BuddyRoadhouse wrote:Well, that was quick. Christopher, I was not familiar with Walter Benjamin's work, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction", so I did a little googling. It's getting late and I'm losing focus so I'm going to assume you brought Mr. Benjamin's work to my attention in reference to my mention of photography as an art form.

I used that incident only as a personal example of applying the subjective standards for judging good and bad art. Also so I could mention that I have a daughter who calls herself "abe froeman". A father couldn't be prouder.

The fact is that that criteria, at least in my mind, and in the estimation of many others, applies to all art forms. Painting and drawing, sculpture, musical composition, all the way up through film making and holography can be judged on those same concepts: Pretty pictures/sculptures/musical exercises are nice but ultimately empty experiences. These same mediums, when telling us something about their subject can be considered to be good art. And finally when the work of art in question tells us not only about its subject but also its creator, that then is a great work of art.

If I have misunderstood your intention or Mr. Benjamin's meaning, I hope you'll allow for the late hour and my fading consciousness and clarify in the morning.

Buddy

pretty is as pretty does(please allow for my own early-morning befuddlement)

Many times I've railed against "hotel room art," but have long since capitulated "beauty for beauty's sake" does have it's place...and can subvert that which it apparently kowtows to...
---

just to add a few artists to the fray

Judy Chicago(she's been previously-mentioned on the forum...how could she not?)

and

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rirkrit_Tiravanija

there was something wonderful encountering one of his installations at the Carnegie Biennial years ago: watching spectators step back and question why there was a "Chinese" fast food kitchen shoved back up beneath the stairs of the main hall...

and watching and thinking wow! that's a Rirkrit piece...how fucking kool!

AND, admittedly, I was unaware of her work until I read the February Gourmet puff-piece, but, how 'bout Mary Ellen Carroll?




re: "spectators"...I'm reminded of Morley Safer's iconic Yes...But is it Art? 60 Minutes piece and how we laughed at his presumptions in colloquium

*shrug*

I'll add a great cross-platform entertainment vis a vis "What's This Thing, Art?" is Stephen Sondheim's Sunday in the Park with George:

a beautiful, beautiful, thought-provoking meditation on the artistic process, cultural transgression, and aging

Christopher Gordon wrote:

nr706 wrote:Clearly art is subjective. I remember an exhibit a few years ago at the Museum of Contemporary Art. It was a stack of about 1,000 sheets of white 11"x14" paper, on t he floor, with a sign above saying "take one." Clearly, a curator there felt it was art that deserved to be shown in a relatively major museum.

That was a Felix Gonzalez-Torres piece. A major AIDS worker/timebased multimedia installation artist, he made work *specifically* addressing the disease's attritional erasures and *universally* consumable as absence, loss, negative space. He died of AIDS in 1996.

Thank you for posting this - knowing the back story makes that piece much more meaningful (more art-y?) However, I didn't see (or didn't remember) that info at the time I saw the installation. All I remember (vague food link here) is discussing over dinner afterwards that it seemed a bit silly.

BuddyRoadhouse wrote:And, as stated in an earlier post, just as I do not consider "fine Japanese paper, the Taj Mahal [or] a '57 Cadillac" to be art, it doesn't take anything away from my appreciation for these things or the talent required to create them.

Consider this then, since you're restricting your argument to "art must be non-utilitarian to be art" (which is a view I don't agree with, and many artists would also disagree with. I had Ed Paschke in an art class, but, unfortunately, I have no idea what his view on the subject would be. The best I remember about his views on art would basically be "creating order out of chaos"):

The design/look of the '57 Caddy and Taj Mahal are largely, if not completely, non-utilitarian. The Taj Mahal could just well have been built as a giant box, without any sort of ornamentation or sculpturing. The ornamentation serves no utilitarian purpose. The only reason for the design's being is to look pretty, to look grand, to elevate the structure from ordinary to extraordinary. Same with the Cadillac. Much of the beauty is non-utilitarian. The design itself is art.

If Picasso painted a jug, and somebody used the jug for water, it wouldn't diminish the art on the jug. Under your definition, you can still consider the painting itself art, if not the jug its painted on.

BuddyRoadhouse wrote:True art must serve no other purpose than to exist as art. That's what makes it art. Period.

You've brought up some interesting points here, many with which I agree, but this one idea at the heart of your argument is in my mind quite wrong.

The black and red vases of ancinet Greece are among the most prized pieces of ancient artwork, but in reality they were meant for holding water or wine. The history of the Europe is filled with religious paintings that were often used to decorate churches for the purpose of enhancing the religious experience. As are the stained glass windows and the churches themselves. I'd challenge you to say that Notre Dame, or any of the great Catholic chruches, or mosques or other religious buildings are not works of art. Not all of them mind you, but there are certainly many places of worship around the world that most would consider works of art and find a prominent place in any History of Art text. And many of the art pieces in those temples had specific purposes - to bring luck, to honor the dead, or uses in religious ceremony.

