Shoes over telephone line

This post doesn't count...

:first: :drum:

 

I recall seeing a "shoe tree" at the end of June at the high school in Auburn, CA. My guess is that the graduating seniors decorated the tree with their old gym shoes. Maybe it wasn't just seniors. I doubt that it had anything to do with pot, gangs, or other such.

 

Ummmm...

Auburn is WAY different than SacTown is Bra... just saying...

 

I am totally open to all sorts of art. But when garbage is passed off as art I'll point the finger and say so. Obviously, others are entitled to their opinions. But some people consider anything to be "art." (Thus prompting my friend to sarcastically suggest encasing turds in acrylic and calling it art.) I contend that there are criteria for what is and what is not art. Paint randomly tossed on a wall is not art. A man sitting at a piano without ever touching the keys is not making music. Random noise is not music. And dumping garbage in a public place is not art.

I have three categories for stuff called art: There's art I like; there's art I do not like but which I recognize as art; and there's garbage that's passed off as art.

And just to set the record straight, I've heard of several post-1965 bands.

 

A friend of mine got great marks on a school project by making wax animal turds

 

It's been done.
[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piero_Manzoni"]It's been done[/ame].

 

Why am I not surprised?

 

You know of the Turner Prize, don't you? [ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turner_Prize]Turner Prize - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

Perhaps the most prestigious award in Modern Art. Last year the winner's piece was the artist standing under three bridges (I assume not all at once) while she sang a traditional Scottish song. Got £40,000 for that.

 

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I guess you didn't get the email. If you don't want the space aliens to land in your neighborhood you should throw your stinky shoes on the telephone line. It works every time. :yield:

 

I am reminded that many years ago, my mother had a can, the size of a typical 15-oz can of vegetables, labeled "Calgary Cayoosecrap." When you shook the can it made a sloshing, which seemed as though it could well be crap. I imagine it was sold for $2 or $3 as a novelty item.

What's the difference between that, and Mr. Manzoni's cans of crap? Nothing but the price tag!

While I cannot offer a rigorous definition of what is and what is not art, I will say that art requires some skill to produce. If anything passed off as art is art; if indeed everything is art if someone chooses to call it that, then the term has no meaning and there is no difference between a pile of horse shit in the middle of the road and the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

If Mr. Manzoni's cans of his own feces are art, if those boots on the fence posts where I used to live are art, then what's to prevent a disciple of bin Laden from claiming that the destruction of the Twin Towers in N.Y.C. was art? Murder is not art, and garbage is not art and feces are not art.

 

At the time, I said that the survivors of the terrorists should have applied for the Turner Prize; they probably would have won.

 

I don't think there's any question that there's good art and bad art, excellent art and execrable art, skillful art and inept art, and all the art between those extremes, but I wouldn't go so far as to say that the art toward the undesirable side of those ranges wasn't art.

Good art takes skill, but art itself only requires imagination. Art that inspires, art that endures protected and cherished across centuries, art that draws admiration is almost always (but not ALWAYS) skillful, but it derives its value not from the skill that made it but the originality of the imagination that dreamed it up. Sometimes the originality is the exercise of a rare skill, but it's still the originality, not the skill, that makes art great.

Many painters have competently copied the Mona Lisa, some so closely their copies are indistinguishable from the original in all technical respects, but only Da Vinci had the imagination to visualize that visage in just that way. His Mona Lisa is great art; all those copies: artless art (but still art).

The world is choked with art none of us would choose to display, and even more choked with art we'd discard, given the chance. Art in bad taste, incompetent art, art we couldn't possibly understand because the imagination that produced it was working with neuron patterns alien to most minds. But the art I'd discard you might cherish, and vice versa.

One could make the argument that everything we do beyond the necessities of biological survival constitutes art, as conscious expressions of imagination to make life more appealing.

But however art is defined, skill isn't the essential metric. Imagination is.

 

Okay. I'm willing to accept that imagination is a component of art. But what imagination is there in taking a crap into a tin can? What imagination is there in inverting old boots over a row of fence posts? What imagination is there in tossing paint willy-nilly onto a canvas? And I cannot think of an example where art is created without skill. Even a child's painting, if it is any good, requires some skill.

