What is the difference between art and advertising?

[Tricky]

Over in Religion and philosophy, CFLarsen posed this question:
What is the difference between art and advertising, then?

I replied
Art does not try to sell something external to the art. Obviously, advertising can contain art.
Claus responded:
Patrons of the arts never demanded that they be portrayed favorably?

You don't want to go down that road, do you?
My answer:
Demanding that a product be presented favorably would make it advertising, wouldn't it? It is not the patron creating the art. And I said advertising could (and usually does) contain art.


Obviously this is a derail from the topic of the thread, so I'm bringing it here.

Now let me say in advance that I am aware that the word "art" is fraught with meaning. You can talk about "The art of the deal" or "The art of war" or even "The art of the fart", so to avoid going down that road, I'm going to ask that this be restricted to visual arts, not written, not musical, not performing, not cinema, not farting. In other words, mostly pictures and sculpture, though you can argue for other forms if you like.

I hold that advertising has the goal of portraying a product favorably, usually for monetary, but sometimes for ego reasons. It may and usually does contain art, but that is not its purpose. Art needs no purpose.

[Piscivore]

Art does not try to sell something external to the art. Obviously, advertising can contain art.
I think you have it backwards. Advertising is art that doesn't attempt to carry much more meaning beyond "the product this represents would be good to have". In the case of Claus' patrons, yes they did (usually) want to be portrayed favourably, but the artists were often free to- and often did- express much more than just "Lorenzo d'Medici is a really great guy" or "How about that Pope?"

ETA:
Art needs no purpose.
True, but sometimes it has one, nonetheless.

[Tricky]

I think you have it backwards. Advertising is art that doesn't attempt to carry much more meaning beyond "the product this represents would be good to have". In the case of Claus' patrons, yes they did (usually) want to be portrayed favourably, but the artists were often free to- and often did- express much more than just "Lorenzo d'Medici is a really great guy" or "How about that Pope?"
No, I think I have it forwards. Their commisioned artwork was done at the request of their patrons and if a patron did not like the result, they could order it changed. The final version might not be the same as what the artist wanted. It was what the advertiser wanted.

But yes, the art that is within advertising can, and often does stand on its own irrespective of the product it was pushing.

True, but sometimes it has one, nonetheless.
Sometimes. Sometimes that meaning has to do with presenting something in a favorable light. If that is the purpose, then the combination of that purpose and the art is advertising. Obviously there can be other purposes besides advertising. Propaganda is one example, which may be negative or positive.

[Hokulele]

Advertising is constructed such that all viewers must experience the same message.

Art can be constructed this way, but does not have to be.

[Piscivore]

No, I think I have it forwards. Their commisioned artwork was done at the request of their patrons and if a patron did not like the result, they could order it changed. The final version might not be the same as what the artist wanted. It was what the advertiser wanted.
But not all commisioned artwork was advertising. Granted, the bulk of it was, but even so, didn't Michaelangelo use the Sistine Chapel to show of the anatomy work he'd been doing, the love of humanity beyond just as servants of Jeebus? As long as he got across the message the Pope wanted, he was free to do so. I don't think you'll see a lot of that in advertising.

But yes, the art that is within advertising can, and often does stand on its own irrespective of the product it was pushing.
Wasn't the point of Pop Art, Warhol and Lichtenstein(I'm not Googling for spelling), that even the most crass commercial message had aesthetic value, regardless of intent?

Propaganda is one example, which may be negative or positive.
Isn't that itself a form of advertising?

[ksbluesfan]

There is nothing artistic about the classified section of your local newspaper. "For sale, 1979 Chrysler, 98,000 miles, runs, best offer". Ads can contain art. Art must contain artistic expression.

[CFLarsen]

Sometimes. Sometimes that meaning has to do with presenting something in a favorable light. If that is the purpose, then the combination of that purpose and the art is advertising. Obviously there can be other purposes besides advertising. Propaganda is one example, which may be negative or positive.

But how do you separate the art from the favorable message?

This is unquestionably an ad (http://www.pressfiles.net/absolut/taxfree/ABSOLUT_VODKA_1liter_mrk_hi.jpg).

Is this? (http://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/irvinem/visualarts/Image-Library/Exempla/durer-self-portrait-1500-lg.jpg)

Is this? (http://www.print.duncans.tv/images/benetton-pieta-david-kirby.jpg)

[CFLarsen]

Why, the same difference between sharing and selling! Although today an appreciation of these differences typically don't exist.

It has never been like that with art. Art has always been commissioned by patrons, right from the earliest examples right up to modern times, where it became fashionable to be independent.

It was rare for an artist to be able to work without his patrons.

[Walter Wayne]

It has never been like that with art. Art has always been commissioned by patrons, right from the earliest examples right up to modern times, where it became fashionable to be independent.

It was rare for an artist to be able to work without his patrons.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_paintings ?

[athon]

I don't see what is confusing. Art is merely a form of communication, where media is used to convey a feeling or emotion. If I want you to feel or sympathise with a concept, I use art to communicate it. This means choosing stimuli which hopefully will connect with the target and illicit an emotional response. Of course, this means knowing your target and what makes them tick.

Advertising uses art to illicit a response, ultimately with a purpose - for the target to act in some way in response to the emotion. Art is merely making you feel something, while advertising uses this in order to encourage you to behave in some specific way.

Advertising can obviously rely heavily on art, yet art can exist which isn't a form of advertising.

Athon

[SirPhilip]

It has never been like that with art. Art has always been commissioned by patrons, right from the earliest examples right up to modern times, where it became fashionable to be independent. It was rare for an artist to be able to work without his patrons.

http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/9599/larsonismsconcedingposiyy4.png

(Brother Philip is suddenly holding a cash register..)

So, anyone want to be on the cutting edge (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=3603148&postcount=1131) of fashion at TAM this year. Only $59.95 and t-shirts sizes are limited.

[SirPhilip]

Jesus Christ and a choir of f[Radio Edit] angels, 39,000 posts. My work already is so last month.

[Vanda]

The argument about “art” is difficult for me even when other forms are removed from the discussion. Everyone feels differently about exactly what art is.

So when you say that “art needs no purpose,” are you saying that the way you define whether something is art is by determining what its purpose is, or did I misunderstand?

I’m assuming you mean that the artist can create art for no obvious “reason,” like making a political statement or promoting a product or service, or even to sell it to make a living, and that art can be created purely for aesthetic reasons or as a source of pure expression by the artist (or did I just find another way to misrepresent your statement?)

In either case, art must have a purpose, even if it’s purely aesthetic or solely a means of expression by the artist, right? It’s a pointless discussion if art serves no purpose whatsoever. So if art must have a purpose, then the range of purpose might probably include things like aesthetic quality (“high” to “low”), meaning/expression (“ambiguous” to “precise”), and definition (having a purpose that varies between “lofty” or “mundane”).

So, to me, under that “definition,” advertising as a whole is an art form that has a specific purpose of mundane character and is of generally low aesthetic quality compared to other visual art forms. Specifically, individual “pieces,” when compared to other examples of advertising, can range from high quality (an example for some people might be the Escher-inspired car ads) to low quality (an example for probably all people might be local used car ads).

I think I’m coming to see it like this: The purpose of all advertising is to sell something. The technique used to sell is to create desire in the intended audience. In order to create desire, a low form of art, either skillfully or poorly rendered, is used (as opposed to knocking on doors and just describing the product, etc.)

Also, can the idea of the patron forcing the artist to change the product be related to the practice of studios forcing directors to edit their product for non-artistic reasons? To me, even the studio-edited theatrical version of Blade Runner is still a piece of art.

[CFLarsen]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_paintings ?

We don't know enough of the social structure to know if they were commissioned or not. It is likely, though, that Grok-Who-Paints-Well got assigned by Throg-Who-Is-20-And-Therefore-Tribe-Elder.

I don't see what is confusing. Art is merely a form of communication, where media is used to convey a feeling or emotion. If I want you to feel or sympathise with a concept, I use art to communicate it. This means choosing stimuli which hopefully will connect with the target and illicit an emotional response. Of course, this means knowing your target and what makes them tick.

Advertising uses art to illicit a response, ultimately with a purpose - for the target to act in some way in response to the emotion. Art is merely making you feel something, while advertising uses this in order to encourage you to behave in some specific way.

Advertising can obviously rely heavily on art, yet art can exist which isn't a form of advertising.

It's a good question if the latter is even possible. What work of art exists which isn't a form of advertising?

Even graffiti is some form of advertising: The elaborate graffiti of the NY subway was very much about "advertising": Who had made it.

[SirPhilip]

Doublepost.

[SirPhilip]

Claus, everyone knows what art is. Art is bought because they relate to it or find it personally relevant, interesting, ironic, humorous, or conversationally fun. Art itself is simply a more very advanced, abstract form of communication to varying psychological depth. Typically associations which require volumes of words are summed up instantly through imagery. Imagery, sound and motion being however ideal.

Try for example, to summarize the force of nature that is Claus Larson, the destroyer of keyboards, into colorless shapeless words. Pages would be required to fully frame - even among an audience of strong atheists, the gravity of the futility. You have to be there with a migraine headache and a sense self-idiocy, catching yourself staring at five pages of failed exchange over common sense, and what instead of a man could very be Curious George hunched over his desk with his nose buried in a mountain of cocaine with an advocacy of evolution and a look of resentment of the saying about a million monkeys typing in his eyes.

[SirPhilip]

What work of art exists which isn't a form of advertising? Well, the masterpiece I did of you for one thing...

[athon]

It's a good question if the latter is even possible. What work of art exists which isn't a form of advertising?

Even graffiti is some form of advertising: The elaborate graffiti of the NY subway was very much about "advertising": Who had made it.

What behaviour does the artwork provoke? Emotions, for sure. But advertising intends to make you do something as a result of the feelings provoked by an art work.

What definition of 'advertise' are you using if you think graffiti is advertising?

Athon

[CFLarsen]

What behaviour does the artwork provoke? Emotions, for sure. But advertising intends to make you do something as a result of the feelings provoked by an art work.

And lots of art intend to make you do something. E.g., David's paintings of Napoleon (Napoleon Crossing The Alps and Consecration) were painted purely to make people accept Napoleon's power. Any religious art is designed to make you realize the glory and might of God and act accordingly.

