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Message
Posted
Agreed - in the case of Jenny Saville, one may like or dislike her work, but you can't seriously cast doubt on her ability (and who doesn't copy, or build on, others' ideas?). There's plenty of room for innumerable techniques and approaches to art - and anyway, I'm with Bertrand Russell on this (he'd have been SO pleased that I agree with him!): he was asked the old question, basically; you're over 90, how do the rest of us get there in good mental health (assuming we'd want to get there at all). I can't quote his precise words, and precision matters with Russell, but I do recall his encouragement to "open out" - the alternative to narrowing down, becoming set in one's ways, stuck in the predestinate groove as someone else once put it ("not even a bus, but a tram").
It's not essential that we love any of these artists, and criticism of them - if well-considered (and there's the snag) - is perfectly fine for so long as we're prepared to look at matters from their point of view as well as our own, since our view may be obscured by prejudices, assumptions, even neophobia (a characteristic of rats, by the way: they don't like change - remind me, if you're feeling bored, to tell you about the strike our male rat went on when we tried to enlarge and adapt his cage: "no; not having it; put it back as it was"...).
I'm as guilty of falling for irrational, knee-jerk responses to others' work as anyone, but unlike some art critics - I do make a conscious effort to avoid it. Particularly when I often feel that my hostility is coming from a position of ignorance - not understanding what they're trying to do, or why they chose their particular means of doing it. (You can all remind me of this, next time I make an irritable comment on the work of someone who is far more commercially successful than I am.)
Posted
Agreed - in the case of Jenny Saville, one may like or dislike her work, but you can't seriously cast doubt on her ability (and who doesn't copy, or build on, others' ideas?). There's plenty of room for innumerable techniques and approaches to art - and anyway, I'm with Bertrand Russell on this (he'd have been SO pleased that I agree with him!): he was asked the old question, basically; you're over 90, how do the rest of us get there in good mental health (assuming we'd want to get there at all). I can't quote his precise words, and precision matters with Russell, but I do recall his encouragement to "open out" - the alternative to narrowing down, becoming set in one's ways, stuck in the predestinate groove as someone else once put it ("not even a bus, but a tram"). It's not essential that we love any of these artists, and criticism of them - if well-considered (and there's the snag) - is perfectly fine for so long as we're prepared to look at matters from their point of view as well as our own, since our view may be obscured by prejudices, assumptions, even neophobia (a characteristic of rats, by the way: they don't like change - remind me, if you're feeling bored, to tell you about the strike our male rat went on when we tried to enlarge and adapt his cage: "no; not having it; put it back as it was"...). I'm as guilty of falling for irrational, knee-jerk responses to others' work as anyone, but unlike some art critics - I do make a conscious effort to avoid it. Particularly when I often feel that my hostility is coming from a position of ignorance - not understanding what they're trying to do, or why they chose their particular means of doing it. (You can all remind me of this, next time I make an irritable comment on the work of someone who is far more commercially successful than I am.)All true. Checkout Victoria Steinburg Harmann. I like her work too, though one tends to think she was born with a pole stuck up her ‘right-and-honourable.’ The problem with rats is… actually, there is no problem. We just don’t eat em… not yet anyway, and every wild animal is caked in disease. So, thing is, is any art or artist talked about more successful than the ones who aren’t? Yes they are. There are many ways to success, not just the obviousness of a brilliant piece of work. Success comes and goes with fashion, timing, storytelling, consistency, trial and error, will, amongst many other human traits, which separates man from animal… art is the key because of the complexity, a sophistication that is needed to establish a story in metaphor, a single picture with universal language without boundaries. Yes, I’m am a depressive, and dangerously so for myself. Since being a little boy I have been ion tune with the world - that’s why it’s played me like the proverbial fiddle. The magic of youth is gone, and now my survival rate is that of a pretzel.
Posted
I
Heh - well .... you're still here, though, aren't you? Whereas pretzels do not last long in my company. Trundle on, like a tank. We have little real choice in this matter, however we may romanticize the journey.So, the proof of ‘romanticise’ is me being alive? From the Falklands war, there are more dead from suicide than actually were killed. God knows how many veterans are dead in Argentina. Perhaps with your wordy folly you romanticise, maybe? A bit hypocritical when you agree that being distasteful about someone else’s artwork isn’t something you aspire to, even though you have been using the smoke and mirrors of pseudo intelligence yourself . … my retaliation, I’ve seen it all before. Just.because I wrote i’m a published author does that test you? Did you not read I’m a manual worker too? Within a complex society breeds even more complex diseases and illness. I’m not going to prove to you how ill I am, just be honest about myself creatively, after all, I don’t even know you. Thank you
Edited
by Martin Shaw
Posted
Okay, but I’m not offended anyway. As a writer I’ve come across all sorts of intellectuals, some good.. some not so, although in real life they are the nicest people. Just saying. Feel my illness has taken prevalence over my artwork. I didn’t mean it to be that way. I’m sort of put off being here because of it. However, my writing and some artwork I do involves me personally., not just in the work, but in essence. Not one for writing how well I have done. Find it embarrassing. This is my nature. But there again, showing my work makes me a tad hypocritical.