[Jewelry making - Article 00026] - Re: [Orchid] Smithsonian jury results

[Lisa Orlando]

========[ Invite a Friend - http://www.ganoksin.com/invite.htm  ]========

>     there is a collective response to the above statement: "Rubbish".
>     Or as one writer in the SF Chronicle put it, "Heaven forbid that
>     they would actually learn how to draw." There has been a deluge, in
>     recent years, of meaningless, talentless, simpleminded art in the
>     name of "Art", and it's almost always accompanied by "You don't
>     understand", "Maybe you just don't get it". "But the Curator
>     thought it was good enough for the collection". 

    I thought I would able to keep my mouth shut. Silly me! 

    I have a lot of sympathy for both these statements. It's so trite to
    say I believe the answer is somewhere in the middle, but--too bad!
    People in John's "movement" are very upset, and have been at least
    since Nude Descending a Staircase. And the painters in that show (who
    weren't yet throwing paint) did have a lot of courage. 

    At least a couple of things have changed since then. First, there
    have been what you could call paradigm shifts, in which certain kinds
    of art that once were rejected ("Heaven forbid that they would
    actually learn how to draw") are now viewed as great art by members
    of the same "movement." The movement, which was once monolithic, has
    fragmented. There are people in it who would still make this
    complaint about Picasso, but John wouldn't. Maybe he would make this
    complaint about Jackson Pollack. Others consider Pollack a great
    artist but think David Salle is dreck. It's not the modern world
    anymore! 

    Another thing that has changed is that the art market is driven by
    desire for innovation in a way that it definitely wasn't when that
    nude descended the staircase. Many young artists know that, if they
    play their cards (or throw their paint) right, they can appeal to
    wealthy collectors and be the next big thing. 

    And there are related changes in the "academy"--the universities,
    the critics, the arbiters of taste. The academy was once a stuffy
    enclave whose denizens where outraged by any straying from what they
    defined as good art (Matisse was, after all, called a "wild
    beast"--une Fauve). Now it takes more courage to do plein air
    watercolors (which, however brilliant, will be viewed by the academy
    as "vacation art") than to do something which is considered "outside"
    by someone like John. Outside is in! 

    And then there is something else, that has been going on at least
    since the bourgeois revolution--a "movement" of artists with varying
    non-market, non-academic motivations. While, in my experience, such
    artists tend either to be driven by the desire to bugger whomever
    they view as having power and authority, or by some kind of vision
    that they will express despite the views of those with power and
    authority, there's a good deal of crossover. Many of them can draw
    quite well but choose not to. And they either don't care what you or
    I think (they only please themselves) or they are quite pleased when
    they upset us. Some of them will tell you that art that doesn't upset
    someone isn't art! 

    I'm not proposing any solutions. Where are we
    anyway--post-post-modernism? This too shall pass. Maybe a sense of
    history can help. A little detachment and serenity never hurts
    either. 

Lisa Orlando
Albion, CA, US
____________________________________________________________________
T h e   O r c h i d   L i s t
Open Electronic Forum for Jewelry Manufacturing Methods and Procedures
____________________________________________________________________
Orchid FAQ:
~ http://www.ganoksin.com/orchid/faq.htm
Orchid Archives:
~ http://www.ganoksin.com/orchid/archive
Orchid Galleries:
~ http://www.ganoksin.com/orchid/gallery.htm
Invite a Friend:
~ http://www.ganoksin.com/invite.htm
____________________________________________________________________
Tips From The Jeweler's Bench - Article Archive
~ http://www.ganoksin.com/borisat/tip_sear.htm
The Jeweler's Selected Bibliography List
~ http://www.ganoksin.com/jewelry-books
Buy Orchid Jewelry:
~ http://www.ganoksin.com/shop
____________________________________________________________________
-Unsubscribe:
-Email: orchid-request AT ganoksin.com Body=unsubscribe subject=blank
____________________________________________________________________