What definition of 'advertise' are you using if you think graffiti is advertising?

The same as yours: To advertise who made it. What group is behind it. "Look, we kick ass because we can paint where we want."

Graffiti (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graffiti)

What work of art exists which isn't a form of advertising?

[athon]

And lots of art intend to make you do something. E.g., David's paintings of Napoleon (Napoleon Crossing The Alps and Consecration) were painted purely to make people accept Napoleon's power. Any religious art is designed to make you realize the glory and might of God and act accordingly.

I'm not suggesting that some art does not have the ability to advertise. I'd argue that some propaganda pieces could be intended to advertise, as could some religious works.

I'm saying that not all art is necessarily advertising. Advertising requires the intention of inciting a behaviour, not just elliciting an emotion.

The same as yours: To advertise who made it.That's not the definition I used. Stating 'who made it' is not the same as inciting a behaviour in the target.

Now, what is your definition of 'advertise'?

What group is behind it. "Look, we kick ass because we can paint where we want."

That's not advertising.

Graffiti (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graffiti)

So? I didn't ask for a definition for graffiti.

What work of art exists which isn't a form of advertising?Whoa cowboy. Let's start with what you think 'advertise' means first. If you think it's any form of art that says anything at all, then show where you get that definition.

Athon

[martu]

What work of art exists which isn't a form of advertising?

Here:

Art (http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/images/10000-random-numbers.png)

[CFLarsen]

I'm not suggesting that some art does not have the ability to advertise. I'd argue that some propaganda pieces could be intended to advertise, as could some religious works.

Which propaganda pieces do not advertise?

Which religious works do not advertise?

I'm saying that not all art is necessarily advertising. Advertising requires the intention of inciting a behaviour, not just elliciting an emotion.

If I understand you correctly, you are saying that you can have an emotion that does not incite a behavior?

That's not the definition I used. Stating 'who made it' is not the same as inciting a behaviour in the target.

I also included other things. However, "who made it" is, in the case of graffiti, an expression of "hey, we're cool! If you admire it, copy it! Let's have a graffiti slam!"

Graffiti painters are hugely competitive.

That's not advertising.

Really? Why not?

So? I didn't ask for a definition for graffiti.

I didn't post it as a definition of graffiti, but as an example of how graffiti is advertising.

Whoa cowboy. Let's start with what you think 'advertise' means first. If you think it's any form of art that says anything at all, then show where you get that definition.

No. Let's start with your claim which hinges on your definition of "advertise". You claimed that:

art can exist which isn't a form of advertising.

Whatever definition of advertising I use has nothing to do with your claim and your definition of "advertise".

So,

What work of art exists which isn't a form of advertising?

Here:

Art (http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/images/10000-random-numbers.png)

Why is that art?

[martu]

Why is that art?

I like to look at it, it makes me think and I find the construction of it quite elegant.

To me it's art. Do you disagree? If so why?

[HarryKeogh]

Well, they can both sell lots of bad soup.

[CFLarsen]

I like to look at it, it makes me think and I find the construction of it quite elegant.

To me it's art. Do you disagree? If so why?

Oh, it isn't up to me to define what is art to you.

But, given your description of what is art: What is not art - to you?

[volatile]

If you want a professional opinion (I'm an art historian) - all advertising is art; not all art is advertising. That's the formalist model, anyway.

This argument becomes semantic and uninteresting pretty quickly.

[athon]

Which propaganda pieces do not advertise?

Which religious works do not advertise?

Another example of your fetish of turning everything into an argument. Fine, all propaganda could be considered advertising, by way of it inciting the target to behave in an intended fashion.

If I understand you correctly, you are saying that you can have an emotion that does not incite a behavior?

Yes. Not all all emotions make you behave in an intended way. What behaviour do you think Turner wanted the target to perform through his painting 'The Fighting Temeraire'? Or Da Vinci through the Mona Lisa?

I also included other things. However, "who made it" is, in the case of graffiti, an expression of "hey, we're cool! If you admire it, copy it! Let's have a graffiti slam!"

So all graffiti is painted with that as an implicit challenge? Evidence? Or is this more of your naive assumptions?

Really? Why not?

You're yet to show that it is. Burden of proof is on you, sunshine. You're stating that graffiti is advertising - you need to a) provide a definition of advertising which isn't just your make-believe interpretation, and b) show that graffiti is commonly accepted as subscribing to this accepted definition. Going on your track record of 'engagement' and 'drum-sticks', I won't hold my breath that you have a clue of either point.

I didn't post it as a definition of graffiti, but as an example of how graffiti is advertising.

Please quote where in that wiki article that it said graffiti is advertising. Simply because 'it is competitive' does not mean it is always painted with the intention of inciting a behaviour in the observer.

No. Let's start with your claim which hinges on your definition of "advertise". You claimed that:

You don't have any evidence? I guess once again, you lose then. Sorry, it's your claim. 'All art is a form of advertising'. I'm asking you to define advertising and then show how all art does this. You haven't done that.

Notice a pattern in your arguments, Claus? You claim to understand a word, embarrass yourself by misunderstanding it, then fail to show where it is used in the manner you believe. I'm asking for evidence, which I'm sure you'll fumble to provide some nonsense links and then later point to some post in defence of your claim which fails to support anything you've said. If you can't support your claim in the next post, we might just skip to the part where it's accepted by the majority that you're once again stirring the pot and speaking through your arse.

Whatever definition of advertising I use has nothing to do with your claim and your definition of "advertise".

So,

What work of art exists which isn't a form of advertising?

Why is that art?

This is simple - back up your claim, Claus, without trying to spin this around. Where is your evidence? I'm calling you out, squire.

Athon

[athon]

If you want a professional opinion (I'm an art historian) - all advertising is art; not all art is advertising. That's the formalist model, anyway.

This argument becomes semantic and uninteresting pretty quickly.

Thanks Volatile. I don't suppose you can seal the statement with a link? (I believe you, but it'd be nice to have the red stamp just to make it official).

Oh, and 'semantics' is just Latin for 'Claus'.

Athon

[Foolmewunz]

If you want a professional opinion (I'm an art historian) - all advertising is art; not all art is advertising. That's the formalist model, anyway.

This argument becomes semantic and uninteresting pretty quickly.

Bolded portion: You noticed that, did you?

Especially if it all hinges on "every message, every concept, every idea promoted in a work of "art" is, by definition, advertising." Which is not a concept I agree with, but can see no point in arguing.

[martu]

Oh, it isn't up to me to define what is art to you.

But, given your description of what is art: What is not art - to you?

Very true - so do you think it is art?

Peristalsis isn't art for one.

[calebprime]

Is this? (http://www.print.duncans.tv/images/benetton-pieta-david-kirby.jpg)

Claus, everyone knows what art is. Art is bought because they relate to it or find it personally relevant, interesting, ironic, humorous, or conversationally fun. Art itself is simply a more very advanced, abstract form of communication to varying psychological depth. Typically associations which require volumes of words are summed up instantly through imagery. Imagery, sound and motion being however ideal.

Try for example, to summarize the force of nature that is Claus Larson, the destroyer of keyboards, into colorless shapeless words. Pages would be required to fully frame - even among an audience of strong atheists, the gravity of the futility. You have to be there with a migraine headache and a sense self-idiocy, catching yourself staring at five pages of failed exchange over common sense, and what instead of a man could very be Curious George hunched over his desk with his nose buried in a mountain of cocaine with an advocacy of evolution and a look of resentment of the saying about a million monkeys typing in his eyes.

SirPhillip is in good form this morning. I especially liked the Clint Eastwood.

My friend and I were so horrified by billboards of Benetton ads in the Boston area that we seriously considered defacing them. We even bought paint & ski-masks and had a plan. He considered it idolatry. I considered it a worse-than-tasteless blurring of the line between company promotion and exploiting images of suffering. This ad, also, makes me sick. If Benetton were a charity, I would still think these ads were over the line.

actually, by making the grievers look swinish, this image is disgusting on every possible level--which, although interesting, is just too...too.

2¢.

[Wowbagger]

Advertising usurps the concept of art, in order to parasite our minds, for the purpose of selling something.

Not all artwork is parasitic, but most forms of advertising utilize parasitic artwork.

[volatile]

Thanks Volatile. I don't suppose you can seal the statement with a link? (I believe you, but it'd be nice to have the red stamp just to make it official).

Oh, and 'semantics' is just Latin for 'Claus'.

Athon

Well, I don't want to go into a derailing history of formalist debates on what is and isn't art. Suffice to say, the formalist defence of advertising as art would be that advertising uses the same forms as visual art does. In other words, advertising is art because it looks like art. Simplistic, but there you have it.

Take for example this quote (from '"Form" in Art' by Reuben Abel (Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 32, No. 3, (Mar., 1972), pp. 371-376)):

"Analysis of the term "work of art" indicates that the object must be formed: that is, that materials must be arranged, or composed, or organized, or manipulated intentionally, by a person, who does so for the sake of doing so (regardless of whatever other motives he may also have), and with the objective of evoking a response from some other person to him."

Advertising clearly fulfils this (formalist) definition.

A quick browse of academic sources also dug up this quote, from 'Uneasy Courtship: Modern Art and Modern Advertising' by Jackson Lears (American Quarterly, Vol. 39, No. 1, Special Issue: Modernist Culture in America (Spring, 1987), pp. 133-154), which illustrates less the formal defence but a more political and practical defence:

"And nearly all critics agree that the conflict between modernist art and modern advertising has disappeared - if it ever existed. The cruder version of this argument asserts that modernist art has always reflected the cultural style of capitalist modernization: the restless experimentation, the unrelenting contempt for established forms and values."

This is perhaps what Claus is getting at - contemporary art, existing, as it does, within the art market, has similar if not precisely parallel concerns to advertising.

This book looks interesting, and relevant: http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=Gw5QvfTS6vAC&oi=fnd&pg=PR9&dq=is+advertising+art&ots=U_7VPKQNMX&sig=ghn6sWKREXu8aPR306eYP16hR7o#PPR5,M1

[Piscivore]

SirPhillip is in good form this morning. I especially liked the Clint Eastwood.