Is Antonio Gaudi's Guell Park in Barcelona not considered art because its a park? Is Buckingham Fountain not art becuase it serves as a bench or a play area for children? Must art be something that hangs in a musem behind a piece of glass? I would also argue strongly against the idea that a vase ceases to become art once you put flowers in it. In fact, the flowers may even enhnance the beauty of the vase.

And outside the phusical arts, there is music, film, dance, and other performing arts. Most individual performances are never recorded and only exist for the time they are being sung, danced, played, etc. Is it only the ones that are recorded for posterity that are considered art? If music is made with a utilitaring puropse - to dance to, or to march to, or to accompany a religious ceremony - does that make them less art than a composition meant to be heard in a concert hall? Does the implicit utility of these other kinds of music deny them the label Art?

To bring this back to food, I actually agree that most food and food preparations are more of a techncial craft, but there certainly are some chefs who transcend the limitations of craft and make food preparation an art. Just because we experience these creations through taste, as opposed to sight or hearing, does not make them any less valid as works of art. And just because the experience is temporary does not make it any less valid than a Jazz performance heard once and never able to be repeated. In addition, the sense or sight is certainly a key element in many meals. Looking through some of the photographs on this web site of meals at Alinea reveals images that I considered art - or is it only the photographic image that could be hung on a wall and studied, and not the meal itself that you would consider art?

So I would agree that the term "Culinary Arts" does not mean that every chef is an artist, but to say that "art must serve no other purpose than to exist as art" is a far too limiting definition.

Binko wrote:If Picasso painted a jug, and somebody used the jug for water, it wouldn't diminish the art on the jug. Under your definition, you can still consider the painting itself art, if not the jug its painted on.

In Buddy's defense, though I find the definition he's working with a little odd, putting water in the jug doesn't diminish its beauty or the skill that went into creating it in any way, nor is it any less valuable or honorable of a jug. It's just no longer "art".

Along with the Greek vases and Gothic cathedrals (as well as any building, in fact) let's add all medieval art and, for that matter, most religious art which is intended to serve pedantic and/or ceremonial functions as well as memorial art (including portraiture) which has a commemorative purpose. The problem with any restrictive definition of art is that the exceptions start to accumulate very swiftly, particularly in our current "anything goes" society, where, God knows, some day even motorcycles might be on display at the Guggenheim or the Met.

Erzsi wrote:
Have you ever had the opportunity to see a Tibetan sand mandala? A chalk drawing or pavement drawing on the side walk ( Julian Beever is a good example of this) or even bridal Mehendi henna tattoos are beautiful ornate, and after time will fade away.These are beautiful works of art and they are entirely temporary.

Though temporary, the raison d'etre for their creation was as an expression of art as would be the performance interpretation of a Shostakovich string piece or "West End Blues." Also, I don't draw the line at utilitarianism completely starkly. Great architecture--though inherently utillitarian (Eisenmen to the contrary) can be great art. One, however, has to make a substantial leap to include a plate of food under the same umbrella of artistic merit as a great building.

No matter how "artistic" the presentation of a plate of food, the raison d'etre for its creation is to serve a simple biological necessity. When galleries start exhibiting plates of cooked food as an end to themselves, I'll start calling cooking an artform in its strictest meaning. As another noted, it's a craft. It can be done to very high, exacting standards, but that does not make it transcendent in the manner of true art.

While I might be a little polemic in my view of this, I think it's an understandable counter-reaction to the some of the excesses of the food and wine industry--a sampling of which were discussed in relation to the restaurant in question. In other words, the industry has taken their own grossly overinflated sense of importance and artistic pretentions to such absurd levels, I'd prefer to err on the side of cutting them back down to size rather than enabling further nonsense. In other words, cook me my plate of food, be it a $10 plate of food or a $100 plate of food. Go back into your kitchen, and I'll decide whether the money that I've given you to cook that plate of food was worthwhile.

When a chef feels entitled to whip a 10lb pan at an employee because he's a "temperamental artist" doing "important work" things have gone too far. In the real world that's called felonious assault.

So, to narrow my thinking on this subject down a little bit and thanks to many of the posts above, I've come to the conclusion that true art must satisfy one of two criteria.

A) It must be created solely as an artistic expression. This can be fleeting and transitory as in the case of an outdoor chalk drawing or the performance of a Mozart piano concerto or timeless as in the original Mozart composition, the Sistine Chapel or a Lichtenstein.

OR

B) In the case of more utilitarian creations, it must be able to stand the test of time in order to gain respect and appreciation as an object of art: a Greek vase, a building or even suit of armor.

Architecure is unique in that it can satisfy both, either or neither of the two criteria.

A plate of food can not satisfy either criteria.

Sam Harmon wrote:So, to narrow my thinking on this subject down a little bit and thanks to many of the posts above, I've come to the conclusion that true art must satisfy one of two criteria.

