Trailmonkey’s post above illustrates perfectly just how much some people are missing the real issue here, which is that stuff like Emin’s, some of Duchamps, Hirst, etc is produced simply to show off, to get attention without any genuine effort, skill or talent being used to produce it. The difference between say Duchamp’s ‘Fountain’ and Gertler’s work above is that the latter is produced using the unique skill and talent which belonged to the artist. The former is just a urinal placed in an art gallery, nothing more. Taking the piss. Pure and simple. You could argue that Duchamp had a ‘talent’ for shocking people, for getting attention, but no more than a naughty kid having a tantrum in a supermarket, or a streaker at a sports event. Are they ‘artists’?

You can intellectualise it all you want; anyone who’s being completely honest with themselves knows I’m right.

As for the BritArt thing; most of it was just to make money. Nothing more. ‘Ooh, what can we fool the philistines with this week?’. Charles Saatchi is interested in one thing and one thing alone; money. He knows that by patronising crap like Emin and Hirt’s work, people will think cos he’s a rich and successful bloke he knows what art is. He just knows how to con people.

What you people what can’t see the Emperor is actually naked don’t seem to realise, is that proper skill and talent for producing art is being ignored in favour of shock value. Bit like how some girl pop group just take their clothes off and gyrate seductively in a video and people think it’s great music….

difference is, i won’t call them a ponce because of it.

I will. Cos that’s what they are.

See, people like that would rather have shite like this, than some proper art:

Pile of bricks ffs someone shooduv had a smack for that one. 🙄

I know absolutely zip about art. Actually, that’s not technically correct as one of my G/f’s degrees is for Fine Art but my understanding compared to hers is akin to a bungalow to The Shard.

My own stance is that it’s art if it provokes an emotional or intellectual response in you beyond mere aesthetic titillation. Some graffiti can be art, often you can find social commentry there if you look hard enough.

The Haywain is a lovely painting, no doubt about that and it looks great recreated on my parents’ placemats when we sit for Sunday roast. I would argue that someone like Banksy, Emin or Hirst who start out with a concept of what they’re trying to achieve are worthy of their acclaim. Sure, I could dip a sheep in formaldehyde and leave it in an art gallery. But did I come up with the idea before Hirst? No. Do I have any idea about the themes I’d be attempting to deal with? Not a clue. But I do sort of get what Hirst was trying to get across… In my own ineloquent and clumsy fashion.

So art requires effort then, Elf? What kind of effort?

Elfin – I think the problem here is that you just don’t get their work and are refusing to accept them as artists because you don’t get them. That’s fine, that is your opinion and you are (god knows why) entitled to it.

But it does not stop them from being artists.

Elfin – I think the problem here is that you just don’t get their work

That’s because there’s nothing to get.

You don’t even know yourself; you’re just miffed cos someone else has the balls to come out and say it like it actually is- crap.

One day you will realise that I am right. It is better for you all, in the long run, to just accept that I am right, and you will have better, more rewarding and happier lives.

Whether or not people get them doesn’t actually stop them being artists

yes still our fault if we dont get it rather than them being crap at conveying an idea through art…just arrogance. As you note with your of Constable you dont like him but accept he is an artist.
i dont like Hirst but reckon i could put fwd a reasonable argument that he is not even an artist tbh. This is the problem at the moment IMHO. Blaiming the viewer for not getting the very opaque and unclear message being sent is unfair and is the wrong way round.
FRED ARCHITECTURE

These guys…

had the measure of most of the Brit Art guff before most. And commented on it with more wit and verve than Hirst/Emin’s could ever dream about

yes still our fault if we dont get it rather than them being crap at conveying an idea through art…just arrogance. As you note with your of Constable you dont like him but accept he is an artist.
i dont like Hirst but reckon i could put fwd a reasonable argument that he is not even an artist tbh. This is the problem at the moment IMHO. Blaiming the viewer for not getting the very opaque and unclear message being sent is unfair and is the wrong way round.

It isn’t about fault – each of us is entitled to dislike any artist or particular piece of art. All I am saying is that it doesn’t stop them being artists.

That’s because there’s nothing to get.

Well you don’t think there is. Perhaps you aren’t clever enough?

Fred is unable to accept the idea that art can exist without technical or artisan skills.

I would still like to hear his thoughts (however inelegantly put) about my hypothesis on the Duchamp urinal.

+1 for the K Foundation. Mad as a box of beards.

I think it’s incredibly simple to ‘get’ the work.. but it’s another thing entirely to be inclined to see the point of getting the work..

On Hirst – what would be better, a photo-realistc painting of a skull embedded with diamonds, or a skull embedded with diamonds?

Why?

Elfin – one day the whole world will realise that you are right !

Blaiming the viewer for not getting the very opaque and unclear message being sent is unfair and is the wrong way round.

But not every audience is the same…this is why more people buy books (supposedly) written by Jordan than Dostoyevsky. Or more people read the News Of The World than The Sunday Times.

Or have I missed something?

A mate’s GF used to work at the Tate, and one year we got invites to the Turner Prize private view.