My friend and I were so horrified by billboards of Benetton ads in the Boston area that we seriously considered defacing them. We even bought paint & ski-masks and had a plan. He considered it idolatry. I considered it a worse-than-tasteless blurring of the line between company promotion and exploiting images of suffering. This ad, also, makes me sick. If Benetton were a charity, I would still think these ads were over the line.

actually, by making the grievers look swinish, this image is disgusting on every possible level--which, although interesting, is just too...too.

2¢.

So in other words, it is a very powerful artistic image for you? :)

[volatile]

So in other words, it is a very powerful artistic image for you? :)

Indeed.

Those Bentton ads are definitely artistic. And successfully so.

[Loss Leader]

I hold that advertising has the goal of portraying a product favorably, usually for monetary, but sometimes for ego reasons. It may and usually does contain art, but that is not its purpose. Art needs no purpose.


Of course art has a purpose. The purpose of art is for the artist to convey the message, "this is how I see the world." Advertising has the same purpose, "This is how we at the Widget Corporation see the world."

Both attempt to open the viewer's mind to a new way of thinking about the universe. There is no difference between the two. In both cases, the viewer alone decides the value of the message.

[calebprime]

So in other words, it is a very powerful artistic image for you? :)

It sure is. If I saw it in a museum, without any connection to Benneton, I would say "Wow, that's interesting. Is there any glimmer of hope, or beauty or morality to be found in the artist's work, so that I don't have to just feel awful? Something to justify the shock?"

Now, for all I know, Benneton has used every penny they've earned, somehow, to treat AIDS patients, or something. I don't know.

In general, media is too aggressive. It's an arms race against the increasing dullness of the viewer's sensitivity and perhaps intelligence. Or maybe just against their increasing hardness. That's too bad in itself. Everywhere, it's pump up the volume, punch up the picture.

[Tricky]

Advertising usurps the concept of art, in order to parasite our minds, for the purpose of selling something.

Not all artwork is parasitic, but most forms of advertising utilize parasitic artwork.
This was a very good example of advertising that is not, under most definitions, art. It could even be a "fill-in-the-blank" form. And classified ads are quite numerous. Some include some "eye-catching" graphic, but many are just information.
There is nothing artistic about the classified section of your local newspaper. "For sale, 1979 Chrysler, 98,000 miles, runs, best offer". Ads can contain art. Art must contain artistic expression.
And as Martu points out, it would be hard to argue that abstract art advertises anything. Look at the works of Mark Rothko*. Hell, look at Van Goph. What was "Wheat Field with Crows" advertising? Suicide?


*Funny story. There is a small gallery in Houston called the Rothko Chapel. I had never seen any of Rothko's work but I knew he was a famous artist, and one day as I was strolling by, I decided to pop in. I went in the chapel and all I saw was a circular room with black panelling. I went out to the front lobby and asked the attendant, "Are the paintings out on loan?" She gave me the look that a snobby art student gives an ignorant philistine and said, "Those are the paintings." Can you blame me for being confused?
http://www.rothkochapel.org/NTryptich.jpg

[NoZed Avenger]

Try for example, to summarize the force of nature that is Claus Larson, the destroyer of keyboards, into colorless shapeless words. Pages would be required to fully frame - even among an audience of strong atheists, the gravity of the futility. You have to be there with a migraine headache and a sense self-idiocy, catching yourself staring at five pages of failed exchange over common sense, and what instead of a man could very be Curious George hunched over his desk with his nose buried in a mountain of cocaine with an advocacy of evolution and a look of resentment of the saying about a million monkeys typing in his eyes.


See? This is art.

[calebprime]

T
*Funny story. There is a small gallery in Houston called the Rothko Chapel. I had never seen any of Rothko's work but I knew he was a famous artist, and one day as I was strolling by, I decided to pop in. I went in the chapel and all I saw was a circular room with black panelling. I went out to the front lobby and asked the attendant, "Are the paintings out on loan?" She gave me the look that a snobby art student gives an ignorant philistine and said, "Those are the paintings." Can you blame me for being confused?
http://www.rothkochapel.org/NTryptich.jpg

Maybe kittnh or someone can comment here--something's wrong. Either the color seriously faded or changed on the paintings or the picture's weird.

His stuff was all about color harmonies, so if it wasn't right, it was nothing.

But I don't see it--I don't have a trained eye. I don't know whether these images, for example, are right:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=rothko+pics&btnG=Google+Search

eta: every other source I checked looked the same. The panels are described as "black but colored"...

[athon]

Well, I don't want to go into a derailing history of formalist debates on what is and isn't art. Suffice to say, the formalist defence of advertising as art would be that advertising uses the same forms as visual art does. In other words, advertising is art because it looks like art. Simplistic, but there you have it.

I wouldn't at all say it's a derail. Seems quite within the bounds of what we're discussing.

Given the definition you've provided and the terms, I can't disagree with that. If it looks artistic, it is. Cool. But then it still doesn't mean all advertising is art and all art is advertising. I might question whether somebody who looks at all forms of communication as art is broadening their definition of art to the point of it being useless. Case in point - I would think a person who feels a grocery docket is art has lost the plot.

Take for example this quote (from '"Form" in Art' by Reuben Abel (Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 32, No. 3, (Mar., 1972), pp. 371-376)):

"Analysis of the term "work of art" indicates that the object must be formed: that is, that materials must be arranged, or composed, or organized, or manipulated intentionally, by a person, who does so for the sake of doing so (regardless of whatever other motives he may also have), and with the objective of evoking a response from some other person to him."

I like the definition, although wonder just what is meant by 'response'. I would contend that in order for the art to be successful, the response evoked should be the same as intended by the artist. If I want you to feel shock and instead I simply get anger, I'm not sure if that could be successful as art.

Advertising clearly fulfils this (formalist) definition.

I'm not beyond feeling that all advertising could be considered art. However, I do question the reverse; that all art is advertising.

A quick browse of academic sources also dug up this quote, from 'Uneasy Courtship: Modern Art and Modern Advertising' by Jackson Lears (American Quarterly, Vol. 39, No. 1, Special Issue: Modernist Culture in America (Spring, 1987), pp. 133-154), which illustrates less the formal defence but a more political and practical defence:

"And nearly all critics agree that the conflict between modernist art and modern advertising has disappeared - if it ever existed. The cruder version of this argument asserts that modernist art has always reflected the cultural style of capitalist modernization: the restless experimentation, the unrelenting contempt for established forms and values."

This is perhaps what Claus is getting at - contemporary art, existing, as it does, within the art market, has similar if not precisely parallel concerns to advertising.

To be honest, I don't think Claus knows himself what he is getting at. He argues for the sake of it.

From what I gather, he is suggesting all art is a form of advertisement, with the closest he's come to a definition for 'advertise' is to agree with me that an advertisement aims to persuade you into behaving in a specific manner, such as purchasing an item, attending an event, or seeking information. Art, on the other hand, aims to make you feel something, which can lead to a whole range of consequences (of which behaving in a specific manner could well be one).

This book looks interesting, and relevant: http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=Gw5QvfTS6vAC&oi=fnd&pg=PR9&dq=is+advertising+art&ots=U_7VPKQNMX&sig=ghn6sWKREXu8aPR306eYP16hR7o#PPR5,M1
[/quote]

I'd check it out if it wasn't half twelve in the morning. :)

Athon

[Wowbagger]

This was a very good example of advertising that is not, under most definitions, art. It could even be a "fill-in-the-blank" form. And classified ads are quite numerous. Some include some "eye-catching" graphic, but many are just information. That is why I said most, not all.

Second of all, you could say that there is an art to writing classified ads. Though, I admit that's stretching things a bit.

[Piscivore]

It sure is. If I saw it in a museum, without any connection to Benneton, I would say "Wow, that's interesting. Is there any glimmer of hope, or beauty or morality to be found in the artist's work, so that I don't have to just feel awful? Something to justify the shock?"
Why would that be neccessary? Are you saying art is supposed to make you feel good?

Now, for all I know, Benneton has used every penny they've earned, somehow, to treat AIDS patients, or something. I don't know.
Would that make a difference to you? Should it?

In general, media is too aggressive. It's an arms race against the increasing dullness of the viewer's sensitivity and perhaps intelligence. Or maybe just against their increasing hardness. That's too bad in itself.
I won't dispute that.

Everywhere, it's pump up the volume, punch up the picture.
Well, maybe I'll dispute just the word "everywhere".

[Tricky]

That is why I said most, not all.
I know you did, but the point was to show that there is a great body of advertising that is arguably not art.

Second of all, you could say that there is an art to writing classified ads. Though, I admit that's stretching things a bit.
That's why I put the disclaimer in the OP that I was excluding things that "could be called art". This would also mean that radio advertising does not contain art, by my restricted definition.

I didn't want this to turn into a discussion of "what is art", or I'm going to have to brag about my creative farting again.;)

[plumjam]

Let me guess, no broad agreement will be reached on this.. and 4 pages later we'll be none the wiser.

[Tricky]

Maybe kittnh or someone can comment here--something's wrong. Either the color seriously faded or changed on the paintings or the picture's weird.

His stuff was all about color harmonies, so if it wasn't right, it was nothing.

But I don't see it--I don't have a trained eye. I don't know whether these images, for example, are right:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=rothko+pics&btnG=Google+Search

eta: every other source I checked looked the same. The panels are described as "black but colored"...
If you got really close, you could see little splotches of other very dark colors, but even then, they were barely distinguishable. I just had to say, "I don't get Mark Rothko" and move on.

[NoZed Avenger]

Let me guess, no broad agreement will be reached on this.. and 4 pages later we'll be none the wiser.


Replace "4" with "24" and we're good.

[ImaginalDisc]

If you got really close, you could see little splotches of other very dark colors, but even then, they were barely distinguishable. I just had to say, "I don't get Mark Rothko" and move on.

It sounds more interesting than the enormous brown paper sheets each decorated with a $0.32 stamp that the local Museum of Modern Art bought a while back.

I don't care who made them, it might have been UPS for all I know.

[Tricky]

Let me guess, no broad agreement will be reached on this.. and 4 pages later we'll be none the wiser.
I predict we will reach the general agreement that not all art is advertising but that Claus will never concede this point.

