Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Is it art?
A few classes ago (I don’t remember) Romero Britto came up (whether his work could be called “art”). I’d like to put my ten cents: Let’s start with philosopher and art critic Arthur Danto. He suggests that we are not in a position to come up with an “a priori” definition of art (independent of the experience of artworks), because art can only be measured against the whole production of art throughout history. Some believe that art is only “one thing” and that's it (i.e., an object should not be considered “art” if it doesn’t fit such model). Say you live in 1940’s New York. The art of the moment is Abstract Expressionism (coming from prior European modern traditions in Europe). How would you have received a 1965 exhibit at MOMA entitled The Responsive Eye, showing so-called “Op Art?” If you were establishment, you’d have rejected it –as many well-known critics (Greenberg, Barbara Rose, Thomas Hess) did. Why? It didn’t fit the norms. Yet, today, Op Art is recognized as an important post-war art movement. Recently, I had a discussion with a group of people that don’t recognize performance art as a relevant art movement. How to avoid this pitfall? We know Praxiteles excelled among Athenian artists. He had remarkable craft and personal style. The reason we value his art as “canonical” is that he “fits” the tenets of Greek tradition, yet was able to push this tradition a little bit. From Praxiteles’ model, I’d like to suggest a tentative criterion for assessing “good” art: 1- Craft (meaning technical skill, proficiency of some sort), 2- Personal style (individuality that enriches and yet “fits” a given tradition), 3- The acknowledgment of peers. In a more distant place, 4- Being accepted in the historic canon. To judge a given work, one must apply the four elements together. Now, to answer the initial question: Does Romero Britto make art? Some people in the art scène would say, “Of course not.” However, Britto’s work has a personal style. His art exhibits a degree of craft (I’d say that he executes it properly). Finally, though the critics don’t accept him, he’s famous and figures in many important collectors’ collections. He has some degree of peer recognition, but his work has yet to survive the canon. Will Britto’s art become critically recognized at some point? I don’t know. We have to wait. In the meantime, is it art? Possibly. Is it good? Surely not as good as that of other Pop artists, like Warhol, Ruscha and Lichtenstein, whose influence in Britto's work is quite clear. Naïve? Decorative? It depends what you’re looking for. Sometimes, you crave a Big Mac instead of a Lobster Termidor; sometimes you want a cheap Tempranillo to down a tapa instead of a Burgundy. Now, apply that method to Britto's work.
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13 comments:
This is just as flawed as the last time it came up and it's saddening to see it uncorrected. In 1967 Greenberg made a statement (in Vogue, of all places) grouping "Pop, Op, and the rest of Novelty art," and said this about it: "...they turn out to be rather easy stuff, familiar and reassuring under all the ostensibly challenging novelties of staging - much closer to the middlebrow than the highbrow." Even that is not as pejorative as it sounds. In 1968 he said, "I like psychedelic posters the way I like Pop Art and Novelty Art in general - they're fun. Not bad art, but art on a low level - and fun on a low level too. I love rock-and-roll but it doesn't do to me what Schubert does, and in any case it wears out too fast."
So the extent to which he "dismissed" Op art is arguable. What is not arguable is whether he dismissed it entirely from the category of art. He did no such thing. It is a distortion to suggest otherwise by pairing his response to Op against the question of whether Britto's work is art. It is further distortion to explain his response by saying "It didn't fit the norms." There is zero evidence for this assertion, which in fact is an intentional fallacy. So while the statement, "Yet, today, Op Art is recognized as an important post-war art movement," is offered as evidence that Greenberg may have been mistaken (which is worth considering!), it's far from clear that he didn't think it was important in the first place. He didn't think it was the best art being made, but that's where our surety about the matter ends, and it still doesn't address the mechanism by which one might decide whether something is art.
This brings us to "I had a discussion with a group of people that don't recognize performance art as a relevant art movement." In the course of that discussion I asked AT repeatedly to point to anything that anyone had said which made a such a blanket negative assessment about performance art. He could not, because no one had. And yet here's the assertion being repeated again, with no evidence to support it.
This is how myths are made: by the repetition of statements that people want to be true. Regardless of what kind of art you like, I would invite participants in this discussion to ask themselves whether they want to have a mythical discussion or a reasoned one. The intellectual honesty of the whole exercise is at stake.
Franklin, at no point I said that Greenberg qualified Op art as non-art. He didn't have to. But he rejected it nonetheless and this is why: Greenberg divided art between "high" and "low." Abstract Expressionism was "high" and Op and Pop were "low." What does he mean? In his "Avant-Garde and Kitsch" Greenberg makes it obvious. According to Greenberg, "kitsch" (at its lowest) is "popular, commercial art and literature with their chromeotypes, magazine covers, illustrations, ads, slick and pulp fiction, comics, Tin Pan Alley music, tap dancing, Hollywood movies, etc., etc." So, Op art and Pop art are bad enough. What really disturbed him and some of his generation (particularly Harold Rosenberg and Rose) was the apparent appeal of pop art to the art world, as well as the growing infiltration of photography, the principal medium of mass culture, into the realm of high art. That’s why by the early 70’s Greenberg admitted that bad taste was on the ascendant (which is what you and your cohorts may think of the moment we live).
I'm glad we agree that Greenberg didn't say that Op wasn't art. Apparently we also agree that I never claimed not to "recognize performance art as a relevant art movement." It would be nice not to have to wonder whether you were going to repeat it.
The rest of your response is sort of a cartoon version of Greenberg. He said that good photography was as good as good painting. You're summing up his feelings about Pop and Op with an essay written in 1939. There wasn't just high and low for him, but a middle as well, and a high, middle, and low within them. The idea that you have the inside scoop on "what really disturbed him" does not strike me as credible.
