Beethoen or whatever.

I once did a c90 trying to persuade my dad that pop could have the same breadth, depth etc as classical. I'd share it with you if I could remember what was on it!

― jon (jon), Thursday, 19 September 2002 11:20 (7 years ago) Permalink

''I do think 'culture' has the power to do extraordinary things to people, and the high points of this need a name.''

No, i think each person must define their own high points, they can say why and talk abt it whenever it comes up but to put it in a list and just leave it at that makes it so...useless, how can you just rank the high points of your life like that?

Saying soemthing is an artform makes it so 'serious' no? and when things get serious it is time to go home.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Thursday, 19 September 2002 11:51 (7 years ago) Permalink

I'm not defending lists (though I enjoy them enough) so much as trying to find a meaning for 'art' - which I guess is what Tom is addressing.

And if 'Dancing Queen' or 'Taxman' or the 'Paid in Full remix' qualify as 'art' (they do because I like them!) I think we're still in realms of smiles as well as seriousness.

― jon (jon), Thursday, 19 September 2002 12:06 (7 years ago) Permalink

I think that reducing 'art' to a synonym for 'good' is not much use tho Jon, not least cos it opens up the "That's not art" argument.

I suppose what I'm asking is - are there any definitions of 'artform' for which pop does not already qualify? Saying 'it needs a canon' is to me suggesting that art is defined by the structures set up to study and criticise it, which is an interesting perspective and could be argued - but I don't think it's what Other Jon was getting at.

― Tom (Groke), Thursday, 19 September 2002 12:10 (7 years ago) Permalink

sorry to interrupt the discussion. Tom: did you receive my 102 beats that entry Tom (sent it to yr bt connect addy)?

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Thursday, 19 September 2002 12:15 (7 years ago) Permalink

Not checked that address for a cpl days - im sure i did though, it is working.

― Tom (Groke), Thursday, 19 September 2002 12:17 (7 years ago) Permalink

''I suppose what I'm asking is - are there any definitions of 'artform' for which pop does not already qualify?''

it's a good question but I can't ans it becuz I don't know that there are many definitions of artform and what they would be (I prob know but i can't think of any right now)?

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Thursday, 19 September 2002 12:21 (7 years ago) Permalink

What is gained and lost by considering pop music as an 'artform'?
Gained: Snobbish 'Legitimacy'
Lost: Spontaneity.
Also, we'd have to suffer though a bunch of 'Seminars' where twits compare Britney and Christina by their atomic weights, or something.

― Lord Custos Alpha (Lord Custos Alpha), Thursday, 19 September 2002 12:26 (7 years ago) Permalink

'are there any definitions of 'artform' for which pop does not already qualify'

DOn't you come back to the same problem as I have? Either there are simply various forms of cultural production, or you have to find words to classify within them.

'Art' within this is either a synonym for 'good' (or some other qualitative statement) or it's a specific cultural mode.

The 'art' I object to is precisely a specific cultural mode: an appraoch to cultural products which defines specific modes of production (painting, music being tops) as bettr than others and then fetishes an agreed canon within that, usually driven by an unholy brew of aesthetic expeience and market forces. It was invented c1600 and peaked after Romanticism.

As it claims some universal values, it often bleeds into a synonym for 'good'.

So 'art' either = 'very, very good' - fine, pop is often this.

or it = cultural specific capitalist western thing = pop is not this, but some rock has been influenced by it and made claims to be it. Prog, for example.

Christ, making this kind of an argument in a rush does not make for great clarity of expression.

― jon (jon), Thursday, 19 September 2002 12:46 (7 years ago) Permalink

My main objection to art=good is that in practise I have encountered large amounts of bad art.

― Tom (Groke), Thursday, 19 September 2002 12:49 (7 years ago) Permalink

absolutely. But if you take the point of view that all forms of cultural activity (by which I mean many kinds of human activity, perhaps even language, gesture, certain landscape) are potentially 'good' and call that 'good' art, then you can certainly walk around saying 'Monet is Art, Renior is just painting' just as you can say 'Abba is Art, S club 7 is just pop music'.

― jon (jon), Thursday, 19 September 2002 13:05 (7 years ago) Permalink

Yes but that makes you worse than the people who think no pop music is art.

The mode of cultural production definition has the advantage that its linked to stuff people actually do.

― Tom (Groke), Thursday, 19 September 2002 13:07 (7 years ago) Permalink

Culture = "everything we do that monkeys don't" vs "contact with the best which has been thought and said in the world". Fite.

I think most definitions of art, from Hippocrates to Arnold, would say something about its enduring qualities. Which is kind of problematic with pop, as is often pointed out round here.

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Thursday, 19 September 2002 13:11 (7 years ago) Permalink

sweeetness and light!!

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 19 September 2002 13:16 (7 years ago) Permalink

'Culture = "everything we do that monkeys don't" vs "contact with the best which has been thought and said in the world". Fite.'

Except I'm saying, yes, 'culture' is a key element in the first part of your statement; but yes, 'art' is the best word we've got for the second part. So it's not a versus.

...

'The mode of cultural production definition has the advantage that its linked to stuff people actually do.'

Yes, agree. The choice is one or the other, isn't it? But my view of this option is that it doesn't include 'pop'.. though I could be convinced otherwise ... need some more defining of terms by you.

But, 'Yes but that makes you worse than the people who think no pop music is art.'

Why?

― jon (jon), Thursday, 19 September 2002 13:28 (7 years ago) Permalink

I don't see why it includes other kinds of music and not 'pop'.

OK you could work towards a definition by thinking of art as the production of objects and experiences whose primary purpose is to create an aesthetic response.

Saying "Abba is art, S Club 7 is just pop" - but why use the a-word, why not just say Abba is good, S Club 7 isn't? It makes you worse because it makes you look like you're using 'art' either a)because it sounds fancier or b)to appeal to objectivity under a cloak of subjectivity.

― Tom (Groke), Thursday, 19 September 2002 13:40 (7 years ago) Permalink

This is kind of tangential from the main point of the thread i.e. what possible difference does it make to anyone listening if pop is an artform or not?

― Tom (Groke), Thursday, 19 September 2002 13:43 (7 years ago) Permalink

It should include all musics, including pop. But Ok, fair enough, I'll use 'good' in future. Or rather 'very, very good' instead of 'art'.

I guess its tangential but I'm stuck with defititions (is anyone else)? To decide if it matters, we have to agree what we mean by 'artform'. What do you mean?

― jon (jon), Thursday, 19 September 2002 13:55 (7 years ago) Permalink

Let's say that one practical definition of art = it has a regular column and critic in a broadsheet newspaper, ie it is accepted by the parent culture. This happened to cinema and has happened to pop. In time, it will probably happen to videogames. What difference does it make to the listener? They no longer feel guilty (if they ever did) about wasting their time on something frivolous, or - they can no longer enjoy the frisson of feeling unrespectable.

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Thursday, 19 September 2002 14:12 (7 years ago) Permalink

Good one. I'll buy that.

― jon (jon), Thursday, 19 September 2002 14:24 (7 years ago) Permalink

to Jerry the Nipper: (+1, Insightful)

― Lord Custos Alpha (Lord Custos Alpha), Thursday, 19 September 2002 18:06 (7 years ago) Permalink