[volatile]

Given the definition you've provided and the terms, I can't disagree with that. If it looks artistic, it is. Cool. But then it still doesn't mean all advertising is art and all art is advertising. I might question whether somebody who looks at all forms of communication as art is broadening their definition of art to the point of it being useless. Case in point - I would think a person who feels a grocery docket is art has lost the plot.

I think advertising is designed to be displayed, looked at and contemplated, as paintings are. Grocery dockets don't quite fulfil these criteria. I'd also think you'd have trouble arguing that grocery dockets are "designed to produce a response" in the way the quote above is implying.

I like the definition, although wonder just what is meant by 'response'. I would contend that in order for the art to be successful, the response evoked should be the same as intended by the artist.

Hmmm... two things wrong here that I can see. The first is that I wouldn't necessarily argue that advertising was necessarily good or successful art, just that it satisfies the formal criteria to be called art in the first place. Whether ads are successful (in artistic terms) is a whole other debate. :)

The second is about artistic intentionality and reception. Nearly all art critics and art historians have moved away from trying to categorise 'success' in terms of the coherency of the affect. Authors cannot control the affective potential of their works, no matter how hard they try. :)

If I want you to feel shock and instead I simply get anger, I'm not sure if that could be successful as art.

I would argue (with people like Deleuze) that genuinely successful art is art that produces reactions. Simon O'Sullivan has called this art you can "encounter". The types of reactions produced might not be those intended by the artist, but that's almost by the by. Indeed, a lot of art work has affective content beyond its narrative content - Gustav Klimt's Kiss, for example, is a narrative painting of a couple embracing, but it's affect (for me), an overwhelming sense of passionate warmth, is something subtly different. Klimt set out to paint a picture of a couple kissing. What that painting does, whilst a function of the work, was not necessarily consciously conceived as the original intention in the way you're implying, I think.

Of course, if you set out to create something profound that induces ridicule, then your art is unsuccessful. But that's slightly different, I think.


I'm not beyond feeling that all advertising could be considered art. However, I do question the reverse; that all art is advertising.

I question that too, although I think a case could be made.

[calebprime]

It sure is. If I saw it in a museum, without any connection to Benneton, I would say "Wow, that's interesting. Is there any glimmer of hope, or beauty or morality to be found in the artist's work, so that I don't have to just feel awful? Something to justify the shock?"

[QUOTE=Piscivore;3604206]Why would that be neccessary? Are you saying art is supposed to make you feel good?

Heh, you ask a good question. First, no, I don't demand that art makes me feel good. The rougher the experience of receiving it, the more it should have something to say, and if it is a full view of the world, it will include a range of feelings.

The cynicism of the Simpsons includes also the intelligence of Lisa. The cynicism of South Park includes the innocence of the characters and the sophistication of the humor, and the important issues they sometimes address, and good music. Steely Dan's lyrics often have cynical outlaw characters, but this is in the context of craft and a range of lyrics that prevents any one song from being the simple opinion of the band. So irony is possible. Can't say that about Motley Crue. In Beckett, bleakness is balanced by lyricism...

Would that make a difference to you? Should it?

Morally, yes, in the sense that the purpose of the ad was to raise money to end suffering, not to make profit that would go for the CEO's lavish lifestyle, or something.

In a weaker, more aesthetic sense, but also to do with morality, it would justify the objectionable use of shock tactics to make a point. The problem with the Benneton ads is that they showed car crashes, if I recall, just slices of suffering life. It was as if God looked down at his creation and said, "This is the world. The world includes suffering. Buy Benneton." It was, therefore, a way of speaking that would be presumptuous for anyone but God, and since it was just a goddam advertisement, it didn't really have a purpose distinct enough from overcoming our resistence to being sold to. It was a deliberate grab at our attention, another pity ploy, designed to fool our critical intelligence. It was dazzle camouflage of a particularly odious kind. The effect is not to raise our awareness, but to turn AIDS (or other suffering) into just another image that we learn to ignore. maybe. possibly. i'm not sure. sorry for the derail, tricky. also, i think we're getting slightly wiser by mulling this stuff over. ultimately, of course, we can't take our brains with us when we die. life causes brain-damage, so we're ultimately none the wiser.

[plumjam]

I predict we will reach the general agreement that not all art is advertising but that Claus will never concede this point.

Yeah, I'd agree that not all art is advertising. I mean, I could (and often do) paint a masterpiece alone in a room, and when it's finished burn it, without anyone else having seen it. It would still be a masterpiece of art. And its creation would have been its own reason; an act of supreme value in itself. Would Van Gogh's works have been any the less if he had been the only one ever to see them? No.

Even a masterfully artistic piece of advertising couldn't count as advertising, in any meaningful sense, until it was communicated to at least one other consciousness.

I reckon that's the difference. And I reckon everyone including Claus should agree with me. And then we could get on with other stuff.

[Wowbagger]

This would also mean that radio advertising does not contain art, by my restricted definition. At the risk of derailing the thread, I just wish to briefly remind everyone that art does not need to be visual. We have all heard the term "music artist" before, right?

Back on Topic:
I am curious to see if there is any further feedback of my "parasite" idea? Do people like it or not? Once again, in summary: Not all art is parasitic. However, advertising tends to use parasitic forms of art.

To expand on it, a little:
Perhaps the more leisurely, and less vital to life, the product is, the MORE parasitic its advertisting tends to be, in order to be effective. Think Coca-Cola.
The more vital the product, the less parasitic it would need to be.

However, the noise of the parasites might be effecting more vital products in certain ways, that they now need to utilize some forms of parasitism, to get noticed. Think about drug commercials.

Art could be mimetic. But, not all memes are so parasitic. (Though, you might argue that, in general, they all usurp various aspects of our felxible minds, in order to exist. But, the intended context is a higher level than that.)

I'm going to have to brag about my creative farting again.Let us all hope and pray this line never gets pulled out of context.

[Piscivore]

Heh, you ask a good question. First, no, I don't demand that art makes me feel good. The rougher the experience of receiving it, the more it should have something to say,
What if "life is brutal" is all it is meant to say? Isn't criticising the work because there is no "hope" in it censuring (and that's censure, not censor :)) the artist that wanted to share dispair?

As the old saying goes: if you don't like the art you see, maybe it's time to make your own.

and if it is a full view of the world, it will include a range of feelings.

The cynicism of the Simpsons includes also the intelligence of Lisa. The cynicism of South Park includes the innocence of the characters and the sophistication of the humor, and the important issues they sometimes address, and good music. Steely Dan's lyrics often have cynical outlaw characters, but this is in the context of craft and a range of lyrics that prevents any one song from being the simple opinion of the band. So irony is possible. Can't say that about Motley Crue. In Beckett, bleakness is balanced by lyricism...
Those were their creator's artistic choices. It doesn't necessitate that anyone else make the same ones.

Morally, yes, in the sense that the purpose of the ad was to raise money to end suffering, not to make profit that would go for the CEO's lavish lifestyle, or something.
What on earth has morals to do with art?

Are you familiar with John Ruskin?

In a weaker, more aesthetic sense, but also to do with morality, it would justify the objectionable use of shock tactics to make a point.
You say that like justification is necessary.

The problem with the Benneton ads is that they showed car crashes, if I recall, just slices of suffering life. It was as if God looked down at his creation and said, "This is the world. The world includes suffering. Buy Benneton." It was, therefore, a way of speaking that would be presumptuous for anyone but God, and since it was just a goddam advertisement,
I think the message was rather more "Look how deep we are. Buy Benneton." :)

it didn't really have a purpose distinct enough from overcoming our resistence to being sold to. It was a deliberate grab at our attention, another pity ploy, designed to fool our critical intelligence.
And? You seem to be revealing again and unstated expectaion that "art" be somehow "noble" or "good" or "embiggening". That's just not the case.


It was dazzle camouflage of a particularly odious kind.
To you. That's not flip, it is an important point.

The effect is not to raise our awareness, but to turn AIDS (or other suffering) into just another image that we learn to ignore.
That may or may not be so, but it does not lessen the fact it is art.

[plumjam]

Wowbagger,
it's a discussion about art/advertising.. both high(ish) level human activities.
What you're doing is trying to make every darned thing just a branch of biology.. spreading these notions about "memes" and parasites. It doesn't work. It's trying to apply the terminology of one particular branch of learning, which exists at its own particular level, into areas it doesn't belong.
It's a kind of discipline imperialism.

[Piscivore]

Yeah, I'd agree that not all art is advertising. I mean, I could (and often do) paint a masterpiece alone in a room, and when it's finished burn it, without anyone else having seen it. It would still be a masterpiece of art.
Only to you.

And its creation would have been its own reason; an act of supreme value in itself.
Only to you.

Would Van Gogh's works have been any the less if he had been the only one ever to see them? No.
Fixed that for you. The way you had it was ludicrous. No one can value what they've never seen.

Even a masterfully artistic piece of advertising couldn't count as advertising, in any meaningful sense, until it was communicated to at least one other consciousness.
It can't count as art, either.

I reckon that's the difference.
your difference is no difference.

[plumjam]

Fixed that for you. The way you had it was ludicrous. No one can value what they've never seen.


It can't count as art, either.

I reckon that's the difference.
your difference is no difference.

So what is this magic whereby the finished paintings of Van Gogh only acquire artistic value once someone other than Van Gogh gets to see them?
Do the eyes of this second person emit a kind of value-emitting laser light?
I think you're radically philosophically confused.

[fuelair]

If you want a professional opinion (I'm an art historian) - all advertising is art; not all art is advertising. That's the formalist model, anyway.

This argument becomes semantic and uninteresting pretty quickly.Yes it has, not referring to your comment as such, just the posts.

[Piscivore]

At the risk of derailing the thread, I just wish to briefly remind everyone that art does not need to be visual.
Correct, but Tricky did stipulate at the beginning he wished to keep the converstaion to that medium.

Back on Topic:
I am curious to see if there is any further feedback of my "parasite" idea? Do people like it or not? Once again, in summary: Not all art is parasitic. However, advertising tends to use parasitic forms of art.
Honestly, not really. What you are calling "parasitic" is the primary message of art intended for advertisment. It is to me a little like saying eating and pooping is parasitic to my body.