In one sense, everything we do is an expression of some sort of imagination, and if all that is art, then the word has no meaning. There is no art unless some things are not art. And I stand by my opinion that crap in a can, boots on a fence post, and old shoes hanging from a telephone wire are not art.

And FWIW, I own some oil paintings I bought in Mexico. The artists work from photographs. By your definition these would not be art. But they are beautiful pictures skillfully painted. They are not original compositions, and they are not great art, but to my mind they are art nonetheless. It is a cockeyed world if these paintings art not considered "art" because the painters worked from photographs, but crap in a can is! Or boots on fence posts!

 

The distinction between good art and rubbish changes with time and the fickle tastes of humans. The works of many great artists and musicians were considered rubbish in their own time.

On the other hand, some "art" is just rubbish, and time won't help.

Tom

 

In the military, soldiers have a longstanding tradition of throwing a used pair of combat boots over a line when leaving a duty station. A less common practice is throwing a set of civilian shoes over a line when you deploy from the reserves. I pass a pair of work boots tossed over the line at the entrance to my neighborhood. They belong to a reservist deployed a few months ago to Afghanistan.

Shoes are thrown over the line near your home so that your loved ones will think of you each time they see them. Boots are thrown over the line near your barracks to remind your comrades that you have moved on. Generally the boots are painted yellow, orange or another significant color.

Of course, the US Army has a regulation against tossing the painted boots over the line but I've never been to a base where it is enforced. It always takes the base a couple of months to get around to removing the boots. I don't think there is an FOB in Iraq that doesn't have a few pairs dangling.

Boots are a very significant part of military tradition. An empty pair of combat boots upright on the ground with a small American flag are a tribute to a fallen soldier. Boots reversed in the stirrups of a riderless horse are a sign of a fallen calvary soldier.

In the civilian world, there are many that toss a pair of shoes over a line that belonged to someone that is deceased.

 

Does that mean the inept child's painting isn't art? Your imposition of skill as a defining metric excludes much of humanity from being able to even create "art" they haven't the aptitude to do well. And at what point does mediocre (non-art) become un-mediocre (skilled enough to call art)? Is all the art created by people learning new skill not art because their skill hasn't yet attained the level that separates non-art from art?

I concede my definition of what constitutes art is much broader than yours, and who's to say whose definition is closer to correct, when art is about the most subjective aspect of our humanity?

BTW, you'll see that I said all the copies of the Mona Lisa ARE art, but I said it with perhaps too "artful" wordplay. Of course your Mexico paintings are art, even skillful art. (Whether they are superior manifestations of imagination to the boots on the fenceposts is another question - I'd have to see both to decide, although my money's on the fencepost boots as an expression of imagination a hell of a lot more rare (original) than making a painting of a photograph. Are all the toes aligned the same, or is there a pattern in their alignment? Are all the styles/sizes the same, or is there a pattern in the styles/sizes and their arrangement? Are all the colors the same, or is there a pattern in their arrangement by color? You can't answer that without going back and actually looking at it; your memory won't be accurate, especially if you looked at it with disdain and neglected to give it any study. Finally, there's the sheer quantity, a full half mile. Assume 50 feet between posts, that's 50 fenceposts, 25 pairs of boots. That's a lot of years of boots, so many it argues the possibility the boots were obtained specifically to make the display, in which case it is unquestionably art. Am I pulling your legs here? )

And you can't be seriously contending that Pollock's work isn't art. That sounds like your definition of art has a "what-appeals-to-Daniel" factor at some value other than zero.

Here's Wikipedia on the subject:

Art - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Kids art has a quality all its own; one that's gradually lost as the artist grows and becomes more skilled. So, it's not just skill.

Depending on the imagination applied, shoes can indeed be art. Brian Jungen, a local artist fusing aboriginal traditions with commercial objects, has made whales from plastic chairs, totem poles from golf bags, and masks from....yeah, shoes.