A) It must be created solely as an artistic expression. This can be fleeting and transitory as in the case of an outdoor chalk drawing or the performance of a Mozart piano concerto or timeless as in the original Mozart composition, the Sistine Chapel or a Lichtenstein.

OR

B) In the case of more utilitarian creations, it must be able to stand the test of time in order to gain respect and appreciation as an object of art: a Greek vase, a building or even suit of armor.

Architecure is unique in that it can satisfy both, either or neither of the two criteria.

A plate of food can not satisfy either criteria.

So recipes can be art, then? Much like the original Mozart composition, even though the performance itself is fleeting, the "blueprint" for that fleeting performance is eternal?

Are you sure you're not simply attempting to tailor a definition that includes things you want to call art and excludes things you don't? I believe Buddy when he says that for him, art/not art isn't a value judgement but a semantic distinction. It sounds to me like you're still looking for ways to place a lower value on the creative expression of a chef as compared to the creative expression of a painter.

Am I wrong?

Dmnkly wrote:

Sam Harmon wrote:So, to narrow my thinking on this subject down a little bit and thanks to many of the posts above, I've come to the conclusion that true art must satisfy one of two criteria.

A) It must be created solely as an artistic expression. This can be fleeting and transitory as in the case of an outdoor chalk drawing or the performance of a Mozart piano concerto or timeless as in the original Mozart composition, the Sistine Chapel or a Lichtenstein.

OR

B) In the case of more utilitarian creations, it must be able to stand the test of time in order to gain respect and appreciation as an object of art: a Greek vase, a building or even suit of armor.

Architecure is unique in that it can satisfy both, either or neither of the two criteria.

A plate of food can not satisfy either criteria.

So recipes can be art, then? Much like the original Mozart composition, even though the performance itself is fleeting, the "blueprint" for that fleeting performance is eternal?

Are you sure you're not simply attempting to tailor a definition that includes things you want to call art and excludes things you don't? I believe Buddy when he says that for him, art/not art isn't a value judgement but a semantic distinction. It sounds to me like you're still looking for ways to place a lower value on the creative expression of a chef as compared to the creative expression of a painter.

Am I wrong?

Technically, yes, a recipe could be a work of art in the manner of a great piece of music--in the same way that the plans for a treehouse could be considered art in the same manner as Christopher Wren's plans for St. Paul's. When someone shows me a recipe--any recipe--that approaches the transcendent beauty of a Mozart piano concerto or makes a statement about the human condition in the manner of a Shostakovich symphony, I'll reevaluate my position. Somehow anything that starts out with "1 pound of potatoes" will be found to be sorely lacking.

It sounds to me like you're still looking for ways to place a lower value on the creative expression of a chef as compared to the creative expression of a painter.

That's exactly what I'm doing. Because they are not artistic equals anymore than the designer of a commercial treehouse is the equal to a great architect.

Cooking is a craft not an art.

Sam Harmon wrote:Technically, yes, a recipe could be a work of art in the manner of a great piece of music--in the same way that the plans for a treehouse could be considered art in the same manner as Christopher Wren's plans for St. Paul's. When someone shows me a recipe--any recipe--that approaches the transcendent beauty of a Mozart piano concerto or makes a statement about the human condition in the manner of a Shostakovich symphony, I'll reevaluate my position. Somehow anything that starts out with "1 pound of potatoes" will be found to be sorely lacking.

Cooking is a craft not an art.

So what defines art, then, is the gravity of what it expresses?

I take it, then, that you believe pop music is not art unless it makes some kind of social statement? And perhaps more importantly, do you feel this makes pop music inherently less valuable than Shostakovich?

I'm not trying to trap you, here, I'm trying to get at what you really believe.

Dmnkly wrote:
I take it, then, that you believe pop music is not art unless it makes some kind of social statement? And perhaps more importantly, do you feel this makes pop music inherently less valuable than Shostakovich?

Inherently less valuable as art? Yes, definitely. It doesn't mean that pop culture is without value (or similarly that haut cuisine is without value). In my opinion, it does, however mean that they are of lesser artistic value. I'm not a snob. I have everything from Shostakovic to The Clash to the Pina Colada Song on my ipod, and I've probably listened to the Pina Colada song more than the Shostakovic; though The Clash more than both combined.

I would consider pop music to be art because its raison d'etre was artistic expression--even if produced with an eye towards commerce as was much great classical and jazz music.

So let's turn this around. Up until now the burden of proof seems to be on me. Why would you equate a recipe with a great piece of music? How would you justify equating a chef--as artist--with a great painter of architect.

Sam Harmon wrote:

Dmnkly wrote:
I take it, then, that you believe pop music is not art unless it makes some kind of social statement? And perhaps more importantly, do you feel this makes pop music inherently less valuable than Shostakovich?