I think you're having the same trouble Caleb is, that you have this assumption that "art" should be somehow noble and above such petty things as commerce. That was an idea that had currency in the century before last, but it is seen as outdated and a bit naive today. I should add that a large part of the modern art movement was geared to resisting that idea, including and particularly the Dadaists.

To expand on it, a little:
Perhaps the more leisurely, and less vital to life, the product is, the MORE parasitic its advertisting tends to be, in order to be effective. Think Coca-Cola.
The more vital the product, the less parasitic it would need to be.

However, the noise of the parasites might be effecting more vital products in certain ways, that they now need to utilize some forms of parasitism, to get noticed. Think about drug commercials.
This whole bit is based on the assumption that the content of the art is primary in determining the value of the artistic expression. While that's true faor a large number of people, it's a bit naive. If you saw someone in a gallery staring at Botticelli's "The Birth of Venus" and you asked him his opinion, and his response was "Dude, it's great, you can totally see her tits!", what would you think?

That's what I see you doing here, in reverse. It's not art or not because of what it depicts, or does not depict.

By the way, if that ever happens, warn me if you see my wife coming, okay?

[Piscivore]

So what is this magic whereby the finished paintings of Van Gogh only acquire artistic value once someone other than Van Gogh gets to see them?
Ah, but I didn't say "only acquire artistic value", did I? They would have artistic value- to him. And him alone. But you said "Would Van Gogh's works have been any the less"- yes, because a lot of the artistic value in Van Gogh's work lies in their status as a cultural referent. In the fact that two different people can talk about and share the image and the experience if they've both see the work without the work being present.

[Wowbagger]

What you're doing is trying to make every darned thing just a branch of biology.. spreading these notions about "memes" and parasites. It doesn't work. It's trying to apply the terminology of one particular branch of learning, which exists at its own particular level, into areas it doesn't belong.
It's a kind of discipline imperialism. What if modeling advertisements as parasites affords us new, predictive insights into their existence and "behavior"?

I could be wrong in my hypothesis. But, you are NOT going to debunk it with your claims. You have to demonstrate why such a model does not work in a more scientific manner. Develop examples that counter my claim, for starters.

Meanwhile, I will have to try my best to defend it in a scientific manner. I may or may not succeed. But, claiming "discipline imperialism" is not helpful to the discussion.

What if the difference between art and advertising really does boil down to how each one clings to mental processes, one being more parasitic than the other? Especially when it comes to products that are not vital to survival?

[plumjam]

Ah, but I didn't say "only acquire artistic value", did I? They would have artistic value- to him. And him alone. But you said "Would Van Gogh's works have been any the less"- yes, because a lot of the artistic value in Van Gogh's work lies in their status as a cultural referent. In the fact that two different people can talk about and share the image and the experience if they've both see the work without the work being present.

They would have artistic value, full stop. This stuff about status as a cultural referent is extraneous and misleading. At first, for quite a few years, his paintings were scoffed at and neglected... so in those years they had no 'artistic "value" derived from status as a cultural referent', yet now they are revered. Nothing about the paintings themselves has changed, so this artistic "value" derived from opinion, status, and being a cultural referent is clearly bogus.
The paintings are of artistic value in themselves.
Would they gain in artistic value the more people saw them?
If they were flown to a planet with a population of 60 billion humans would the artistic value of the paintings themselves multiply by 10?
Of course not, your views lead to absurd conclusions.

[volatile]

That sounds like the same (untenable) argument that rights are inherent to the human being.

There can be no such thing as "inherent" artistic value in the same way there can be no "inherent" rights - artistic value, as rights, is a construct, and it is subjective, ephemeral and specific.

Now, a painting does have some kind of inherent 'luminosity' (as Deleze calls it) in that it produces some kind of affective content even if no-one looks at it (in other words, a painting is a painting even if only the painter sees it), but shoe-horning this into an affirmation of "value" or "merit" is misguided.

[Piscivore]

They would have artistic value, full stop. This stuff about status as a cultural referent is extraneous and misleading. At first, for quite a few years, his paintings were scoffed at and neglected... so in those years they had no 'artistic "value" derived from status as a cultural referent', yet now they are revered. Nothing about the paintings themselves has changed, so this artistic "value" derived from opinion, status, and being a cultural referent is clearly bogus.
No it isn't, your own post proves my point. Nothing about the painting itself changed, but yet it was once scoffed and laughed at, and now is revered. Why did that happen?

The paintings are of artistic value in themselves.
And what is that inherent artistic value? Tell me what it is.

Would they gain in artistic value the more people saw them?
If they liked it, yes.

If they were flown to a planet with a population of 60 billion humans would the artistic value of the paintings themselves multiply by 10?
Only if they valued it.

If you flew it to a planet of aliens who didn't use vision as we know it, would they value it? Would it have any artistic meaning to them?

Of course not, your views lead to absurd conclusions.
Only to the man with absurd premises.

[Loss Leader]

They would have artistic value, full stop. This stuff about status as a cultural referent is extraneous and misleading. At first, for quite a few years, his paintings were scoffed at and neglected... so in those years they had no 'artistic "value" derived from status as a cultural referent', yet now they are revered. Nothing about the paintings themselves has changed, so this artistic "value" derived from opinion, status, and being a cultural referent is clearly bogus.


Your argument supports the exact opposite of your conclusion. For years, Van Gogh's paintings were ignored, then they were revered. So, the consensus on whether the paintings had artistic value did change over time. The value did derive from opinion and status. You've given no reason why that is "clearly bogus." You have, in fact, given reason why it is clearly true.


The paintings are of artistic value in themselves.


Do dollar bills have monetary value in themselves? Does a corn dog have gastornomic value in itself? Do diamonds have aesthetic value in themselves?

These things only have value in the minds of the individuals who value them. When a sufficient number of people agree that something has value to them, we might say that the thing is valuable. But this is only shorthand. The thing has no objective value.

Van Gogh's "Starry Night" has an exact caloric value - an exact amount of energy that burning it would release. This number is far more an objective value than how "artistic" the painting is. This number would be the same whether humans existed to appreciate it or not. The "artistic" value would die when humans did.


Would they gain in artistic value the more people saw them? If they were flown to a planet with a population of 60 billion humans would the artistic value of the paintings themselves multiply by 10?


One can argue that "artistic" value is a ratio of people who think the painting has meaning to total people who've heard of it. Or one can argue that "artistic" value is just the number of total people who appreciate a painting as art. In one case, the answer to your question is No. In the other, it is Yes. In any case, artistic value is entirely subjective.


Of course not, your views lead to absurd conclusions.


Quite the opposite.

[martu]

The paintings are of artistic value in themselves.


This doesn't make any sense.

[Prometheus]

I would say that both art and advertising are forms of communication, but that advertising must create a one-to-many relationship between advertiser and audience, because it is striving to alter behaviour of others (note the plural) in some specific way. Art may exhibit a one-to-any relationship, in that it doesn't need to be reaching out to a number of people. Art may be created solely to reach a single intended person, or may even be only for the artist's own enjoyment.

Of course the two overlap somewhat. And an object or image may start out in one category and later be shifted to the other.

[plumjam]

What if modeling advertisements as parasites affords us new, predictive insights into their existence and "behavior"?
I could be wrong in my hypothesis. But, you are NOT going to debunk it with your claims. You have to demonstrate why such a model does not work in a more scientific manner. Develop examples that counter my claim, for starters.
Meanwhile, I will have to try my best to defend it in a scientific manner. I may or may not succeed. But, claiming "discipline imperialism" is not helpful to the discussion.
What if the difference between art and advertising really does boil down to how each one clings to mental processes, one being more parasitic than the other? Especially when it comes to products that are not vital to survival?

I read the previous post of yours again, and I didn't feel like it explained very well whatever is the theory you're trying to propose.
Do you really think that a theory that models advertisements as parasites could possibly give us 'predictive insights', or even add in any meaningful way to our understanding (little as it is) of the advertising industry?
It really doesn't need to be complicated, involving parasites, memes, 'vital to life', and such life. Just look at your own experience of advertising. All it is is people using ideas to sell stuff. Moreover the 'creatives' in advertising endeavour to be as unpredictable as possible. They don't know themselves from one day to the next what they're going to produce, so it's even less likely that a Dawkins-driven theory from biology which is attempting to explain life the universe and everything using a palette of just a few concepts from biology is going to cast any light on the whole matter.
Anyway, I can see you're sincere in the way you go about things, and you do it in the right spirit, so good on you for that, it's admirable.

[Wowbagger]

Honestly, not really. What you are calling "parasitic" is the primary message of art intended for advertisment. It is to me a little like saying eating and pooping is parasitic to my body. "Parasitic" is a statement of behavior, not a reflection of morality nor nobility nor anything else. Advertisements sway humans to behave differently, for the benefit of the advertisers and their products. Sometimes this is symbiotic: Sometimes both the advertisers and the people mutually benefit. Often, (as is the case with some non-vital products and services) it is to the detriment of the humans.

you have this assumption that "art" should be somehow noble and above such petty things as commerce. Parasitism was not meant to be a statement about nobility in context like that.

No, I do not have such arrogant notions that art should be noble and above anything.

Yes, I acknowledge that not all advertisements are "evil". The accusation of "parasitic" was not meant to imply evilness, it was merely a statement of behavior model.

I can see why my statements were easy to misunderstand, though.

It's not art or not because of what it depicts, or does not depict. The difference between art and advertisement could boil down to how it impacts your mind. Who is benefiting, and by how much?

Correct, but Tricky did stipulate at the beginning he wished to keep the converstaion to that medium. Acknowledged.

[Piscivore]

Advertisements sway humans to behave differently, for the benefit of the advertisers and their products.
Can't you say the same about most art, though? The artists that doesn't want to have some sort of effect on his audience is rare, yes?

Or is it jsut the "benefit the artist" part with which you are taking issue?

Sometimes this is symbiotic: Sometimes both the advertisers and the people mutually benefit. Often, (as is the case with some non-vital products and services) it is to the detriment of the humans.
Without getting into a tangent about non-vital products harming, why does "who benefits" matter in what makes art?

Parasitism was not meant to be a statement about nobility in context like that.

