RE: .SpectacleofDeath.

RE: .SpectacleofDeath. (Full Version)

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meatcleaver -> RE: .SpectacleofDeath. (4/24/2008 7:18:56 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Floggings4You There is a trend in contemporary art that I've never understood--and with which I've never agreed; to show reality as art. A real animal in a museum (and I'm here thinking of Joseph Beuys, not the guy who recently allegedly allowed a dying dog to starve as part of his exhibit, though that is part of it as well) is not art; its just a real animal. Seeing real animals (or real piles of bricks) tells us nothing about the artist's thoughts about the animal (or the bricks). (I'm sure someone will bring up Duchamp's Fountain, but that was intended to prove a point which has--ironically--rarely been grasped by the very art-world insiders it was intended to mock.) If clay is a legitimate material for sculpture, why not bricks? Andre was not pretending the bricks to be anything other than what they are and was pointing out their formal sculptural qualities which is far from the conceptual art you seem to be complaining about. Henry Moore made a sculpture in bricks as I would imagine many others have. I agree with you about Duchamp, his original idea has been somewhat corrupted. But the world of today is not the world when artists could make a living painting portraits and landscapes for the money classes and most artists aren't interested in that anyway nor are the people who part with serious money for art. I do agree with you that most contemporary conceptual art is rather banal, as is the idea muted in the OP but even an artist has to pay the rent so you're going to get artists with an eye for the half chance and good luck to them but I don't think the work is worth the time discussing as art. My favourite is Chemei Hamada whose work on the atrocities of war are on par with Goya's and indirectly ridicules all the shock horror art you complain about with the eloquence of his graphic work. http://www.legacy-project.org/index.php?page=art_detail_large&artID=646&num=1

meatcleaver -> RE: .SpectacleofDeath. (4/24/2008 7:23:19 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: kittinSol You're right, camille. Death has become the ultimate taboo. Death is banal. I think that is the horrorifying thing the NAZI's taught us. I fail to see how death is the ultimate taboo when one sees it as entertainment on the News every night,

kittinSol -> RE: .SpectacleofDeath. (4/24/2008 7:46:25 AM)
You don't see that death is a taboo? You don't see that society is terrified of ordinary death? Death is a dirty subject. The media may drool over it, but that's precisely because it is a dirty subject.

meatcleaver -> RE: .SpectacleofDeath. (4/24/2008 8:05:41 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: kittinSol You don't see that death is a taboo? You don't see that society is terrified of ordinary death? Death is a dirty subject. The media may drool over it, but that's precisely because it is a dirty subject. To me society's attitude towards death doesn't fit the deifinition of taboo. Maybe it does in America, I really don't know. But then, we have euthanasia here and death and how one prefers to die is openly discussed. –adjective 1. proscribed by society as improper or unacceptable: taboo words. 2. (among the Polynesians and other peoples of the South Pacific) separated or set apart as sacred; forbidden for general use; placed under a prohibition or ban. –noun 3. a prohibition or interdiction of anything; exclusion from use or practice. 4. (among the Polynesians and other peoples of the South Pacific) a. the system, practice, or act whereby things are set apart as sacred, forbidden for general use, or placed under a prohibition or interdiction. b. the condition of being so set apart, forbidden, or interdicted. 5. exclusion from social relations; ostracism. –verb (used with object) 6. to put under a taboo; prohibit or forbid. 7. to ostracize (a person, group, etc.).

kittinSol -> RE: .SpectacleofDeath. (4/24/2008 8:16:35 AM)
Ah, a personal taboo: posts with definitions straight out of the dictionary. They should be proscribed. They're like something an unimaginative kid would produce for a school project [:D] .

meatcleaver -> RE: .SpectacleofDeath. (4/24/2008 8:47:01 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: kittinSol Ah, a personal taboo: posts with definitions straight out of the dictionary. They should be proscribed. They're like something an unimaginative kid would produce for a school project [:D] . Believe me, as you most probably know, you can get through university the same way.[8\|]

Floggings4You -> RE: .SpectacleofDeath. (4/24/2008 9:19:03 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: ownedgirlie It seemed exploitative at first, until I read that the dying person calls the shots beforehand. Personally I find it fascinating. I think people are afraid of death and balk at anything having to do with it, short of funerals and vigils. I tend to find the final moments of a person's life to be a beautiful thing. I was present when My mother died, and have visited numerous people in the final hours of their lives, and I've seen nothing 'beautiful' in it.

ownedgirlie -> RE: .SpectacleofDeath. (4/24/2008 10:31:45 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Floggings4You I was present when My mother died, and have visited numerous people in the final hours of their lives, and I've seen nothing 'beautiful' in it. I'm very sorry that was your experience. The final hours spent with my father were the most beautiful moments of my life.

Politesub53 -> RE: .SpectacleofDeath. (4/24/2008 10:32:14 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: stella41b I think I've missed the point here. What have bricks got to do with the OP? My point was simple, some people will look at anything, as long as someone calls it Art. Personally i see no beauty in death, the beauty is in life, and death just takes that away. As for looking at bricks as art, architecture allows a much better format.

ownedgirlie -> RE: .SpectacleofDeath. (4/24/2008 10:34:06 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Politesub53 Personally i see no beauty in death, the beauty is in life, and death just takes that away. This is the wonderful thing about the differences in people and perspectives. I find both the first and last moments of a person's life to be beautiful. That does not mean the time in between is not. It means I find the entire life to be beautiful, and that includes the beginning and end.