TBH it was mostly crap, as expected, so we amused ourselves by getting stuck into the free beer, then walked around and basically made idiots of ourselves by gushing loudly about how brilliant things like light switches and fire extinguishers and that were. Y’know, proper stupid dickhead stylee. I’m sure many other people just thought we were ignorant savages. At one stage we were laughing at a Damien Hirts piece, and my mate’s GF was well peed off cos apparently standing just behind us had bin Damien Hirst himself (who we din’t recognise cos we’re uneducated artistically illiterate heathen scum). 😆

We din’t get invites the next year. 🙁

Perhaps we should have Elfin installed in the Tate? Rotating on a motorised plinth, shouting out Elfinisms and throwing shit* at passers-by.

*I can say shit because in this context it is art and therefore acceptable.

shitshitshit

Perhaps you aren’t clever enough?

No, I’m as thick as pigshit, me. Obviously.

Elfin – one day the whole world will realise that you are right !

And on that day, Peace, Love and Harmony shall reign.

TBH it was mostly crap, as expected, so we amused ourselves by getting stuck into the free beer, then walked around and basically made idiots of ourselves by gushing loudly about how briliant things like light switches and fire extinguishers and that were.

Elfin does have a point there. A lot of art seems to take itself too seriously.

Which neatly brings me back to the K Foundation.

I tell you what. If Emin and Hirst set up their own PR agency, they’d clean up. If their rampant self-obsession would allow them to promote anyone or anything other than ME! ME!!! ME!!!!!

which I seriously doubt. Self-indulgent claptrap the lot of it. Have you seen Hirst’s attempts at painting. Sweet Jesus. Best summarised as “I’d love to be Francis Bacon. Unfortunately He had more talent in one of discarded bogies than i could ever muster. So I’ll do these sub sixth-form homage/pastiches of them. He didn’t persevere with that one for long. Before returning to his natural territory. Selling manufactured post-modern crap to rich half-wits

Look at them Binners; quick to call me a thicko, but can’t bloody explain the crap they’re defending, can they?

‘You don’t understand it cos you’re a bit thick’

Ok so explain it to me please

‘No sorry can’t do that you’re simply too stupid to understand’

Oh. 😥

In defence of Tracy Emin, after wandering past her smelley bed a few years ago I read some of the poems she had scrawled on the wall, they were quite good.

Elfin – I was being post-modernistically sarcastic – it is because you are clever (this comes across quite clearly for the most part in your posts) you are unable to accept that it doesn’t actually mean you are always right – you are just having opinions.

Art is not a sum, it cannot be calculated and proven to be correct or incorrect.

can we get this typed up and edited and do a special ‘art of moutain biking’ issue of the mag with this as an appendix and loads of nice pix of bikes? great thread.

i can’t go into why elfin could think a little bit harder about andre’s minimalism and duchamp’s readymades. the fact that duchamp’s is a ‘remake’ of the original fountain comissioned by him in his resurgence/re-appropriation in the 60’s, and the idea of photographing the minimalist ‘staged’ encounter (especially the way it is done), make the issue too much for me in themselves before we even get to the problem of duchamp’s original intention and the context in which it occured, and what andre was saying with his bricks.

suffice to say that warhol, for example, wouldn’t have existed without duchamp, and at the same time warhol is part of the reason duchamp still comes up in debates like these and hasn’t vanished into obscurity, that kind of arguement is enless. neither could gormley’s sculptures have their place without minimalism (and ‘those’ bricks) or the advent of photography and photomechanical reproduction, and at the same time he negates both.

the point is to keeping thinking because there comes a point where the thoughts link up and can genuinely enrich, not just moments stood in front of paintings, but how we go about our daily lives.

someone asked who i liked, i think robert smithson’s 3-part work ‘spiral jetty’ is pretty good, i’m quite into the afro-mysticism of ellen gallagher (sp.?) and i’m trying to get my head round the high-camp social critiques of ryan trecartin. I think for me last year was all about wolfgang tillman’s show at the serpentine.

emin and elfin are actually far more alike than either of them would like to acknowledge i’m afraid, it’s all about a naive sense of individualism, in complete denial of the very messy and contradictory tangled-up-ness of things.

ps. sorry i can’t spell and haven’t been using capital letters!

So Hirst isn’t a good “painter”.

Seems impossible to get beyond the idea that to be “art”, there has to be painting or carving skill…

Jeff Koons is interesting. For instance, this:

Amazing. Made completely of flowers, except that Jeff didn’t do any of it – he employed workmen to put it together for him. Is he less of an artist, then?

i can’t go into why elfin could think a little bit harder about andre’s minimalism and duchamp’s readymades.

It’s cos I’m too thick and stupid, sadly.

Sorry, but that’s the way it is. You might not like it, but you’ll just have to accept it I’m afraid.

But why are you afraid, Elfin?

Well, because I’m too dim to work stuff out therefore have developed a defensive mechanism which sees me lash out and attack anything I don’t understand.

SMASH KILL DESTROY!!

Would you care to deal with any of my points, Fred? I’d be interested in reading your responses.