No, I do not have such arrogant notions that art should be noble and above anything.

Yes, I acknowledge that not all advertisements are "evil". The accusation of "parasitic" was not meant to imply evilness, it was merely a statement of behavior model.

I can see why my statements were easy to misunderstand, though.
And I have done so, my apologies.

The difference between art and advertisement could boil down to how it impacts your mind. Who is benefiting, and by how much?
If someone sells a painting that isn't an advertisement to someone wo can ill afford it, is it still art?

[plumjam]

[QUOTE]No it isn't, your own post proves my point. Nothing about the painting itself changed, but yet it was once scoffed and laughed at, and now is revered. Why did that happen?

So the logical consequence to this is that if the Van Gogh paintings were in the next 20 years, say, to fall out of fashion and favour then the paintings themselves would somehow become worse paintings. That the paintings would change.
This is an Alice in Wonderland scenario. In such a world if you could convince 99.9% of the population that the painting made by a baby baboon were the greatest painting ever made then that painting would indeed be the greatest painting ever made.
(Until of course the fashion changed once more)



And what is that inherent artistic value? Tell me what it is.
That is the particular arrangement of paint on the canvas. That is where the value of the painting lies. If the arrangement of the paint were altered by flood or fire then the painting would lose its aesthetic value.
You know... it isn't that difficult; what it looks like.


If they liked it, yes.
Lol.. this is getting hilarious.


If you flew it to a planet of aliens who didn't use vision as we know it, would they value it? Would it have any artistic meaning to them?
I have no idea, they might or they might not. But the fact that those aliens perceived the painting a different way in no way changes the painting itself. Plus it was made by a human being with human sight, FOR humans with human sight.
Just because one man in the audience is deaf does not mean that the music being played loses its objective value as a piece of music.

Your problem is this: you are holding to a democratic view of aesthetics. In other words you believe that the more people there are that like something then the better that thing is.
You are a fan of modern visual art. The majority of people dislike it. So of your two views: democratic aesthetics, and the high quality of modern art .. both can't be right at the same time.
You are either wrong about democratic aesthetics, or wrong about modern art being good. You may be right about one.
I think you're wrong about both.

[plumjam]

This doesn't make any sense.

what doesn't make sense to you?
the value of the painting lies in the painting itself.
the value of a banana lies in the banana itself.
the value of water lies in water itself
etc..

all these things are valuable arrangements of matter/energy/information

when they come into contact with human consciousness what occurs is appreciation of that inherent value

[Piscivore]

So the logical consequence to this is that if the Van Gogh paintings were in the next 20 years, say, to fall out of fashion and favour then the paintings themselves would somehow become worse paintings. That the paintings would change.
No, this is one of those absurd conclusions that result from your absurd premise that the work has intrisic value bound up it its paints and brushstrokes.

Why do you think the value of the painting changed- which you already acknowledged has done so once before?

This is an Alice in Wonderland scenario. In such a world if you could convince 99.9% of the population that the painting made by a baby baboon were the greatest painting ever made then that painting would indeed be the greatest painting ever made.
(Until of course the fashion changed once more)
Instead of retreating to hyperbole, please just explain why you think the value of Van Gogh's work changed if the value is inherent in the painting.

That is the particular arrangement of paint on the canvas. That is where the value of the painting lies.
I get that you think that's where it is, but what is the aesthetic value?

If the arrangement of the paint were altered by flood or fire then the painting would lose its aesthetic value.
You know... it isn't that difficult; what it looks like.
If it is just its appearance than what makes one image more aesthetically valuable than another? And why do people disagree about that value?

I have no idea, they might or they might not. But the fact that those aliens perceived the painting a different way in no way changes the painting itself.
No, but it does affect how much they value it. Would you enjoy a painting that was done in a wavelength of light you could not see? Would the work still have "objective" value?

Just because one man in the audience is deaf does not mean that the music being played loses its objective value as a piece of music.
So you keep saying. What is the "objective" value of "Starry Night". Don't tell me where it lies, tell me what it is.

Your problem is this: you are holding to a democratic view of aesthetics. In other words you believe that the more people there are that like something then the better it is.
Nope. I said the more valuable it is, in general. There are several pieces I like that aren't popular, they are "better" to me than something else that more people may like. And other people have their own opinions. That's why value is subjective.

You are a fan of modern visual art. The majority of people dislike it. So of your two views: democratic aesthetics, and the high quality of modern art .. both can't be right at the same time.
Neither are correct, neither are my view, and that's a false dichotomy. I've rejected your incorrect notion of "democratic aesthetics" just above, "Modern art" is not a monolithic entity with a single value- some of it is good, some bad, some explicit, some obtuse- and the two incorrect ideas, even if they were correct, are not mutually exclusive. You don't just get things wrong, you go for the epic fail.

You are either wrong about democratic aesthetics, or wrong about modern art being good. You may be right about one.
I think you're wrong about both.
I think you're wrong, because you are wrong about what you think I am wrong about.

[Wowbagger]

Do you really think that a theory that models advertisements as parasites could possibly give us 'predictive insights', or even add in any meaningful way to our understanding (little as it is) of the advertising industry? Host migration could be one possible aspect. When one host of a parasite "dries up", the parasite will try to move onto another one.

For example: Mosquitoes, who once fed off of birds, that were trapped in the London Underground, moved onto rats, instead.

In fact, such migration could be a key characteristic, as some parasites often go unnoticed until they are witnessed attempting to move onto different hosts.

Predicting how, when and where advertisers will change target audiences and advertising strategies could be enhanced if we model them as parasites with host-seeking behaviors.

That is a hypothesis, anyway. You could help develop evidence for or against this idea. But, arguments about "applying biology where it does not belong" will not contribute to either effort.

It really doesn't need to be complicated, involving parasites, memes, 'vital to life', and such life. Complicated?! What could be more simple than an analogy to a fairly well understood biological phenomenon?!

Just look at your own experience of advertising. All it is is people using ideas to sell stuff. Science is not satisfied with what is obvious. Science investigates.

Moreover the 'creatives' in advertising endeavour to be as unpredictable as possible. They don't know themselves from one day to the next what they're going to produce, so it's even less likely that a Dawkins-driven theory from biology which is attempting to explain life the universe and everything using a palette of just a few concepts from biology is going to cast any light on the whole matter. Ironically, what you are saying seems to fit fairly well into Dawkins' framework (perhaps with light modifications, here and there). There is no grand plan, only the emergent properties of entities acting on their instincts. Some ideas work, others will not. How is that not Darwinian/Memetic/Dawkinsy/etc.?

There could be one difference in survival strategies, you bring up, though: Biological parasites more often develop creative and unpredictable strategies, in order to avoid detection by potential hosts. Advertisers, on the other hand, try to develop creative and unpredictable strategies to gain notice by its hosts.
This is interesting to think about, but certainly does NOT disprove the hypothesis. In fact, it could actually enlighten us on various aspects of the fitness landspace, in each case.

Anyway, I can see you're sincere in the way you go about things, and you do it in the right spirit, so good on you for that, it's admirable. Thanks.

[Loss Leader]

the value of a banana lies in the banana itself.


What the hell is the value of a banana?


when they come into contact with human consciousness what occurs is appreciation of that inherent value


How is "value" different from "the appreciation" of value?

[CFLarsen]

Another example of your fetish of turning everything into an argument. Fine, all propaganda could be considered advertising, by way of it inciting the target to behave in an intended fashion.

Precisely.

Yes. Not all all emotions make you behave in an intended way. What behaviour do you think Turner wanted the target to perform through his painting 'The Fighting Temeraire'?

This: The Fighting Temeraire (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fighting_Temeraire#Symbolism)

Or Da Vinci through the Mona Lisa?

The Mona Lisa is a classic example of probably the most common type of commissioned art, the portrait. It is meant to express not just the visual appearance of a person, but also (if successfully painted) give at least some clue as to how the person is like.

Portraits were also very much a signal of power: He, who could afford to pay for one, clearly showed that he was richer than the one who couldn't. The better/more famous the artist, the more gloating value.

So all graffiti is painted with that as an implicit challenge? Evidence? Or is this more of your naive assumptions?

You're yet to show that it is. Burden of proof is on you, sunshine. You're stating that graffiti is advertising - you need to a) provide a definition of advertising which isn't just your make-believe interpretation, and b) show that graffiti is commonly accepted as subscribing to this accepted definition. Going on your track record of 'engagement' and 'drum-sticks', I won't hold my breath that you have a clue of either point.


Please quote where in that wiki article that it said graffiti is advertising. Simply because 'it is competitive' does not mean it is always painted with the intention of inciting a behaviour in the observer.



You don't have any evidence? I guess once again, you lose then. Sorry, it's your claim. 'All art is a form of advertising'. I'm asking you to define advertising and then show how all art does this. You haven't done that.

Notice a pattern in your arguments, Claus? You claim to understand a word, embarrass yourself by misunderstanding it, then fail to show where it is used in the manner you believe. I'm asking for evidence, which I'm sure you'll fumble to provide some nonsense links and then later point to some post in defence of your claim which fails to support anything you've said. If you can't support your claim in the next post, we might just skip to the part where it's accepted by the majority that you're once again stirring the pot and speaking through your arse.

This is simple - back up your claim, Claus, without trying to spin this around. Where is your evidence? I'm calling you out, squire.

Who claimed evidence? I'm giving you my opinion. We are talking about art, which is inherently about opinion - not something that can be decided objectively.

Since you think otherwise, I would love to hear why.

Very true - so do you think it is art?

Not more than a population graph is.

Peristalsis isn't art for one.

Why not?

This is perhaps what Claus is getting at - contemporary art, existing, as it does, within the art market, has similar if not precisely parallel concerns to advertising.

Yes, that's pretty close. Advertising can definitely in some cases be considered art - especially after the ad achieves historical value.

I'm not beyond feeling that all advertising could be considered art. However, I do question the reverse; that all art is advertising.

Then, give an example of art that is not advertising.

To be honest, I don't think Claus knows himself what he is getting at. He argues for the sake of it.

Attack the argument, not the arguer.

