knowing that Kinkade believed himself to be a fervent Christian makes EVERYTHING make sense. His "art" is the worldview of this certain kind of Christian who uses his religion to hysterically ward off any hint of suffering or evil in the world, out of terror.
I find some of Norman Rockwell's more political work nicely composed and tastefully executed, and occasionally moving. But most of his body of work was meant to be popular magazine covers rather than art for arts sake, so my expectations of him are somewhat low.
I guess that's why I'm asking about him in the context of a conversation about Kinkade---his work seems similarly corporate/decorative/propagandistic/unreflective and yet I don't find myself loathing it in the same way. Is it just because he actually made all of them himself and didn't factory produce them, or what? The subject matter of his Saturday Evening Post shit is pretty barf-worthy and yet I don't mind it nearly as much
Yeah, I almost brought him up at the beginning of this Kinkade talk, but then I felt like it was disrespectful to Rockwell, who at least had some pretty admirable skills.
but if "I couldn't do it" is part of how we decide that something is art then where does that take us?? See previous discussion of talent v. technical skill v. art
I could perform John Cage's 4'33", does that mean it's not art I couldn't rebuild the engine of a '57 Chevy, does that mean that is an art what is art
"Yeah, I almost brought him up at the beginning of this Kinkade talk, but then I felt like it was disrespectful to Rockwell, who at least had some pretty admirable skills."
Two topics: art and skills
MZ mentioned skills (skillz) and implied that TK did not have admirable skills, unlike Rockwell. I disagree. I think it takes quite a lot of skill to create one of his paintings.
That was my point. Not that TK's work is "art." Although I must say I think the whole weird system he created to sell his paintings could be seen as some sort of performance art or something - if only he had meant it that way! (maybe he DID)
flossy, it takes skills to produce that, but they're very common skills that a lot of commercial and casual artists possess. Rockwell had kind of a "cut above" level, IMO.
I think it's funny that everyone here is so anti-TK! I mean OBVIOUSLY his paintings are tacky as shit - that goes without saying - they are so overtly tacky that it doesn't even make sense to me to point out that he has "bad taste." OF COURSE he does!
He was more of a businessman than a "fine artist," and at that he was very successful. He created a product, created a very high demand for that product, and got rich from it. I don't know about his business practices (where did he source his materials? what was it like working for his company?), but I kind of love how he created this weird brand of tacky paintings and people loved them. *I* loved them when I was a kid. I wanted to live in one of those cottages. They're like fairytale illustrations.
The one thing I do wonder about wrt Kinkade is: was he trying to fool people into thinking their mass-produced paintings were original works BY HIM, or was he upfront about the process? If he was upfront about it - and people wanted them - more power to him.
I don't have a lot of skills when it come to art criticism. Never really taken any kind of art classes or had any formal training so taste level and personal visual aesthetics are still pretty important to me.
I'm 101.
But also, if Kinkade is the most successful artist in America and his work is in so many homes and yet its OBVIOUS to a more educated audience that his paintings are tacky don't we owe it to the greater populace to voice that in a sincere way instead of admiring them through irony which then leaves no dissent to our art overlord The Painter of Light?
Ugh. Sorry, you guys - I realize now that my comment seemed super snobby or something and I did not mean it that way. I am totally amateur at art criticism, too.
Is it really the place of "more educated audiences" to tell less educated audiences what they should/shouldn't like?
I think Kinkade is in a completely separate category from "fine art," such that you can't critique his work in the same way you would a "fine artist's" work. It seems more to me like a craft turned into a business. He wasn't saying, "Buy these pieces because they are culturally relevant/profound/considered/smart/ART." He was saying, "By these pieces if you think they're pretty and want to hang one on your wall."
