localisedinsanity:

wait, no there’s more than one thing I’ll do a list

• I can look at detail far finer than they’ll let me in a gallery
• Today I am poor, so I can’t just casually travel somewhere, but I can use my library or university computers to have a gander at art
• It makes it easy to find new artists based on galleries I have yet to visit
• Or for that matter to give me an idea of new places I can visit
• It’s so easy to find out about the artist and artwork at the same time
• You can flick between different art works and see similarities/differences and more easily notice inspirations etc.
• Art History study all the time.

That’s hardly all but you can now continue with your day.

For those of you who don’t already, using Google Art Project allows you to zoom in very close to paintings from select museums, like this one - Manet’s In the Conservatory - enough to see brush strokes, paint cracking, and even canvas. The level of detail is amazing.

kristenbutler:

Maria Mortati’s presentation and notes from her AAM 2012 panel, which presented an “Elastic Manifesto.” 

It was created to inspire, ground in reality and support museums and artists interested in experimental projects, and make the case that at this moment, museums are particularly ripe for this type of work. 

I’m loving this call for experimentation right now and glad to be at an organization that encourages taking risks.

Is Dale Chihuly A Legitimate Artist? A great debate on our Culture section as to whether an artist makes all his own work, or if it’s the thought that counts.  (via huffingtonpost)

Master Artists having works created in their studios with their names on it have been going on for quite some time. Are we now arguing that say, Rubens couldn’t be a legitimate artist because he didn’t paint everything with his name on it?

Paintings can be divided into three categories: those he painted by himself, those he painted in part (mainly hands and faces), and those he only supervised. He had, as was usual at the time, a large workshop with many apprentices and students, some of whom, such as Anthony Van Dyck, became famous in their own right. He also often sub-contracted elements such as animals or still-life in large compositions to specialists such as Frans Snyders, or other artists such as Jacob Jordaens.

(via huffingtonpost)

fathersframes:

Perhaps the “average” viewer should also try to understand and decipher the “modern” artist? Art lives to influence culture by inspiring curiosity in an apathetic public. The public should be more willing to have their brains picked, to stretch their minds, and to feel… yes, for heaven’s sake, a little bit uncomfortable for once. 

I find myself questioning this article — it had good strong points, but overlooked some major things in my opinion. When the pull quote was:

“The public is not willing to work at understanding a piece of art, and artists are not willing to explain themselves. We find ourselves at a tragic impasse.”

I wondered if they remembered the very same interaction they’d given us not a few paragraphs before, between the writer and their mother:

“Okay, so what do you think of this one?” I ask.

“Well,” says my mother, “On a first glance, it looks like some of the paintings you created in pre-school.” I laugh.

“And on a second glance?” I say.

My mom stares at the painting for a bit before answering. “As I stare at it,” she says, “I begin to feel sad. It seems sad to me. Is that right?”

“Sure,” I say.

“And… it looks like it might be raining. Isn’t it called ‘Lavender Mist?’”

“Yeah, that’s great, Mom,” I say. I nod, trying to encourage her to go on.

Instead she says, “But, hun, I still don’t get it. So can we leave now? I’d like to grab some lunch before we head home.”

She was willing to work at understanding something, or she wouldn’t have continued past ‘it looks like something you made in pre-school’. Honestly, in this simple exchange, we get the entirety of the problem: Here is someone who knows something about the painting and could explain it, or why Duchamp is famous for his urinals, or really anything that would give the art some sort of meaning to someone who is trying to understand the point or purpose and…they don’t.

Duchamp and Pollock have both been dead for quite some time, so it is in no way their responsibility to explain their art. The piece ended by talking about living contemporary artists explaining their work, but this isn’t the concern of Museums who display contemporary pieces by artists who are A.) dead or B.) Not available as a stand in for a label, docent, guide, or other informative/instructional tool. It is excellent to foster public and artist interactions - I certainly wouldn’t argue against it, I just question that there are two separate points and problems here.

Staring at a white canvas with no explanation, no reason, and no background isn’t challenging anyone: it’s dull! It’s boring, and worst of all, it’s a turn off if you’re already uninterested in art, or believe that art doesn’t connect to you in any way.

When the only conversations being sparked by a piece of art is:

“My four year old could do this.”
“I don’t get it.”
“This is art? This is stupid!”

The conversation, the willingness to discuss or learn, is already shutting down. Now, as an artist, you could be mindful of this - you could decide to say: I want people to access my art, I want it to be understood or consumed or at least be intriguing enough to question…

But this should not excuse the gallery or museum or even simply the educated in the Art World (and I do mean just in the Art World) from bothering to explain why their field is vital, important, valid, or necessary; or from bothering to explain why the Art is there to begin with.

It’s silly to blame the public for the Art World’s shortcomings. If the Art World makes it challenging, unfriendly, inaccessible, or downright impossible to get anything from it without being fully immersed it is the fault of us, and not them.

People are interested — or can be, if approached. The public is apathetic because we’ve given them no reason to be otherwise. I don’t think there’s many other industries that lay the blame of people being uninterested on the people: and there’s a good reason for it.

Antonio Manfredi, an Italian artist from the town of Casoria, started a surprising campaign aimed directly at the Italian Ministry of Culture. NPR reports that Manfredi has burned two or three pieces of art each week in a public display meant to criticize the deep austerity cuts to the arts in Italy. His protest began about a month ago. Most of Europe, especially many of the southern European countries, such as Spain, Italy and Greece, have felt much of the burdensome pressure of mounting debt and resultant austerity plans. The arts have been one of the first areas Italy has severely slashed, even though the government did not invest much before the austerity measures kicked into high gear. NPR states that about 76 percent of arts funding has been cut in the last two years, which means that many museums are on the chopping block, or have already closed down completely.

identify-unique-gezelligheid:

” As reconstructions of earlier world began to be created, it began to seem that objects held within them the special characteristic of bringing the past into the present. … Because a thing was genuinely of the past, because it had truly been handled by ancient Greek men or ancient Egyptian women, that past was forever within its essential nature, and consequently it brought the true past with it wherever it was in time and space thereafter.”

~ Susan Pearce, Part one the history of collection and the current strategies.