Inherently less valuable as art? Yes, definitely. It doesn't mean that pop culture is without value (or similarly that haut cuisine is without value). In my opinion, it does, however mean that they are of lesser artistic value. I'm not a snob. I have everything from Shostakovic to The Clash to the Pina Colada Song on my ipod, and I've probably listened to the Pina Colada song more than the Shostakovic; though The Clash more than both combined.

I would consider pop music to be art because its raison d'etre was artistic expression--even if produced with an eye towards commerce as was much great classical and jazz music.

So let's turn this around. Up until now the burden of proof seems to be on me. Why would you equate a recipe with a great piece of music? How would you justify equating a chef--as artist--with a great painter of architect.

Well, for starters, a lot of pop music DOES have a purpose beyond pure artistic expression. It's a beat for you to dance to.

And I'd also argue that the food at most fine dining establishments (and many others not so fine, for that matter) are as much about feeding you as the stained glass windows at Notre Dame are about letting in light. Yes, they achieve that utilitarian purpose and that is their reason for existing, but to dismiss them as "just windows" (or "just food") is just plain silly.

And I do object to the stratifying of art in terms of value. Despite your protestations, I think it is snobbery. You're far from alone in that belief, but because classical music speaks more to you on a personal level than, perhaps, ghetto rap doesn't mean that the same can be said for everybody and it doesn't mean that ghetto rap is any less a creative expression of human spirit. Don't misunderstand, I don't mean to suggest that all works of art are equally good, but the idea that certain forms are inherently more or less valuable than others -- yes, I do find that snobbish. It's the same argument that put down film for decades. It's a fad. It's just spectacle. It isn't a real art form like music or literature.

As far as flipping the burden of proof, that's absolutely fair. But I hope you understand the reason that I push for definitions is because I think that's critical to the discussion. You may feel that Shostakovic expresses more about the human condition than other pieces of music, but there are many to whom Shostakovic is just noise (or, at least, it says less to them than other forms of music). Buddy's definition, to my reading based on his short description, is product-based. What comes out in the end determines whether or not it's art. Yours seems to be as well. I'm from the school that believes art is a process -- it's the act of expressing meaning or creating aesthetic beauty through human creativity. Some music that I'm sure we'd both agree is absolutely art doesn't have much meaning beyond the fact that it's beautiful, and yet the human creativity and virtuosity that generates some delicious dishes is no less impressive, so I see no reason why music should be art and food shouldn't simply because, in this case, food appeals to your senses of taste and smell while music appeals to your sense of hearing. They can both be beautiful. They can both cause you to marvel at their creation. They can both evoke emotional responses. And most importantly, they can both be creative expressions of impassioned human spirit working in its chosen medium. To say "you can eat one but not the other" and dismiss it on those grounds strikes me as completely arbitrary and it completely ignores the human spirit that is the very essence of the art in favor of a semantic distinction that seeks to place relative value on them.

Does that answer your question?

I swear to God, I thought I was done with this but apparently I'm too small a person to just let it go.

Jayz wrote:Based on your post and the few definitions given earlier in the post I'd have to say that food is better than art. If it can't be labeled as art...label it as 'better than art' because it can be eaten too.

ps: to Buddy...I recently graduated from Kendall College and on my way to pursuing the field.

Well played Jay! I still don't understand why one thing needs to be "better" than another when they both exist within their own arenas and each has its own merits and its own criteria by which it should be judged. But if believing that food is better than art is going to make you a better chef, then go and be well and I hope you will invite me to the opening of your first restaurant. My sincerest best wishes to you for great success in the food world.

Binko wrote:The design/look of the '57 Caddy and Taj Mahal are largely, if not completely, non-utilitarian. The Taj Mahal could just well have been built as a giant box, without any sort of ornamentation or sculpturing. The ornamentation serves no utilitarian purpose. The only reason for the design's being is to look pretty, to look grand, to elevate the structure from ordinary to extraordinary.

Okay, at the risk of sounding contradictory I'm going to backtrack a bit here.

Architecture falls under a different set of rules. When the aforementioned Mr. Bouras was delivering his lecture on this topic some thirty years ago, he was bombarded with many of the same questions and arguments presented here. He conceded that architecture lives in a gray area somewhere between the art and utile worlds. We could start another very lengthy thread on this issue alone and I'm just not up to it. I love great architecture but my knowledge of it only slightly surpasses that of the average "man on the street".

I will say however, that the ornamentation of the Taj Mahal is not what determines its artistic worth. Modern Art has included many stark black or white canvasses with no ornamentation on them at all. Performance artists have presented pieces where they will lie motionless for hours at a time, John Cage (or was it Philip Glass?) "wrote" a musical composition that was complete silence for its entire duration; the ensemble sitting there on the stage with their instruments in their laps as they faced the audience blankly. All of these examples, and there are many more, represent pieces with the absolute bare minimum of ornamentation.

