I have given up on the “What is Art?” question because I’ve decided it just is – or as the masthead of Over the Net blog says “Art – Reality caught unawares“.
However this leaves me with another conundrum. Why is the artworld, or more to the point, why are some people in the artworld so snarky?* It doesn’t seem to be any one group, although perhaps some are more vocal than others. The contemporary art people sneer at painters and people who like paintings, the painting people sneer at the conceptual ones and on it goes. I don’t get it, although I suspect it has to do with fashion and maybe money and of course some people are just snarky.
I just figure you like what you like. For example I have a confessed passion for 1970’s NZ painting (and also a very soft spot for McCahon) but I also have an appreciation for some more contemporary/conceptual stuff and performance works. I am a bit of an art magpie, and I have no expectation that anyone shares my taste or even understands it. I do hope that other people would extend the same courtesy.
This also goes for my often wild ideas on art theory. I love debate and am open-minded enough to want to hear many sides to a story or idea. I like it when people point things out to me and educate me here in comments or personal emails. Artbash can be pretty helpful like that too. Of course I get criticism for being so New Zealand-centric, but there is so much to know and a geographical focus probably isn’t that bad as a starting point. I figure all those old 1970/80s “Don’t leave town ’til you’ve seen the country” ads have had a lasting impact on me, same goes for literature, music, wine and food (oohh that little linky list might be telling). I hope it doesn’t all sound too defensive.
And so to some art I am liking right now. Bill Culbert and Ralph Hotere “Pathway to the Sea– Aramoana” (1991) – the lithographs currently on show at Te Papa, but also the installation (below).
* This is obviously a generalisation. Mostly the people I have met have been very pleasant (to my face).
I went to Wellington
to sell some things.
I came home with a promissory note
that would force me back again.
Could i get on the Writer’s Walk with that? (it’s a true story) Hehe.
With a bit of chalk, Merc – ANYONE can be on the Wellington Writers Walk
In my day a bit of chalk meant something entirely different, mawp…
Maybe I should re-phrase that…..
I wonder when the old guard nz poets (and in my book you can’t be an essayist/poet, or a novelist/poet) will stand down? And, a question,
Is poetry art?
They don’t stand down – they die. Poetry is art, not ART unless its in some form of sculpture or on a painting. Are you a poetry snark?
Oh dear, possibly…I try to be good…Rimbaud stood down…then died. I might stand down, if the words come contrived, I will quit, promise.
Nah – have fun – here and with your poetry!
Well, poetry is not life, it’s more important than that.
[…] and Best-of-3 has given a wonderful answer to my querying of the supposed snarkinessof the artworld – “it’s because we care“. As I said I love to be educated and […]
[…] that only people with an art/history education are entitled to an opinion? I have a extensively confessed bias to New Zealand art because that is what I am able to engage with easily – is that […]