From what I gather, he is suggesting all art is a form of advertisement, with the closest he's come to a definition for 'advertise' is to agree with me that an advertisement aims to persuade you into behaving in a specific manner, such as purchasing an item, attending an event, or seeking information. Art, on the other hand, aims to make you feel something, which can lead to a whole range of consequences (of which behaving in a specific manner could well be one).

Advertising is also very much about making you feel something - e.g., the desire to be like the ad itself: You want to be the Marlborough Man, or a Cover Girl, to live the life they do. And you get that by buying the product.

[Tricky]

I'm not sure what the "value" of art has to do with anything. To me, it is art if it was created to be art. Envision the sketchbook that the geeky guy in high school keeps where he draws all the pictures of his sci-fi fantasies. Nobody hase ever seen it but him. Then one day, he drops it on the floor and other students see the drawings and say, "Wow, Cuthbert, you really are a great artist!" Was Cuthbert not an artist until that point? Is it something like a collapsing wave function that requires observation to convert his drawings into art?

Advertising, on the other hand, has the express purpose of communication. You could have a scrapbook of drawings which had the express purpose of some day merchandising something, but until somebody elses sees them, they haven't actually advertised anything. They would just be art.

[JFrankA]

I know you did, but the point was to show that there is a great body of advertising that is arguably not art.


Is it "not art" or is it really "bad art"?

(I hope that this isn't a thread derail, if it is, I'm sorry but that question popped into my head when I read the above quote.....)

[Tricky]

Is it "not art" or is it really "bad art"?

(I hope that this isn't a thread derail, if it is, I'm sorry but that question popped into my head when I read the above quote.....)
Recall that, for the purposes of this thread, I'm restricting the kinds of art to visual things like paintings and sculpture. While classified ads are technically visual, I don't think that they were created for visual effect (other than being legible) so I'd have to say they are not art.

Obviously, a person could be skilled at writing ads and you might call him as "classified ad artist", but let's not be going off the rails on that crazy train.

[Piscivore]

I'm not sure what the "value" of art has to do with anything. To me, it is art if it was created to be art. Envision the sketchbook that the geeky guy in high school keeps where he draws all the pictures of his sci-fi fantasies. Nobody hase ever seen it but him. Then one day, he drops it on the floor and other students see the drawings and say, "Wow, Cuthbert, you really are a great artist!" Was Cuthbert not an artist until that point? Is it something like a collapsing wave function that requires observation to convert his drawings into art?

Well, the Berkeley answer (or should that be Knox?) is that the artist is an observer. :)

But no, the idea isn't that the sketchbook isn't "art" until someone sees it, but that the aestheic value, or quality is a subjective judgement by the perciever.

[Loss Leader]

Is it "not art" or is it really "bad art"?

(I hope that this isn't a thread derail, if it is, I'm sorry but that question popped into my head when I read the above quote.....)


Exactly.

Art is anything that the viewer subjectively interprets as art. So there may be no difference between "not art" and "bad art" except an artificial and subjective dividing line which only seems real because of semantics.

Personally, I believe the goal of the artist is to communicate his vision to the viewer. Thus, "bad art" is anything that the artist created with the intent of communicating his vision which partially or wholly fails to do so. "Not art" would be anything not intended to communicate.

In my opinion, paintings by gorillas are not art. Coke commercials, however, are.

[TheDoLittle]

It's funny because I just had this conversation with the head of the art department here at school about how to classify art and advertising. She put is very bluntly:

"All art is subjective. Once art ceases to be subjective and starts to become objective, then ceases to be art and starts to become advertising. This is true with any painted canvas hanging on a gallery wall to the billboard outside promoting the painted canvas hanging on the gallery wall... Unless there is a bright orange 'Reduced to Sale' sticker on it, in which case that's now classified as Pop Art!"

[Piscivore]

You want to be the Marlborough Man, or a Cover Girl, to live the life they do. And you get that by buying the product.

Really? 'Cause I've bought all kinds of Cover Girl stuff, and I'm still fat and have a penis.

[Giggywig]

Really? 'Cause I've bought all kinds of Cover Girl stuff, and I'm still fat and have a penis.

It's going to take a lot of paper cuts to solve the penis situation.

[athon]

I think advertising is designed to be displayed, looked at and contemplated, as paintings are. Grocery dockets don't quite fulfil these criteria. I'd also think you'd have trouble arguing that grocery dockets are "designed to produce a response" in the way the quote above is implying.

I agree. I guess I was getting at the fact that some things that advertise, such as a classified in a newspaper (which, like a docket, hardly looks like art), according to that definition is an advertisement that is not an art piece. Of course, it's just one definition where that conflict arises.

Hmmm... two things wrong here that I can see. The first is that I wouldn't necessarily argue that advertising was necessarily good or successful art, just that it satisfies the formal criteria to be called art in the first place. Whether ads are successful (in artistic terms) is a whole other debate. :)

Interesting, though. I would think that in order to evoke a response - such as 'buy this' or 'visit here' - the art involved would need to be successful in getting you to feel a relevant emotion. Otherwise, what would be the point in using it?

The second is about artistic intentionality and reception. Nearly all art critics and art historians have moved away from trying to categorise 'success' in terms of the coherency of the affect. Authors cannot control the affective potential of their works, no matter how hard they try. :)

Not that I'm disagreeing with you, I can't help but see that (mind you, from a naive viewpoint) as a rather weak point of the artist. As somebody who himself draws and paints, I do so with a mind of evoking a response and drawing appeal. If the response was embarrassment, or fear, I would feel as if my art has failed. Especially as I illustrate a newsletter aimed at children. I'd think if Monet's impressionist work drew feelings of despondancy where he was painting a tranquil garden scene he might not be so happy with his work. To then claim it is still successful art, to me, seems to defeat its very purpose of communication.

I would argue (with people like Deleuze) that genuinely successful art is art that produces reactions. Simon O'Sullivan has called this art you can "encounter". The types of reactions produced might not be those intended by the artist, but that's almost by the by. Indeed, a lot of art work has affective content beyond its narrative content - Gustav Klimt's Kiss, for example, is a narrative painting of a couple embracing, but it's affect (for me), an overwhelming sense of passionate warmth, is something subtly different. Klimt set out to paint a picture of a couple kissing. What that painting does, whilst a function of the work, was not necessarily consciously conceived as the original intention in the way you're implying, I think.

I'm not so sure. There was a reason why Klimt chose the golden colours and the geometric shapes he did, and the style of of the lovers bent as they were. While we all bring our own perception and our own history to the artwork, there would be shared emotions felt by his target audience. He wasn't doing a realistic scene aimed at people who like realism, or a Japanese garden scene aimed at people from the East, for example. Even if ultimately his only intended target audience was himself (I've known some artists who create purely for themselves, after all), he chose his media to communicate something. If others see something in it which they like, so be it. I feel the purpose and role of art is diluted, however, if an artist claims they've been successful purely because people look at it and just feel anything at all.

Of course, if you set out to create something profound that induces ridicule, then your art is unsuccessful. But that's slightly different, I think.

Really? Hm. I'm not sure.

I question that too, although I think a case could be made.

Well, a case could be made for anything if one designs their own definitions independently of what is broadly or commonly accepted. However, the point is whether if you pointed at a tag on a bench chair in the middle of a mall and said 'hey, it's an advertisement', would people commonly agree? Making anything manmade an advertisment almost broadens the definition to absurdity.

The Mona Lisa is a classic example of probably the most common type of commissioned art, the portrait. It is meant to express not just the visual appearance of a person, but also (if successfully painted) give at least some clue as to how the person is like.

Portraits were also very much a signal of power: He, who could afford to pay for one, clearly showed that he was richer than the one who couldn't. The better/more famous the artist, the more gloating value.

You failed to state what actions it directly inspires. You're evidentally using a different definition to mine. Again, not surprising.

Who claimed evidence? I'm giving you my opinion. We are talking about art, which is inherently about opinion - not something that can be decided objectively.

Aaaaaand there we have the typical 'Claus clause'. When you've got nothing, claim it's an opinion.

Imagine a woo doing this -
'Water is a medicine'
'No it's not. I don't see how that fits the definition of a medicine.'
'A medicine is anything that makes your body feel good. If you don't drink water, it makes you feel bad, therefore drinking water makes you feel good and it's a medicine.'
'Where's your evidence for that definition? Where's your evidence that water matches that definition?'
'Hey, it's just my opinion.'

You're a hypocrit, Claus.

Advertising is also very much about making you feel something - e.g., the desire to be like the ad itself: You want to be the Marlborough Man, or a Cover Girl, to live the life they do. And you get that by buying the product.

The argument isn't whether advertising can use art. Nobody has a problem with that. Stick to the scenario, Claus.

Yet seeing as you've avoided providing evidence, and have resorted to the 'it's my opinion' defence, I guess there's nothing more for you to add.

Athon

[Piscivore]

Aaaaaand there we have the typical 'Claus clause'. When you've got nothing, claim it's an opinion.

Imagine a woo doing this -
'Water is a medicine'
'No it's not. I don't see how that fits the definition of a medicine.'
'A medicine is anything that makes your body feel good. If you don't drink water, it makes you feel bad, therefore drinking water makes you feel good and it's a medicine.'
'Where's your evidence for that definition? Where's your evidence that water matches that definition?'
'Hey, it's just my opinion.'

Claus spent so much time embroiled in debates with Mayday and Tai Chi that he's adopted their logic and debate tactics. "He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."

But of course, that's just my opinion.

[trvlr2]

They would have artistic value, full stop. This stuff about status as a cultural referent is extraneous and misleading. At first, for quite a few years, his paintings were scoffed at and neglected... so in those years they had no 'artistic "value" derived from status as a cultural referent', yet now they are revered. Nothing about the paintings themselves has changed, so this artistic "value" derived from opinion, status, and being a cultural referent is clearly bogus.
The paintings are of artistic value in themselves.
Would they gain in artistic value the more people saw them?
If they were flown to a planet with a population of 60 billion humans would the artistic value of the paintings themselves multiply by 10?
Of course not, your views lead to absurd conclusions.

I think that the really absurd part , is that useless fops have to declare it "art", or else, it just never makes the transition from speckles of paint on media.

[Tricky]

The argument isn't whether advertising can use art. Nobody has a problem with that. Stick to the scenario, Claus.
See post 49.