In fact, to bring the argument around to the field of architecture, if you're going to use the ornateness of the Taj Mahal as its measure of artistic value, doesn't that negate the importance of the works of Miis van der Rohe and Frank Lloyd Wright? How fancy a work of art or architecture is does not determine a.) whether or not it is a work of art, or b.) its intrinsic value as a work of art once it is determined to be so. I've seen lots of very plain, even downright ugly works of art that still achieved a level of greatness.

Binko wrote:Same with the Cadillac. Much of the beauty is non-utilitarian. The design itself is art.

"Design" is an element of art, it is not art in and of itself. The fact that the designers took the basic concept of a machine which we define as an automobile and added fins and fancy chrome to it, although in an eye pleasing manner, does not make it art.

If the Cadillac sits in a place, existing only for the purpose of being appreciated as an object, then it is art. Once you drive it off the lot it ceases to be art. Not only that but, it loses half its street value.

Of course, just because it meets the definition of art doesn't necessarily make it good art. As stated in earlier posts, what makes a great work of art is when we learn something about its creator. Since that Cadillac was created by a committee of designers working in a corporate climate with the sole intent of making a vehicle that would be so appealing to so many people that the corporation would make a boatload of money, it hardly tells us anything about its creator and therefore would fall into the "pretty, but ultimately empty experience" category. Or would it? Maybe that bleak, cynical worldview was the commentary of some anonymous designer who worked on that model. Don't really know, do we?

Binko wrote:If Picasso painted a jug, and somebody used the jug for water, it wouldn't diminish the art on the jug. Under your definition, you can still consider the painting itself art, if not the jug its painted on.

Well here we fall into that murky, horrifying world of semantics. Yes, I will maintain that once you put flowers and water into the vase, the vase ceases to be art (more on that later. Oooh, I can hardly wait!). However that does not take away the "artistic" qualities of the vase as further defended here:

Dmnkly wrote:I Buddy's defense, though I find the definition he's working with a little odd, putting water in the jug doesn't diminish its beauty or the skill that went into creating it in any way, nor is it any less valuable or honorable of a jug. It's just no longer "art".

Thank you Dmnkly for getting it, even if you don't agree with it. The same statement can be used as a rebuttal to this argument:

wak wrote:The black and red vases of ancinet Greece are among the most prized pieces of ancient artwork, but in reality they were meant for holding water or wine.

No one is challenging their value or importance in history or the art world. However, in their original incarnation as utile objects they could not be considered art. And now in a seemingly, but not really if you stop to think about it, contradictory statement, the onslaught of time and fragility may have propelled these once utile objects into the realm of art. Because they are now probably to old and unable to hold water (much like this argument, I'm sure many of you are thinking), they are now meant to be appreciated solely for their beauty as objects and not as flower holding devices. Voila, art!

wak wrote:The history of the Europe is filled with religious paintings that were often used to decorate churches for the purpose of enhancing the religious experience. As are the stained glass windows and the churches themselves. I'd challenge you to say that Notre Dame, or any of the great Catholic chruches, or mosques or other religious buildings are not works of art. Not all of them mind you, but there are certainly many places of worship around the world that most would consider works of art and find a prominent place in any History of Art text. And many of the art pieces in those temples had specific purposes - to bring luck, to honor the dead, or uses in religious ceremony.

See above for the answer to your architecture argument.

As for the religious paintings, I think you're over reaching with your definition of "utile". Yes they were used to inspire a sense of spirituality. So does much of art, regardless of whether is based in the religious world or not. Still, those paintings were not utile, as in, you can't do anything with them except look at them and appreciate them. In medieval terms, you can't sit on them, you can't use them to transport crops from your farm to the market, you can't use them as a weapon to beat the crap out of your enemies. Those paintings are completely useless except as objects of beauty and inspiration toward spiritual thoughts. Therefore, art.

wak wrote:Is Antonio Gaudi's Guell Park in Barcelona not considered art because its a park? Is Buckingham Fountain not art becuase it serves as a bench or a play area for children?

Once again, I concede the point on architecture (up to a point) and BTW, I love Gaudi's work; absolutely amazing and awe inspiring. As for Buckingham Fountain, it actually passes the non-utile test. It serves absolutely no purpose other than to pass water through itself for the delight of onlookers (careful with the jokes folks). It can be considered art. However, for so many reasons, despite its size, its whimsy, the draftsmanship and craftsmanship that went into its creation, it is not good art. And that of course is my opinion and has absolutely nothing to do with thoughtful argument that has gone on here otherwise. Don't get me wrong. I like Buckingham Fountain. It's fun to look at and experience, but it ain't good art.

wak wrote:Must art be something that hangs in a musem behind a piece of glass?

Absolutely not. The placement of the object or activity is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is the purpose or lack thereof in relation the thing in question.

wak wrote:I would also argue strongly against the idea that a vase ceases to become art once you put flowers in it. In fact, the flowers may even enhnance the beauty of the vase.

