why anti-art? (slightly ot ranrish)

[Wayside]

OK, now we are talking about my assumptions. Yes. You're a better artist if you encourage, or at least allow for, multiple interpretations of a given work. This isn't any kind of idealism, its pragmaticism. People don't usually operate as a series of binary states: its rare that you can reduce human response to either/or. Thus any attempt to accurately express/model/represent human experience is going to reflect this. Anything else is myth-making or propaganda...

Assuming that works of art are attempts to express/model/respresent human experience. I like that you say human experience, because I agree that's the key, but expression and representation are definitely arguable concepts, and, depending on what you mean by model, some would throw that one out too, in favor of contain.


quote:
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I detest the modernist movement to judge literature on the basis of how it tricks someone into believing that they suddenly can sympathize with how it must have felt to have been X in Y situation - especially if X is some ethnic minority and Y is a situation of oppression.
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Mallus already responded to this. Quite right, it's not modernism or postmodernism at all. In fact there's a common literary term, the 'affective fallacy,' that denies the value of art based on emotional response and, by extension, denies (also as the 'intentional fallacy') that the emotions or intentions of the artist can be recovered from the work of art at all. The latter fallacy is b.s., but the former is dead on. It sounds like you're groping after some iteration of postcolonialism, and just got it wrong.

I'm not sure how you mean this, but its a great line. Art is always representation, never the thing itself. Naturalism or realism are always just styles...

As long as we're talking about painting, it's easy to make this argument. Move to words and you're screwed. I'd love to post the logic but this whole discussion is kind of OT and I don't know that I could do it in fewer than 5000 words . I'll just say that in the theory of emotions more attention is being paid to the idea of the performative, and it isn't a giant leap to get to the view that an emotion is a concept of itself from this. In other words the interpretation of the thing is actually the thing itself. If we want to 'read' paintings, as it were, in this way, the same would be true.

Look, art gets interpreted. It ain't telepathy. Its all about what meaning gets created when the viewer encounters the work.

It happens, and for the reader/viewer it can be a great thing. Hence Bloom's The Anxiety of Influence. I don't think reader-response theory is what it's all about though. I like some really stupid music in addition to the good music I like. That doesn't mean I can't be aware it's stupid music. I respond to it, but that's not what it's all about. It still sucks, whether I respond to it or not.

The work stands like a monument through time that nobody can touch. Some people can't stand this idea and want art to roll in the dirt with them, but.. well.. I don't know what to say. That isn't a failing of mine.

 

[KitanaVorr]

It comes down to this.

People will pay for the art they can afford and people will pay whatever they believe the art is worth to them.

You can't really convince someone who doesn't believe that the art is worth that much to them (no matter how high its worth is to you) that whatever price you set is what they should pay. Just find a buyer willing to pay your price and ignore those who don't.

Its really a combination of trial and error to find the right pricing structure for your art. But fear not! The more well known and accomplished you are, the more prices your art commands. The hard part is getting to that renown.

I'm a writer and it works the same way with art. Yeah I know my poem/short story is a masterpiece...but they don't know me, so they will charge this horrible price to use my work. However, once they develop a relationship with me, once their readers develop a relationship with me, I can up my price each time until its where it wants to be.

This happens in every profession. You've got to pay the price of starting out as an unknown (no matter how outstanding your art is) before you can command prices that other artists of more renown command. This can take years. There's no fast track. But if you alienate your consumers/buyers by insulting them...then what are you going to do then?

That you do the art for yourself is a good thing, but if you want to sell your art at prices people are willing to buy (and yes they are mostly ignorant of the basic material costs...just explain it to them politely) then do your art for your niche market or find a niche market that appreciates your art and sell there.