the issue of "prettiness" in art is very interesting and historically contingent. Until the 19th century art was supposed to be "pretty." It was supposed to reflect the beautiful perfection of God's creation. It was supposed to be socially useful in the sense that it should inspire refined feelings in the observer--feelings that were not base or earthly or sexual but rather lofty and high-minded, so that you'd become a better person via contemplation of this art
in the 19th century they got really out with prettiness and with social usefulness. Gautier famously said "Everything useful is ugly," meaning that the entire point of art is that it ISN'T useful--it's something in addition to the merely useful that makes human life actually worth living (he's like, if we only are supposed to do shit that's useful, we might as well just live in our own coffins. "It is not very useful that we are on this earth and alive."). In the 19th century "Art" started needing to be sublime and grotesque and super-human/super-natural. Victor Hugo wrote this manifesto about the GROTESQUE and how by exploring the grotesque we can attain THE SUBLIME, which is like what you have left after your culture has killed god
Along similar lines they got really into STRUGGLE. Struggle to triumph narratives became status quo--all art got really complex and difficult and it was supposed to TRANSCEND nature and the merely human; it was supposed to be COSMIC. And art after this ultimately turned more and more toward abstraction and now we have silence as music and a blank canvas as a painting. You can see how this turn to abstraction in art is tied to these burgeoning ideas about art being useless, art not being "for" anything (and there's a class element too, you know, who cares about educating the stupid plebes, art is for smart people). They were reacting against the DECORATIVE nature of 18th century art, especially music. Art started becoming philosophy
We still live in that legacy, where art is supposed to engage critically with the world and present darkness as well as light, and ugliness and the grotesque, etc. And I really resonate with these ideas, because I'm a product of my time just like anybody else. But once you trace the historical trajectory of art criticism and ideas about art it gets complicated, at least for me. I'm not sure I'm comfortable saying the 18th century mode of art valuation is "wrong," and yet in the 18th century Kinkade would probably be more lauded as a real artist than he is today, and that's insane to think about
I want my art to be critically engaged and yet recognizing that this is a historically contingent value system makes me feel weird
the knowledge that millions of Americans think of their Kinkade print as "art" is really dark to me
Institutional definitions of art seem both like a cheat and solid. Dickie's '69 def: "A work of art is an artifact upon which some person or persons acting on behalf of a certain social institution (the artworld) has conferred the status of candidate for appreciation."
I think "artifact" is deeply out-dated. Happenings, etc. But, this definition makes sense to me.
Sort of. Although I'd say it's not about what people should/shouldn't LIKE. It's more that it is the job of the educated to help the less educated think more critically and engage more seriously with art. This is called MY JOB
I've come to a model that all aesthetics are tribal. So there are Kinkade tribes (I used to work with some, many had Christian religions as a big part of their lives) Social media and social relationships will increasingly constitute tribes, rather than mass media, which is dying. And that a class hierarchy is not a useful model: one tribe is as good as another/ judge when necessary, which is rare, by behavior.
Gallery art in a certain set of galleries construct their own language that their tribe subscribes. That language is a mix of visual and conceptual wrapped in narrative. The value of art is in the brain chemistry result, which is individual.
Yeah, I was trying to write something in reaction to kdawg, but couldn't figure out the right words, but YT said what I was trying to say. It's OK for the "less educated" to like whatever they like, but they should at least be encouraged to think more critically about what they're absorbing.
If they want to buy Wal-Mart clothes, OK, but an effort should at least be made to explain how the clothes come into being and how Wal-Mart impacts the economy, if that analogy makes sense.
Well the other part of the equation is that no one is obligated to accept the judgments of learned critics or any establishment. We need experts, but we don't always have to think they're right.
But yes, I agree with YT that the notion that criticism is about "X is good but Y is bad" is pretty narrow and shifts critical discourse into a question of which consumer choices to make rather than asking questions about function and intent and interpretation and all the fun stuff.
Wal-Mart should not be allowed to sell clothes or exist though!