No argument. I'm not arguing whether something is beautiful or not. Beauty (uh-oh, here we go) has nothing to do with whether something qualifies as art. In fact, if it is the artist's intent for a vase which happens to be a work of art to be completed by the placement of flowers, then that work of art is not finished until such time as the flowers have arrived. Now, before you say anything, realize those could be dead flowers, too. Or an arrangement of lollipops, or gun barrels sticking out the end of that vase. It is my contention that the Picasso vases used in the original example were never meant to hold flowers or anything else. They were meant to be appreciated in and of themselves for their own inherent qualities.

wak wrote:And outside the phusical arts, there is music, film, dance, and other performing arts. Most individual performances are never recorded and only exist for the time they are being sung, danced, played, etc. Is it only the ones that are recorded for posterity that are considered art? If music is made with a utilitaring puropse - to dance to, or to march to, or to accompany a religious ceremony - does that make them less art than a composition meant to be heard in a concert hall? Does the implicit utility of these other kinds of music deny them the label Art?

No. All of those things are considered art. They fall under the category of temporal art; they only exist during the time of their performance. Also, I do not see the "implicit utility" in any of your examples. If anything, you bolster my argument. Bringing together two or more different art forms to create a further work of art does not diminish or make any of the individual elements utile other than to compliment or motivate one or more of the other elements in the greater whole.

Well, that's all I've got. Please can't we all just agree to disagree and move on. For God's sakes, please don't tempt me back to this thread with more discussion. I'm exhausted.

Good times,

Buddy

Hey, Buddy...

Don't kill me for dragging you back in, but I'm curious about something.

I believe I have a good grip on your definition. And I see no sense in arguing it with you because, as I mentioned earlier, I think we feel the same way about the various works we're discussing here, it's just a semantic distinction. You may call any plate with a lip a bowl, and I may think that's silly, but we both use it in the same manner so what's the point of arguing whether we should call it a plate or a bowl?

What I don't understand is the purpose of such a distinction in your definition of art / not art. It just seems completely arbitrary. Especially when you get into examples like the ancient urn conundrum (not art, then art once it becomes old and cracked!). It seems like you might as well say all red objects are art and all blue objects aren't. If there were a magical universe where two people both independenty created identical, amazing urns that were stunning examples of beauty and craftsmanship and spoke volumes about the human condition, and one of those urns ended up on a pedestal in a museum and the other ended up holding flowers in my kitchen, I understand that you'd consider the former art and the latter not art, but I fail to understand why that distinction has any meaning.

Would asking what purpose such a distinction serves be seeking far more of an explanation than you're prepared to trundle through at the moment?

"Shostakovich to The Clash to The Pina Colada Song"

sigh

BuddyRoadhouse wrote:Well, that's all I've got. Please can't we all just agree to disagree and move on. For God's sakes, please don't tempt me back to this thread with more discussion. I'm exhausted.

I could live with that. I believe many artists would disagree with Mr. Bouras's definition (and many would also agree), but, hey, that's the colorful world we live in with many different opinions.

As for Mies van der Rohe and Wright, of course I agree with their works being art, too. Remember, I don't subscribe to the notion that art cannot be utilitarian. I maintain it most certainly can have an aspect of utility. I was using the Taj Mahal as an example because it was brought up, and because it has obvious non-utilitarian aspects to the design which serve no useful purpose whatsoever. In other words, I was trying to argue into your point, but you've expounded a bit more on your views on architecture and art.

As for the religious paintings, I think you're over reaching with your definition of "utile". Yes they were used to inspire a sense of spirituality.

Just one small point about "religious art," and medieval/early-modern art, in particular

Paintings/frescoes were also meant to teach and were often painted to programs designed by the patrons for specific rhetorical purposes (not the least of which was to commemorate donors).

But in addition:
Reliquaries were meant to hold relics
Chalices were meant to hold wine
Vestments were meant to be worn
Censers were meant to spread incense
Manuscripts were meant to be read

All of which are found in the "treasuries" of the great European churches, and all of which are considered at least by their curators as "works of art," not to mention of course the baptismal fonts (where babies were/are baptised), the pulpits (where sermons were/are preached), the choirs (where psalms were/are sung), and yes even the tombs (where bodies were buried and remain buried), many of which took advantage of the creative skills of the greatest artists/artisans of their times.

Christopher Gordon wrote:"Shostakovich to The Clash to The Pina Colada Song"

sigh

Look at the Pina Colada song as a Double Whopper with Cheese--so bad it's good and once in awhile deeply satisfying. The collected films of Patrick Swayze would fall into the same category.

Sam Harmon wrote:

Christopher Gordon wrote:"Shostakovich to The Clash to The Pina Colada Song"

sigh

Look at the Pina Colada song as a Double Whopper with Cheese--so bad it's good and once in awhile deeply satisfying. The collected films of Patrick Swayze would fall into the same category.