I like Jeff Koons as i think he raises some challenging points with his work. Hirst has never had anything interesting to say. Ever! His work is just too lazy IMHO.

Its like he possibly had the seeds of something interesting developing… then…. no, I can’t be arsed. I think I’ll go out clubbing a do a load of nose-bag with Keith Allen and Alex James instead. I’ll pop into the studio for 5 minutes first and see if they’ve finished ‘my’ latest batch of paintings. I’ll need the cash. My turn to get the chop in.

Trailmonkey’s post above illustrates perfectly just how much some people are missing the real issue here, which is that stuff like Emin’s, some of Duchamps, Hirst, etc is produced simply to show off, to get attention without any genuine effort, skill or talent being used to produce it

i don’t know how you’ve made that leap of faith when i’ve made no reference whatsoever to any of those ‘artists’.

what my post and your subsequent musings illustrate perfectly is the lack of education that we recieve in this country about art which results in people get all upset when confronted with what they don’t understand, calling people ponces and accusing others of being without skill talent or application.

if i’d recieved a decent education in art, i’d be prepared to give a critical judgement on emin, hirst et al. as it is i can only look at it and wonder wtf it’s supposed to be/mean/say. on an aesthetic level i might like it, i might just be bewildered. what i wouldn’t do is assume that my ignorance meant the artist was a ponce or that their was no worth to the piece. i’d just be inspired to elevate my own understanding.

I am now convinced that Elf is trolling – to make a well thought out point. Which is why he hasn’t responded to Woppit’s points which are excellently put.

I do think that Elf on a plinth would make a fantastic installation though, I really do! If I had a bit more money I’d pay him a daily rate for it!

A lot of art seems to take itself too seriously

But not, apparently, Duchamp, which is ironic of course.

Can wee get a petition going to get Fred installed here please

That would be seriously cool. Imagine the level of vitriol if people were coming out of the national gallery having just been to see an exhibition by Tracy Emin 🙂

Now we are moving on to Performance Art – another refuge for the talentless… (don’t mean you Elfin you amuse me greatly with your articulateness and erudition)

what my post and your subsequent musings illustrate perfectly is the lack of education that we recieve

So, oyu’re saying I jolly well have not had a decent education in art then?

What qualifies you to make such a remark about me? Hmm?

Which is why he hasn’t responded to Woppit’s points

When Woppit shows me and others on here more respect, then I may deign to respond to him. I’ve pretty much answered him anyway, if he actually bothered to read what I writed.

Besides, making such idiotic statements as this excludes him from any discussion about art and aesthetics, imo:

At the risk of incurring the wrath of the most high (Elfin, and possibly barnsleymitch) – everything expressed in the architecture and design of these buildings, is vile.

That would be seriously cool. Imagine the level of vitriol if people were coming out of the national gallery having just been to see an exhibition by Tracy Emin

Oh can I have a machine gun?

Please can I Binners, pleeeassee?

What qualifies you to make such a remark about me? Hmm?

well i can only go on the postings you’ve made on here – if you’ve got a first in art history and your ctitical evaluation of a work of art is emporers new clothes/shite/work of a ponce etc then i’d suggest that you’re doing yourself a disservice by appearing more ignorant than you are.

now if you don’t mind, i’ve job applications to be writing.

Elfin, you have gone way up in my estimation after reading this thread.

Kind of ironic, Fred criticising Tracey Emin and co. for jumping up and down and making a noise just to draw attention to themselves.

When Woppit shows me and others on here more respect

Dear Fred, I really respect you and despite your rather vituperative and offensive mode of expressing yourself, would really really like to read your thoughts on any of the points I’ve made in this thread.

I’m really sorry if I’ve offended you in the past and hope that this apology will qualify as showing you some respect. Of course, this goes for all the “others” that you mention as well.

Woppit.

A very ugly man has just driven past on a John Deere tractor lawnmower.

Surreal, surely, but is it art?

Elfin, you have gone way up in my estimation after reading this thread.

Thank you, I feel I may have gone the other way in other people’s. 😀

Kind of ironic, Fred criticising Tracey Emin and co. for jumping up and down and making a noise just to draw attention to themselves.

Difference is, I’m not lying by calling myself an ‘artist’.

Woppit, you have upset me too much. I will need time to consider this, but I accept your apology and thank you for doing so.

I was thinking more along the lines of the splatter guns used in bugsy malone Fred 🙂

Actually you can have a full Waco-style armory and possibly some more medieval weapons too

All I am saying is that it doesn’t stop them being artists.
That’s because there’s nothing to get.
Well you don’t think there is. Perhaps you aren’t clever enough?

I started all this by saying this type of argument is arrogant BS.
I think most folk think like me only art lovers disagree hence my point about your overly rich intepretation whilst patronisingly suggesting we are all too stupid to get it….do you think this will make it more popular or just reinforce the opinion that followers are arrogant bellends overly intepreting pretentious dross as art?

Difference is, I’m not lying by calling myself an ‘artist’.

No difference. Attention-seeking behaviour is attention-seeking behaviour.