Art
When does art go from being fun to being serious business?
There's an exhibition of student artwork on campus that I went and had a poke around this morning. Some of the stuff was really well done and interesting, but what I really got a kick out of was reading the descriptions that the students had written for where they came up with their artistic vision. These descriptions, while almost universally being well written and articulate (something that can't be taken for granted when reading student work), also were pure hogwash. As I walked around reading what can only be described as overly-analytical gobbledy-gook, I started thinking about the artistic process. When I was younger we would paint because it was fun, and I don't think I'm being an "old fart" when I say this...I truly believe that art is a fun activity and that is why little kids like to draw and paint and mold things with clay. The problem is, somewhere along the line, the fun is lost, and is replaced with statement. Let me explain, every description that I read today was trying to explain the statement that the piece of art was supposed to be making. Whether it's to show the overindulgence of consumerist behavior or to make an indictment of unhealthy eating habits or to demonstrate the illusion of capitalist culture or to intimate the destructive process of being in a relationship with another human being, each of these pieces of work was trying to make what the author felt to be a statement, and some of these statements ran to two or three pages of text.
Maybe it's just me, but I think they might just be taking themselves a little too seriously. I know that if I had a painting or sculpture in the exhibit, I would write a very simple phrase to explain my creation:
I started this because I could
I stopped when I thought it was good
Anything more than that is just gobbledy-gook.
When does art go from being fun to being serious business?
There's an exhibition of student artwork on campus that I went and had a poke around this morning. Some of the stuff was really well done and interesting, but what I really got a kick out of was reading the descriptions that the students had written for where they came up with their artistic vision. These descriptions, while almost universally being well written and articulate (something that can't be taken for granted when reading student work), also were pure hogwash. As I walked around reading what can only be described as overly-analytical gobbledy-gook, I started thinking about the artistic process. When I was younger we would paint because it was fun, and I don't think I'm being an "old fart" when I say this...I truly believe that art is a fun activity and that is why little kids like to draw and paint and mold things with clay. The problem is, somewhere along the line, the fun is lost, and is replaced with statement. Let me explain, every description that I read today was trying to explain the statement that the piece of art was supposed to be making. Whether it's to show the overindulgence of consumerist behavior or to make an indictment of unhealthy eating habits or to demonstrate the illusion of capitalist culture or to intimate the destructive process of being in a relationship with another human being, each of these pieces of work was trying to make what the author felt to be a statement, and some of these statements ran to two or three pages of text.
Maybe it's just me, but I think they might just be taking themselves a little too seriously. I know that if I had a painting or sculpture in the exhibit, I would write a very simple phrase to explain my creation:
I started this because I could
I stopped when I thought it was good
Anything more than that is just gobbledy-gook.
1 Comments:
Only Ye who ist an artist may comment on such matters! Gobbly-Gook for one person is meat and grist for the real artist!
Beware of critics!
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