I could be wrong, Sam, but I believe Christopher's sigh wasn't in reference to your specific choices, but rather that you inadvertently trotted out one of the oldest cliches in the book, that being "I'm no music snob, and this is proven by the fact that my collection ranges from {insert classical or jazz great here} to {insert pop artist generally considered to posess artistic merit here} to {insert dumb, kitchy fun music here}," an axiom that can be used to describe just about anybody's music collection (despite the fact that most people still have no problem dismissing the merits of entire genres that aren't to their liking).

Dmnkly wrote:Hey, Buddy...

Don't kill me for dragging you back in, but I'm curious about something...What I don't understand is the purpose of such a distinction in your definition of art / not art.

Sorry, I was getting ready to go in to work at Burt's tonight when you're query came in. I got halfway to Morton Grove and then I realized, "Holy crap, I don't need to be there for another four weeks!" So, I turned around, did some grocery shopping on the way home, made dinner and here we are.

Now, what's you're question? What is the purpose of a distinction in my definition of art, I think you asked. What's the purpose of any definition other than to...define something so that when we talk about it we're all talking about the same thing. Otherwise we could all be having this great conversation about dinner one night at Smoque and some poster comes along and says, "Yeah boy, I sure love the motor oil they serve there!"

Motor oil?

"Yeah you know that row of bones they serve with meat wrapped around them...you know, motor oil"

Oh, you mean ribs.

"Whatever, man. Motor oil, ribs, you call 'em what you want and I'll call 'em what I want."

Well, except that motor oil is a lubricant to make your car run better.

"Oh, you mean a cardboard box. Whatever, dude. Look, do you want to talk about food or cars here, make up your mind."

Forgive my flight of fancy, Dmnkly. I do not mean to mock you or your question; I'm just feeling a bit silly.

When this thread started I was merely responding to the original poster's notion that food cannot be art (remember that first post from about 27 years ago). I posited that indeed food cannot be art because it serves a purpose and in order for something to be considered art it must be non-utile. In that food serves a biological purpose, by its own definition and reason for its existence, it cannot be called art. You can prepare it creatively, beautifully, imbue it with your very soul, I suppose, but as long as someone ultimately eats it, it will not be art.

What I failed to mention, and I'm not sure this will make much difference in most people's minds, is that for the purposes of the definition, you need to treat art as an abstract concept.

Dmnkly wrote:If there were a magical universe where two people both independenty created identical, amazing urns that were stunning examples of beauty and craftsmanship and spoke volumes about the human condition, and one of those urns ended up on a pedestal in a museum and the other ended up holding flowers in my kitchen, I understand that you'd consider the former art and the latter not art, but I fail to understand why that distinction has any meaning.

You don't even need to go to a magical universe. The same creator could make those two identical vases with all the fine qualities you have mentioned and if they experienced the fate you have described, the same rules would apply. One is art, the other simply a pretty vase.

As for the "meaning" in that definition, I guess it has as much or as little as you ascribe to it. You can totally disregard it if you like, but the next time you go to Smoque and get an order of ribs to go, open the bag and make sure they didn't slip in a quart of motor oil.

Buddy

BuddyRoadhouse wrote:As for the "meaning" in that definition, I guess it has as much or as little as you ascribe to it. You can totally disregard it if you like, but the next time you go to Smoque and get an order of ribs to go, open the bag and make sure they didn't slip in a quart of motor oil.

Okay, fair enough. I like to think we call a plate a plate and a bowl a bowl because one is significantly more capable of holding my soup and not because we arbitrarily impose a distinction, but I suppose that need not always be the case

Anyway, you're entitled to that definition and I'm sure it's shared by many. But I do find it silly that an object that passes in and out of states of utility can be considered art then not art then art again with no regard for its inspiration or the manner in which it was forged. To me, that reduces the meaning of "art" to a technically defined commodity which, rosy as my worldview may be, strikes me as a rather cynical use of the word.

In any case, thanks for humoring my curiosity. I think this is definitely the "agree to disagree" point

The very first post on this thread reminds me of Plato's Gorgias (tr. Sanderson Beck):

"SOCRATES
Ask me now what I think cooking is.

POLUS
Then I ask, what is cooking?

SOCRATES
Not an art, but a practice.

POLUS
Of what?

SOCRATES
Of producing gratification and pleasure, Polus."



A few lines from a dialog will always look kind of weird in isolation. What reminds me of the original post even more is that Socrates is contrasting cooking to medicine, in the course of a larger argument about rhetoric, which he compares to cooking, fashion and sophistry, which all consists of a kind of "flattery" (to use the most common translation.) Definitely there's a judgment of value there. But also, Socrates is contrasting cooking with *science*-- and rhetoric with justice, as I recall. The visual arts aren't a part of the argument at all. When we say "art" in English we tend to think of a painting or something. You hear this thing about food and art a lot today. But the original poster's main contrast didn't seem to be between cooking and musuem-type art, but rather between cooking and science. Kind of like the Gorgias.

bibi rose wrote:The very first post on this thread reminds me of Plato's Gorgias (tr. Sanderson Beck):

"SOCRATES
Ask me now what I think cooking is.