[athon]

Claus spent so much time embroiled in debates with Mayday and Tai Chi that he's adopted their logic and debate tactics. "He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."

But of course, that's just my opinion.

:D

See post 49.

I think we're getting better, though. Once it would have taken to page 8 before it became obvious. Give it another few months and we'll have it down to 'by Claus' first post'. ;)

Athon

[Piscivore]

I think that the really absurd part , is that useless fops have to declare it "art", or else, it just never makes the transition from speckles of paint on media.

The Conclave of Fops, Dandies, and Popinjays wrested control of the arts in a perfectly legal, if underhanded, maneuver back in 1723. What are you going to do?

[CFLarsen]

You failed to state what actions it directly inspires. You're evidentally using a different definition to mine. Again, not surprising.

Whatever actions it inspires it naturally is up to the observer to decide. Not even propaganda always has the same effect on everyone.

Aaaaaand there we have the typical 'Claus clause'. When you've got nothing, claim it's an opinion.

Imagine a woo doing this -
'Water is a medicine'
'No it's not. I don't see how that fits the definition of a medicine.'
'A medicine is anything that makes your body feel good. If you don't drink water, it makes you feel bad, therefore drinking water makes you feel good and it's a medicine.'
'Where's your evidence for that definition? Where's your evidence that water matches that definition?'
'Hey, it's just my opinion.'

You're a hypocrit, Claus.

Whatever gave you the idea that I was offering anything else than my opinion?

The argument isn't whether advertising can use art. Nobody has a problem with that. Stick to the scenario, Claus.

Stick to what I said, please. Do you not agree that advertising also is about making you feel something?

Yet seeing as you've avoided providing evidence

I never claimed I could.

:D

I think we're getting better, though. Once it would have taken to page 8 before it became obvious. Give it another few months and we'll have it down to 'by Claus' first post'. ;)

Attack the argument, not the arguer.

Do you have any comments about the symbolism of Turner's painting, or the Mona Lisa?

Can you give an example of art that is not advertising?

[Piscivore]

Do you have any comments about the symbolism of Turner's painting?

I have a comment- well more of a question, really.
This: The Fighting Temeraire (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fighting_Temeraire#Symbolism)
Where in that link do you think it explicates the behaviour you think Turner wanted the target to perform through his painting 'The Fighting Temeraire'?

[CFLarsen]

I have a comment- well more of a question, really.

Where in that link do you think it explicates the behaviour you think Turner wanted the target to perform through his painting 'The Fighting Temeraire'?

As always, whatever behavior is up to people themselves. You can't, as an artist, dictate what happens when people view your work.

The title itself gives a clear idea of what Turner himself wanted to express:

"The Fighting Temeraire, tugged to her Last Berth to be broken up"

As the sun rises, it will disappear from sight, symbolising the passing of an era.

It has also been described as:

Turner's quasi-heroic picture of the inglorious final hours of one of Lord Nelson's great fighting ships
...
Turner's victory did not surprise him, he added. "In some ways, that Constable is a more traditional image. There is a hint of nostalgia about a world that has gone from us.

"The Turner has those elements, but it is more interesting about the passing of an old world - the sail ship being towed by a steam tug to the knacker's yard - and the arrival of modernism. The Fighting Temeraire crosses the centuries."
...
Turner's 98-gun Temeraire, taken from the French word meaning rash or reckless, had a glorious Trafalgar and had become a symbol of naval heroism.

It was the second ship in the line in the battle and drew fire from Victory. Badly raked by fire, it later went to Victory's help and went on to capture two French ships.
Source (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/09/06/nart06.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/09/06/ixhome.html)

Description at the National Gallery's website (http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/cgi-bin/WebObjects.dll/CollectionPublisher.woa/wa/work?workNumber=NG524)

That's the basic idea of Temeraire: A fin de siècle sentiment. End of an era.

[JFrankA]

Okay, I've kinda skimed through this thread so far, and I promise to go back and read it more carefully but I haven't seen this point brought up:

What about "art" that is turned into and "ad". Is the art still art?

For example, (and keeping this to visual art), if someone set up a billboard ad with a picture of the Mona Lisa (unaltered) on one side, then a picture of a cola drink on the other, and the copy reads "Two great classics, but only one will quench your thirst", does the Mona Lisa stop being art only in that instance? Or is the Mona Lisa now changed, permanently into "pop-art" or "advertising"? Or does the whole ad become art?

To go a little further, let's say that for whatever reason, it becomes a popular ad and now there's a running joke in which when someone mentions the Mona Lisa someone else would reply, "Oh great painting, but it doesn't quench my thirst", does this now invalidate the "art status", so to speak, of the painting?

Again, I hope this doesn't derail the thread, just seems to me that this is a point that needs to be questioned in this subject.

[CFLarsen]

Or, what about the other way around? Ad turning into art?

http://www.usarec.army.mil/1stbde/1kbn/Uncle%20Sam.jpe

That's an ad alright. But it's also art.

[calebprime]

...The artists that doesn't want to have some sort of effect on his audience is rare, yes?




As the old saying goes: if you don't like the art you see, maybe it's time to make your own.


What on earth has morals to do with art?


And? You seem to be revealing again and unstated expectaion that "art" be somehow "noble" or "good" or "embiggening". That's just not the case.




The only "mistake" you make here is in: "What on earth has morals to do with art?" Which deliberately misunderstood my point. The morality I was speaking of wasn't in the art, but in the whole context. And morality (in the broadest sense of the word) is always worth considering.

Not much time today. Gotta make some art.

I found making serviceable music for other people (12 year career, 1,608 cues for television) to be really depressing. I had to put myself in the heads of other people who cared much less about music, and heard much less well than I did.

Now, I'm mostly writing music for myself. It's really the only honest thing. As an artist, it's up to your artistic conscience, which is much stronger than anyone else's. No one will care. That's ok. You've got to get your supports (your basic Maslow pyramid, if you will) from somewhere else, and for the rest, live in your imagination.

And as for ennobling, no. Attending to art just has to be worth it. There's a huge amount of stuff to choose from, so why not choose the stuff that strikes you as the best, most satisfying? It's a matter of personal taste, but the bleakest, most nihilistic, most brutal stuff has the same effect as trying to get nutrition from hard liquor, energy from cocaine, profundity from acid. It gives a little thrill, but you feel ill.

(Anyone can win an abstract argument with CP, btw, he's incapable of abstract thought...)

[martu]

what doesn't make sense to you?
the value of the painting lies in the painting itself.
the value of a banana lies in the banana itself.
the value of water lies in water itself
etc..

all these things are valuable arrangements of matter/energy/information

when they come into contact with human consciousness what occurs is appreciation of that inherent value

This still makes no sense, value in this context is subjective not objective.

[martu]

Not more than a population graph is.

Why isn't it art then?

I studied at a college in London famous for art and producing artists (though I didn't do art myself) and the one thing I learnt about art while there is that anything and everything that people can and do produce is art as long as people agree it is art. But you're wrong to say art is always selling something.

[CFLarsen]

Why isn't it art then?

It isn't to me. To me, art should be something like the Reuben Abel quote volatile posted in #33.

But if you think it is art, fine with me.

I studied at a college in London famous for art and producing artists (though I didn't do art myself) and the one thing I learnt about art while there is that anything and everything that people can and do produce is art as long as people agree it is art. But you're wrong to say art is always selling something.

You may disagree with me - but you can't say I'm wrong. There is no objective way to determine it. You think it isn't, I think it is.

[Piscivore]

As always, whatever behavior is up to people themselves. You can't, as an artist, dictate what happens when people view your work.
Okay, but that still doesn't say what behaviour you think Turner wanted the target to perform through his painting 'The Fighting Temeraire' either.

The title itself gives a clear idea of what Turner himself wanted to express:

"The Fighting Temeraire, tugged to her Last Berth to be broken up"

It has also been described as:

Description at the National Gallery's website (http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/cgi-bin/WebObjects.dll/CollectionPublisher.woa/wa/work?workNumber=NG524)

That's the basic idea of Temeraire: A fin de siècle sentiment. End of an era.

I didn't ask what Turner wanted to express, I asked where in the link you provided was the answer to the question "what behaviour do you think Turner wanted the target to perform through his painting 'The Fighting Temeraire'?"

[Tricky]

You may disagree with me - but you can't say I'm wrong. There is no objective way to determine it. You think it isn't, I think it is.
No, one cannot say you're "wrong" so long as we accept a new meaning of "selling" to be "doing something for a reason, even if that reason is known only to the person doing it".

Then you'd be right.

[CFLarsen]

Okay, but that still doesn't say what behaviour you think Turner wanted the target to perform through his painting 'The Fighting Temeraire' either.

I didn't ask what Turner wanted to express, I asked where in the link you provided was the answer to the question "what behaviour do you think Turner wanted the target to perform through his painting 'The Fighting Temeraire'?"

I gave it. I happen to agree with the description.

No, one cannot say you're "wrong" so long as we accept a new meaning of "selling" to be "doing something for a reason, even if that reason is known only to the person doing it".

Then you'd be right.

It isn't a question of the meaning of "selling". It's a question of whether art sells or not. That is a matter of opinion.

[Piscivore]

I gave it. I happen to agree with the description.
That's a "no", then.

[CFLarsen]

You gave a link, and that link does not, that I can see, say anything about the behaviour Turner wished to elict from his audience with the painting. Can you be more specific about where in the link is the answer?

Can you make up your mind about what you want?

First, you want to know what I think Turner meant with his painting. I gave you my opinion.

Now, you want to know what Turner meant. You'll have to ask him. I don't speak for him.

[CFLarsen]

That's a "no", then.

No, it's not a "no". You asked for my opinion, and I gave it.

[Piscivore]

First, you want to know what I think Turner meant with his painting. I gave you my opinion.

Now, you want to know what Turner meant. You'll have to ask him. I don't speak for him.

That's not what I asked you. Ever. You don't have an answer, I get it.

[CFLarsen]

That's not what I asked you. Ever.

Did I not quote you correctly in post #104?

That you change the content of your post while I am responding is not my problem.

You don't have an answer, I get it.

For what? I can't speak for Turner. I can give you what you first asked for, my opinion. And I did.

[Piscivore]

Did I not