There wasn't just high and low for him, but a middle as well, and a high, middle, and low within them.
Sure, I can imagine this Greenbergian pondering: “Do I like it? Well… it’s kind of low middle high... but not quite middle high yet."
You don't have to imagine it - you can read it. Even after characterizing Op rather negatively, he called Vasarely its best practitioner. It's not a matter of his having two levels or three or nine in some kind of stilted scheme, but a highly refined attention to his own responses, and enormous honesty about them.
Your comments on Artblog.net indicate that you have a huge problem with the passing of judgment, at least at times when I do it. You also seem to have trouble dealing with Greenberg except through a thick lens of interpretation. I wonder if they're related.
F. Relax and keep visiting. It's always a pleasure.
Relax? Dude, this is what I do to relax.
When argueing about wether or not something is good art we have to consider who we are asking. Since "good" or "bad" has to do completly with opinion it is easy to say that there is no definition of good art. By this logic it seems that it is not possible to even argue wether or not something can be considered art. When most people say that something is not art what they usually mean is that it is not good art. Since good and bad are mere opinions then art and not art would seem to be based solely on opinion as well. The idea that we judge art based upon all previous art production seems only logical. Previous experience is the only template to go on, however this method is invariably flawed becasue that would mean that, as more art is produced, the "art meter-stick" (our template of previously produced works) is changing. Therefore what we make today changes the way we judge what will be made tomorrow. "Is it art?" is a good question to ask because it raises debate and opens the minds of the art world. On the other hand while it is a good question to ponder, we can't expect to ever get an anwser to a question that has so much riding on opinion.
There are no different levels of art. The word is simply that a word. With the abstract expressionist it was there goal to present you objects, shapes, lines and marks symbolizing the world as they saw it, felt it, etc. The word art is thrown around just the same. It's stretched and shaped and marked with many different meaning and adaptations. Look at your MTV star, oh he's an artist. What about the girl who cuts into her stomach, she claims it's art. Why shouldn't it be for these people? Our interpretations of things are solely individual, and though I may say the word love, how do I know that you really understand love the way I do, or the MTV star, or the performance artist. Artists create for a reason, whatever it may be, and if they believe it to be art then let it be. Now I'm not saying they may get noticed, or everyone's going to like it, but if they love it, it should'nt matter. That argument could go on forever with no with endless arguments, but it always breaks down to the logical parts of the argument, and never any conclusion.
A New York Times article from Feb 4, 2007 (“In Miami, Art Without Angst” by Alex Williams) quite succinctly points us to the various sides of Romero Britto. He gives us a sample of those negative comments on his work not being art as alluded to by a.t. Williams quotes Elisa Turner, a critic who writes for The Miami Herald and for ArtNews, “I find the work of Romero Britto to be a commercial, flashy and warmed-over version of Pop art.” He also quotes UM art history professor, Paula Harper, “Mr. Britto incorporates elements of Pop art and Cubism in his work, but he is not an artist of Keith Haring’s stature. It “looks like art; it contains references to art [but] he’s really a brilliant commercial designer, in my opinion.” Taking just these two critiques, if one’s art is commercial, it’s not art. That’s too bad. Because being an artist is about being successful. But, wait, don’t get too successful because, well, then you just might fall in the category of commercial art, and, well, obviously in some people’s opinions, that’s not art. HOGWASH! Do artists have to be starving and have to suffer for their career? Only the gallery owners and collectors should make money off an artist’s work. Again, HOGWASH! And Hurrah! to Britto who has turned an iconic art form into a huge commercial success. Williams mentions in his article that a number of prominent collectors own Britto’s work. So, he is accepted by the collectors. And, the wonderful thing about Britto’s work is that it is also afforded by the common man—ie the non-collector, average Joe, who typically can’t afford high-end art because it is cost prohibitive. So, Britto, through his commercialization, manages to get art to the masses. Unlike the “accepted” artists that can only be seen in museums and private collections, Britto’s work is all over Miami and other cities—in public places, private homes, on TV, in magazine, on cars and bottles, as well as in museums and private collections. We would be lucky to have more artists like Britto. It’s time to stop the elitist rigamoral and let art be enjoyed by all. And, if that is accomplished through commercialization, so be it.
In our very first class we adressed this idea of whether or not something is art. Art is not mathetmatics, there is no recipe for what will equate to art. Anything an artist chooses to present as art IS art. During DaDa scraps of paper falling on the ground in a particular arrangement was called art by Jean Arp and no one today would question the validity of Dada as an artistic movement or whether or not Arp was an artist. Of course it can be someone's opinion as to whether or not something is good art or bad art but placing something in a gallery setting puts it into an art context, a snow shovel isnt a snow shovel in a museum or gallery, but an object which is pondered on its merits of design and the statement or comment the artist is trying to make.
As far as Britto goes, you may not like him but it sure is art.
Art lacks a satisfactory definition. It is easier to describe it as the way something is done "the use of skill and imagination in the creation of aesthetic objects, environments, or experiences that can be shared with others" rather than what it is. There are so many categories in art that really one might not think that a piece is art but, in reality it is art because, it falls into for example performance art or decorative art etc. Determining what classifies good and bad art is up to the artist that created the piece and the audience that will critic it. Everyone has different taste and thoughts as to what makes a piece good or bad. Romero Britto in my opinion is an artist and I do consider his work art. I don’t believe that its great art but, I don’t believe its bad either…I think its just okay. Some pieces I think are better then others. For instance, I believe that some of his life size Brittos like the buses which he has painted are better then some of his originals. Romero Britto’s is commercial art to me.. he has even started making perfumes, shoes, bags etc which he designs.
Nice discussion. Don't mind me.
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