I think it would be appropriate to begin my entry for this week by saying that the only thing I actually know about visual art is that I either like something or I don’t. But either way, regardless of whether the majority of people like a creation, whether it be visual or acoustic, it can still be regarded as art, in my opinion, as long as it evokes some kind of emotion from the people who experience either seeing or hearing it.
When I first read our topic for this week, one particular artist came to my mind. About a year or so ago, I went with a small group to see a travelling exhibit of some of Pablo Picasso’s works that had come into our area. I said earlier that I am not an art expert, and I’ll add on to that statement by saying that I haven’t studied Picasso since my last elementary school art class, so I knew next to nothing about the artist before we went to the show. But we knew that an exhibit like that wouldn’t likely come anywhere close to our area anytime soon. So, why not go see it? Anyway, the exhibit was pretty massive, and it had a number of Picasso’s works from the many different periods of his artistic life, starting with the earliest and moving progressively. I thought that most of his earlier works didn’t look like what we think of today as typical Picasso. And maybe I’m a little bit boring, but my favorite piece in the entire exhibit was in one of the first rooms; it was called “La Celestine.” I don’t even really know why it was my favorite, other than the fact that I was really intrigued by the elderly woman in the painting and I wanted to know more about what her back story was, even if the painting wasn’t done from life and the subject was completely fictional. I also sensed a kind of eerie tone in the portrait with the lighting and positioning of the figure. This piece is an example of what I think is art. I was intrigued by it, even though I didn’t love enough to want it in my house.
As we continued on through the exhibit and into one of the last rooms that contained Picasso’s later works, we saw another piece that kind of stumped us as to why it was even put in the exhibit. It was a bicycle seat and handlebars welded together entitled “Bull’s Head”. None of us understood how this piece was considered a work of art, especially compared to the other works or art in the collection. I started to think if it was like the situation from "The Emperor's New Clothes." I don't know enough to say for certain, but I wondered if maybe the joke was on us and there really wasn't anything to this piece other than the fact that Picasso made it. But, apparently someone with artistic credentials thought it was important enough to be included in the exhibit, so maybe the qualities that made the piece a work of art was that Picasso was the first person to think to create it, and it’s controversial, so it elicits emotion from those who see it. I guess the jury is still out on this piece. I thought it was interesting, but I don’t know if anyone would have called it “art” if it had been created by a random person who knows how to weld and wanted to make something out of parts of a old bicycle for whatever reason. But I don’t want to entirely write off this piece either, because there had to be some kind of creativity behind the creation of it. It’s certainly not something I think any random person would come up with and think to construct. It’s certainly something I wouldn’t have thought of.
I know this post is already running long, but I didn’t want to finish without bringing up one last musing. Jackson Pollock. One of the most controversial and widely known artists to date. A few years ago, I stumbled upon a documentary called “Who the @#$% is Jackson Pollock?” I ended up watching the majority of the film because I thought the premise looked interesting. This documentary followed a retired female truck driver on her quest to find out if the painting she bought for a few dollars at a yard sale was indeed an authentic Jackson Pollock painting. In fact, at the time of purchase, the woman was unaware of who Jackson Pollock was. It was her son (I think, it’s been a while since I’ve seen the movie) who encouraged her to have the painting examined and appraised. So on her son’s advice, she took the painting to a number of art/ Pollock experts, and some believed the painting may be authentic while others believed it wasn’t.
So, getting back to the point of the discussion, art experts told her that the painting would be worth a great deal of money if it was real, but it would be worth next to nothing if it wasn’t. And I guess this is really a scenario of determining value rather than what the intrinsic worth of art is, but either way, shouldn’t art be worth something other than a price attached to the name of its creator? I remember hearing that Pollock had an interesting process for creating his paintings, but I don’t know what it is that sets him so far apart from the rest. Not to bash his creative process in any way, I can’t really do that when I don’t understand what it is myself. I guess my point is that a huge component of how we figure what should be classified as art is the process behind its creation. So, it seems to me the reactions any given piece elicits from those who experience it and the creative process behind the creation is what classifies something as art. How we as a society choose to value art seems to be an entirely separate process.
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