Politesub53 -> RE: .SpectacleofDeath. (4/24/2008 10:39:50 AM)
OG, i know what you mean, my fathers final days were some of the closest we had ever had. Maybe its because i dont believe in the hereafter, that i see death as something final. I certainly dont think someone should use it as art. Time heals though, it doesnt alter anything, just makes it easier to live with.

ownedgirlie -> RE: .SpectacleofDeath. (4/24/2008 10:45:43 AM)
There's something to be said for finality, I think. His life was here...it served its purpose. It left an imprint, and a rather big one at that. And when it was time, it left, but with a very big "ripple effect." Hereafter or not, I find something wonderous and touching about it. Then again, I'm weird. Art is subjective. I'm actually not so sure I see it as art either, but I do find beauty in what one's life can share. I thought what Morrey left behind was beautiful, and he could only leave that behind by dying. Some of the things my father finally realized, he could only see when death was near. We don't appreciate life without death. Death reminds us to live.

pahunkboy -> RE: .SpectacleofDeath. (4/24/2008 12:12:27 PM)
where is fred phelps when we need him. [babtist minister who pickets funerals]

Zensee -> RE: .SpectacleofDeath. (4/24/2008 12:38:27 PM)
Sex and death have changed places in this century. Used to be, sex was private and death was public. A person probably died in their bed at home, tended by family and visited by friends. The body was prepared for burial there and removed in the plain sight of neighbours, if not displayed for a wake. I wonder what the reaction would be if a couple were to occupy a bed in a gallery, offering the possibility that the public might witness intimacies of a similar nature to dying (i.e. the "little death")? Probably not nearly as shocked and outraged. That would be an understandable voyeurism, in today's society. The fact that just the proposal for this exhibit has sparked a lively discussion is a success in itself. Imagining the terms of participation, what the motives of a potential participant might be, how their wishes and those of their family might clash or be resolved, how one might feel attending and observing, how one might feel to be there at the moment of death or what you might feel if the subject survived your time in the gallery (relief, disappointment?)... All quite fascinating. I used to be pretty cynical about abstract and conceptual art. There is a degree of appeal to elitism "dare you to not get it" but the opposite is true of representational art in a way (are you just too stuck up to admit that mass produced, black velvet Elvis is art?). As my understanding has increased my appreciation has too - I think I can tell chalk from cheese. I was one of the "Jackson Pollock paintings are just a bunch of mindless squiggles" crowd. Now I see his work very differently and, if you like, I can provide scientific proof that he was no wanker. Z. PS: Does art have to be about beauty?

colouredin -> RE: .SpectacleofDeath. (4/24/2008 12:50:28 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Zensee PS: Does art have to be about beauty? Ahh I know this subject well, we had a thread a few months ago about beauty and what it is, and then no one could agree, so there is the argument that my beauty is not your beauty, and no I dont think that art has to be beautiful, I also dont think I care what the artist is trying to say (a point someone else said that we should have artists opinions) I dont care, I love art, art can touch people in differant ways, a life changing piece of work to me may be something that others consider just splashes of paint. The only interpretation that is important is the one that I give to it. What is art? well that depends on who you ask, I personally dont like emin or hirst, i think that they are sensationalising but others love them. I also dont like classic art. I like art that gives me a message, on a personal level, not what the little block of text tells me to think. Therefore to me anything can be art if someone sees it in that way.

subtee -> RE: .SpectacleofDeath. (4/24/2008 12:54:46 PM)
~FR The CM message boards are pretty lethal...I've died here many a time. Ba dum dum.

Zensee -> RE: .SpectacleofDeath. (4/24/2008 1:27:12 PM)
And yer still beeoootyfull. Z.

PanthersMom -> RE: .SpectacleofDeath. (4/24/2008 3:48:26 PM)
who in the hell decides these weirdos are wonderful artists anyway? never did understand that; like jackson pollack, hell, my nephew has done the same kind of work since he was old enough to smear green beans and carrots across his high chair tray. should we call that art too? PM

ownedgirlie -> RE: .SpectacleofDeath. (4/24/2008 3:54:31 PM)
Not sure. Who in the hell decides some artists are weirdos?

RCdc -> RE: .SpectacleofDeath. (4/24/2008 4:03:39 PM)
Pollock was an inspirational abstract expressionist painter. Just because you or I may not 'get' his work does not negate it. Some of his works are beautiful to look at and quite hypnotic. As for Dr D. I enjoy his work, but I personally find this piece would be a lie to me. The artist would be the person dying, not him. Sure it may be his idea, but I don't believe an idea leads to it being his, particularly as is reported, the person who is dying will have a huge say on the whole procedure. To me, it would be like a ghost writer, only one you would see. Death to me, isn't the last taboo personally. I find it intriguing and beautiful and ugly and happiness and sadness all combined. I posted this, for the information obviously, but also to gauge responses and see how people reacted, since in the past couple of weeks, we have had posts about other 'death' artists. Call it a work of art in itself.[;)] I guess through peoples responses, I have seen this thread chop and slide around and avoid the subject of death, rather than discuss it - even to the extent of mentioning other artists - anything, but discussing the subject itself - which is an opposite reaction to the other two previous threads. I find that very interesting. Maybe this piece strike too close to home? the.dark.

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