POLUS
Then I ask, what is cooking?

SOCRATES
Not an art, but a practice.

POLUS
Of what?

SOCRATES
Of producing gratification and pleasure, Polus."



A few lines from a dialog will always look kind of weird in isolation. What reminds me of the original post even more is that Socrates is contrasting cooking to medicine, in the course of a larger argument about rhetoric, which he compares to cooking, fashion and sophistry, which all consists of a kind of "flattery" (to use the most common translation.) Definitely there's a judgment of value there. But also, Socrates is contrasting cooking with *science*-- and rhetoric with justice, as I recall. The visual arts aren't a part of the argument at all. When we say "art" in English we tend to think of a painting or something. You hear this thing about food and art a lot today. But the original poster's main contrast didn't seem to be between cooking and musuem-type art, but rather between cooking and science. Kind of like the Gorgias.

At which point we need Wiley Dufresne, Homaro Cantu, Graham Elliot Bowles, Grant Achatz, or Ferran Adria...etc...
to chime in

Christopher Gordon wrote:At which point we need Wiley Dufresne, Homaro Cantu, Graham Elliot Bowles, Grant Achatz, or Ferran Adria...etc...
to chime in

Yeah, I know. Or any of the people peddling quasi-medical foods, as described http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/17/fashion/17immunity.htmlhere[url]

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Food is utile; it serves a purpose. True art must serve no other purpose than to exist as art. That's what makes it art. Period.

What about the decorative arts? I'm just thinking about the Victoria & Albert Museum, which is full of "useful" items that also happen to be great works of art. The Trevi Fountain? What about a house that was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright?

maureencd wrote:

Food is utile; it serves a purpose. True art must serve no other purpose than to exist as art. That's what makes it art. Period.

What about the decorative arts? I'm just thinking about the Victoria & Albert Museum, which is full of "useful" items that also happen to be great works of art. The Trevi Fountain? What about a house that was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright?

...and I know exactly what my IID (Chicago Bauhaus woohoo!) friends would have to say on that topic...duh...of course they are all art.

What irritates me most whenever "discussions" like these pop up is how lax American education is on aesthetics and the arts. There's no *common* language with which to examine the issues. It's always the re-invention of the wheel. Generalizing here, Art instruction is public education's redheaded stepchild.

Christopher Gordon wrote:What irritates me most whenever "discussions" like these pop up is how lax American education is on aesthetics and the arts. There's no *common* language with which to examine the issues. It's always the re-invention of the wheel. Generalizing here, Art instruction is public education's redheaded stepchild.

Whatever other disagreements we may have on this topic and in this thread, the obscene absence of art education in the American public school system is a point of hardcore agreement.

Thank goodness I grew up in the '60s when funding for education in the humanities was still present.

Buddy

There are many theories about what makes a thing art. Since an authority was requested, I will cite one appropriate to the issue:

John Dewey. Art as Experience

By common consent, the Parthenon is a great work of art. Yet is has esthetic standing only as the work becomes an experience for a human being. And, if one is to go beyond personal enjoyment into the formation of a theory about that large republic of art of which the building is one member, one has to be willing at some point in his reflections to turn from it to the bustling, arguing, acutely sensitive Athenian citizens, with a civic sense identified with a civic religion, of whose experience the temple was an expression, and who built it not as a work of art but as a civic commemoration.

Dewey's definition is not based on utility, but rather on experience or aesthetic (or esthetic, as he says) enjoyment. Something is art, because we enjoy it as art -- the flowers in the Picasso vase don't make the difference; we do. And in fact, he goes on to talk about peoples for whom "everything that intensifies the sense of immediate living is an object of intense admiration," including clothing, utensiles, and furnishings. Religious art of all kinds naturally falls into this category -- it is part of daily life and necessary to those who use it.

Dewey's larger point is that we've isolated what we call fine art from the rest of our lives, but we have not removed our desire for "the continuity of esthetic experience with the normal process of living.

You could perhaps use Dewey's argument to explain why people want to think about food as art. In his view, when "fine art" becomes isolated in the museum and the gallery, and when this same "fine art" fails to move people, the more people look to other, more common forms.

This has been an interesting thread; coming in this late, I don't have much more to add, except

BuddyRoadhouse wrote:I told her, "Anyone can take a pretty picture, and that's okay; a pretty picture is a pretty picture. A really good photograph tells you something about its subject. A great photograph tells you something about its subject and the person taking the photograph."

In my book great art tells you something about you. And I think that great food can inspire at that level.

Well, ok. One more thing: I'd say that the experience of music is as transient as the experience of tasting a meal, and I'd say that music runs the gamut of utility from "art for art's sake" all the way down to booty shakin' party music of a dozen dozen kinds. In the same way, food can be rib-stickin' sustenance or an abstract flight of fancy.

No grand conclusion.