The Definition of Art// The Death of Originality

Pictures taken at the windows of Bergdorf


What is Art?

The most dreaded question us art students face and the most cliche question an art professor could ask his or her art class on the first day of school.

After reading the incomprehensible section on Nelson Goodman's take on art, I must say that we really have been asking the wrong question all along. If we cannot answer the simple question of the identity of art, how can we then, create art and discern what art is?

And Goodman came up with a good answer. We have just been simply asking the wrong question. The better question to ask is "when is art?" You can place a steel pipe in a gallery and call it art yet take it out of context of a museum and use it to connect it to a complex drainage system, it's no longer art. So is the Mona Lisa still Art if used as a door stopper? Is a Monet still Art if used as a seat of a chair?
And yet, what is Good Art? These are the sins of most artists/designers who end up settling for the mediocre according to our design philosophy teacher:
-Firstly, not trying
-The artist does not create a new world (perspective)
-Does not think
-Ignores exemplification

He said the last was the greatest mistake most designers make because it is the most difficult. We asked him what he meant and to give us a definition of what 'exemplification' is. He said this:

A mode of reference that goes forth, calls attention to, heightens the properties BUT not all and these properties heighten forth the qualities of itself.

Crap. I am so screwed. I understand the definition but that is so difficult. He gave us the example of the film 'Blair Witch Project' which uses the frame of the actual camera to create fear. The presence of the framed image of the film heightens the feeling of fear in the absence of the feared object itself. Or another good example is he gave was:

White

The word 'white' which I just typed out is not white but black but because it heightens the presence of black it calls out the characteristics of its 'whiteness'.

I went into this slight depression at the thought that there were an extremely small number of good artists by the definition of Goodman. Particularly in fashion which revels in the fact that something will be 'in' for a month will be laughed at come two weeks. Fashion understands the cyclical structure it bases itself upon to recycle old ideas and peddle them as new but keenly aware that everyone knows its nothing new.

So where then, is fashion going to go if it is in a constant circle? If we constantly reference to the past, how can we go towards the future? The most ironic thing is that this year, designers have been showing 'Futurism' in their collections yet their idea of 'Futurism' includes geometric shapes, robotic sheaths, and metallics which is so.... 80s? Even our ideas of the future are based on what we used to think. Designers have been just blowing the dust of our old ideas of 'Futurism' and using them as if they were our newest concepts of our future. Silly.

Yet my Fashion Ind: Design teacher reminded me that we cannot create a future from nothing. You cannot propel yourself into the future when there is nothing to create from something that is unknown. What we must do is then take inspiration from the past, create something for the present to be used in the future. I'll have to settle with that and hope that one day God will reveal to me a different way of designing.

So to say that Art is easy to create, produce and that art students, unlike our science/math counterparts or whatever major there is out there, have little homework- think again. For with these definitions in mind, the Artist is laden with a heavy burden. If everything has been done, what left is there for the Artist to create?

My design philosophy teacher is really smart. An eccentric little man who wears the same thing every week to the point his sweater is fraying and the interfacing is showing through the holes of his blazer. He really is a caricature of himself.

Last week he asked us what 'cool' meant. What is the definition of 'cool'? After pondering for a minute, he told us his definition of 'cool':

"To display a preference for the inferior."

Hm, good definition. I remember watching a documentary of companies that do 'Cool Hunts' where teens would use potential products and see if they were good or not and what would be deigned as 'cool'.

And what cool is is usually what everyone is not save a few. To be 'cool' is to be different and ahead of everyone else. This is most apparent in the realm of fashion where certain items of clothing are considered 'weird' or 'different' prior to its time in the closets of the masses. Slowly as designers feature collections with these 'weird' items, they begin to gain acceptance and they become 'in'. Those who wear them are considered 'cool' yet ironically are only living in trends rather than creating them. Then as the trend dies down, it becomes 'passe' and out. Those who are considered 'weird' then are technically the 'cool' ones. And to be cool is to know your self.

It always seems easy to look into the lives of others and point out their future paths- their SHAPE and the roads that they should take... yet we find it so difficult to see that in ourselves. I was watching Spiderman 2, Jurassic Park and Mulan, Hercules and a slew of other Disney movies and though they seemed confused about their own purpose in life, they eventually find it. So how and when will I find mine? I feel so confused right now as I stand here watching every day unravel. My heart is not content in settling in New York yet returning to Toronto would be the death of the artist/designer in me (unless a miracle takes place and they decide to give a darn about art/design in the supposed world city Toronto is. I believe it's inching slowly forward by private collectors etc with the renovations of the AGO and ROM but the Distillery is in shambles).

Anyway I decided to put up a new banner because I got bored of the old one. I get bored of pictures quite quickly and constantly need new things to satisfy the eyes and since I was writing a post on Art, I decided to change it. I thought perhaps by asking the question of "What is Art" could be a nice way of debuting another 'new' banner. I wasn't looking to be original, I just wanted something different for a change and less colourful. I was considering doing each poster according to the styles of different art movements but I got a little lazy. It's called 'static motion' to call to attention the beauty of a single moment through a single snapshot hence the grainy overlay I added. It was either going to be velvety smooth like some fashion ad or with a lot of textural grain and I felt a little silly making it appear 'fashion' and I like the grittiness of the spackling effect. This was taken at the MOMA. It was basically a room full of these plaster 'bookshelves' which suggest the presence of books with the use of negative space. It was on absence and presence, haunting and poetic.


I was inspired by Art Nouveau- a movement we had to study for History of Design. I used to dismiss this movement as just a bunch of organic lines seen in this poster for ciggies. But I read this essay that described the philosophy behind it. Artists at the time (1890's) were inspired by the French Symbolist movement within literature which rejected realism and favoured the sensual. Hence Art Nouveau artists moved away from historicism and into the first step to Modern Art. Organic lines were used to heighten sensual perception. Women were idealized without status, class or age and were often seen living a carefree lifestyle. Hair and clothing became abstracted on the figure to create more movement and heighten feminine sexuality through the long, flowing locks (hence in the 1920's when the flapper look came in and women cut all their hair off to create bobs, it was a shock since it was a symbol of feminity). I guess for all you Moulin Rouge fans out there, this was the time of when the movie took place. Did you know the 'Tolouse Lautrec' which was portrayed as a writer in the film actually existed NOT as a writer but an artist? Unlike the one in Moulin Rouge who was poor, he was actually extremely rich and did not need to work but he pursued this new form of art. The only sameness they share is their physical features which are actually quite similar. Actually he did the poster on the right with the cabaret dancer.

The 1890's was also a time where in graphic design text, content and frame were integrated together as one where the text became part of the overall piece rather than its own seperate boxed out entity like Medieval manuscripts. The philosophy behind Art Nouveau was the integration of ornament in design where ornament would become more than just mere decoration and achieve the status of art. Wow. The more I study art, the more I am enjoying the different ideologies within the design and I'm blown away.

Anyway, I wanted to get that same organic quality within this banner. Since I'm intimidated of Photoshop and don't have the ability to download brushes/stamps of curlicues and swirls, I came up with this gimmick back in high school. I downloaded many elaborate script fonts which I then blew up and rotated them around to give the appearance of the brushes you find on Photoshop. Hence if you look closely at the banner, you can see all the swirls are in fact, not just some decorative detail, but letters... especially 'F'. Hey it works.

Btw I received 'The History of Beauty' from Amazon today. Cackle. It looks like an amazing book on the philosophy of beauty and the sublime with many many pictures as examples of beauty in erotic, sensual, grotesque, the disquieting, the helpless feminine, religion etc.