I suspect that much of the hatred here aimed at TK has as much to do with his socio-political stance as it does his art. if he was a gay atheist who put all his money towards saving sea-turtles than I doubt any of us would be harshing on him. OR we should be ripping on Wyland as harshly as TK.
but that said, there are all sorts of issues at hand. an interesting point made earlier was that it's a bit fruitless to discuss TK's art in a fine art context. apples and oranges. but what might be interesting is to try to identify exactly what context his work does fall into. he seems to combine a disneyesque illustrative practice with classical landscape painting and a touch of romanticism (which, as YT deftly pointed out, fails to keep up with current ideas and issues pertaining to contemporary painting (which is why we don't consider it fine art)) but I would suggest that there is a non-fine-art genre his work falls into that deserves consideration. artist/illustrators like Ralph Bakshi, Frank Frezetta, and Michael Hague come to mind- not exactly 'comic/cartoon' artists but clearly informed by them, or at least some idea of fantastical worlds. I almost wonder if we could consider this a folk art?
I am hesitant to draw too close a parallel with Norman Rockwell because when considering Rockwell's work we need to understand its relationship to the technical limitations of reproducible art at the time- color printing was all the rage, but color photography hadn't caught up. Rockwell was in a sense the last of the (successful) realists- the advent of photography hit painting like a wrecking ball, but Rockwell enjoyed this tiny sliver when there was a demand for color realism because magazines could print color, but the printing of color photography was still complicated. Rockwell, and other artists, filled that void while it lasted (not long) but then maintained popularity because of its folksiness.
Tagging on my note above on aesthetics, this researcher is conducting controlled experiments. His results show judgements of "what is good" are random above a certain threshold. http://www.princeton.edu/~mjs3/musiclab.shtml.
One of the values of UH is as a culture curating node. It has a higher number than average connectors outside to other culture (tribal) nodes.
Comments
Question: how do we feel about Normal Rockwell?
EPIC FREUDIAN SLIP
http://www.theonion.com/articles/6-dogs-who-know-how-to-have-fun,35356/
Steamin' Emin
Burstin' Hirst
Puking Lucas
Randy Landy
I sure as hell couldn't do it!
I could perform John Cage's 4'33", does that mean it's not art
I couldn't rebuild the engine of a '57 Chevy, does that mean that is an art
what is art
Two topics: art and skills
MZ mentioned skills (skillz) and implied that TK did not have admirable skills, unlike Rockwell. I disagree. I think it takes quite a lot of skill to create one of his paintings.
That was my point. Not that TK's work is "art." Although I must say I think the whole weird system he created to sell his paintings could be seen as some sort of performance art or something - if only he had meant it that way! (maybe he DID)
On his official website 2 of the first 3 navigational links are: The Disney Collection & Nascar Images
He was more of a businessman than a "fine artist," and at that he was very successful. He created a product, created a very high demand for that product, and got rich from it. I don't know about his business practices (where did he source his materials? what was it like working for his company?), but I kind of love how he created this weird brand of tacky paintings and people loved them. *I* loved them when I was a kid. I wanted to live in one of those cottages. They're like fairytale illustrations.
The one thing I do wonder about wrt Kinkade is: was he trying to fool people into thinking their mass-produced paintings were original works BY HIM, or was he upfront about the process? If he was upfront about it - and people wanted them - more power to him.
Never really taken any kind of art classes or had any formal training so taste level and personal visual aesthetics are still pretty important to me.
I'm 101.
But also, if Kinkade is the most successful artist in America and his work is in so many homes and yet its OBVIOUS to a more educated audience that his paintings are tacky don't we owe it to the greater populace to voice that in a sincere way instead of admiring them through irony which then leaves no dissent to our art overlord The Painter of Light?
I think Kinkade is in a completely separate category from "fine art," such that you can't critique his work in the same way you would a "fine artist's" work. It seems more to me like a craft turned into a business. He wasn't saying, "Buy these pieces because they are culturally relevant/profound/considered/smart/ART." He was saying, "By these pieces if you think they're pretty and want to hang one on your wall."
Until the 19th century art was supposed to be "pretty." It was supposed to reflect the beautiful perfection of God's creation. It was supposed to be socially useful in the sense that it should inspire refined feelings in the observer--feelings that were not base or earthly or sexual but rather lofty and high-minded, so that you'd become a better person via contemplation of this art
in the 19th century they got really out with prettiness and with social usefulness. Gautier famously said "Everything useful is ugly," meaning that the entire point of art is that it ISN'T useful--it's something in addition to the merely useful that makes human life actually worth living (he's like, if we only are supposed to do shit that's useful, we might as well just live in our own coffins. "It is not very useful that we are on this earth and alive."). In the 19th century "Art" started needing to be sublime and grotesque and super-human/super-natural. Victor Hugo wrote this manifesto about the GROTESQUE and how by exploring the grotesque we can attain THE SUBLIME, which is like what you have left after your culture has killed god
Along similar lines they got really into STRUGGLE. Struggle to triumph narratives became status quo--all art got really complex and difficult and it was supposed to TRANSCEND nature and the merely human; it was supposed to be COSMIC. And art after this ultimately turned more and more toward abstraction and now we have silence as music and a blank canvas as a painting. You can see how this turn to abstraction in art is tied to these burgeoning ideas about art being useless, art not being "for" anything (and there's a class element too, you know, who cares about educating the stupid plebes, art is for smart people). They were reacting against the DECORATIVE nature of 18th century art, especially music. Art started becoming philosophy
We still live in that legacy, where art is supposed to engage critically with the world and present darkness as well as light, and ugliness and the grotesque, etc. And I really resonate with these ideas, because I'm a product of my time just like anybody else. But once you trace the historical trajectory of art criticism and ideas about art it gets complicated, at least for me. I'm not sure I'm comfortable saying the 18th century mode of art valuation is "wrong," and yet in the 18th century Kinkade would probably be more lauded as a real artist than he is today, and that's insane to think about
I want my art to be critically engaged and yet recognizing that this is a historically contingent value system makes me feel weird
the knowledge that millions of Americans think of their Kinkade print as "art" is really dark to me
what does it all mean
NOT 101
I think "artifact" is deeply out-dated. Happenings, etc. But, this definition makes sense to me.
I say: yes.
Gallery art in a certain set of galleries construct their own language that their tribe subscribes. That language is a mix of visual and conceptual wrapped in narrative. The value of art is in the brain chemistry result, which is individual.
If they want to buy Wal-Mart clothes, OK, but an effort should at least be made to explain how the clothes come into being and how Wal-Mart impacts the economy, if that analogy makes sense.
But yes, I agree with YT that the notion that criticism is about "X is good but Y is bad" is pretty narrow and shifts critical discourse into a question of which consumer choices to make rather than asking questions about function and intent and interpretation and all the fun stuff.
Wal-Mart should not be allowed to sell clothes or exist though!
but that said, there are all sorts of issues at hand. an interesting point made earlier was that it's a bit fruitless to discuss TK's art in a fine art context. apples and oranges. but what might be interesting is to try to identify exactly what context his work does fall into. he seems to combine a disneyesque illustrative practice with classical landscape painting and a touch of romanticism (which, as YT deftly pointed out, fails to keep up with current ideas and issues pertaining to contemporary painting (which is why we don't consider it fine art)) but I would suggest that there is a non-fine-art genre his work falls into that deserves consideration. artist/illustrators like Ralph Bakshi, Frank Frezetta, and Michael Hague come to mind- not exactly 'comic/cartoon' artists but clearly informed by them, or at least some idea of fantastical worlds. I almost wonder if we could consider this a folk art?
I am hesitant to draw too close a parallel with Norman Rockwell because when considering Rockwell's work we need to understand its relationship to the technical limitations of reproducible art at the time- color printing was all the rage, but color photography hadn't caught up. Rockwell was in a sense the last of the (successful) realists- the advent of photography hit painting like a wrecking ball, but Rockwell enjoyed this tiny sliver when there was a demand for color realism because magazines could print color, but the printing of color photography was still complicated. Rockwell, and other artists, filled that void while it lasted (not long) but then maintained popularity because of its folksiness.
One of the values of UH is as a culture curating node. It has a higher number than average connectors outside to other culture (tribal) nodes.