Quote: The Emperor's New Art

Julian Pistorius's picture
Submitted by Julian Pistorius on Wed, 2006-06-21 01:58.

Quoted from Foreign Dispatches:
...it's true enough that not everything requiring virtuosity is "great" art, but it's also true that art without skill is an oxymoron, and I dismiss out of hand the ridiculous and often-made assertion that artistic merit is an entirely subjective matter which can be divorced from facts about the human mind. Most of what is called "art" today is anything but, mere garbage palmed off on the gullible and easily intimidated by scam artists whose only gift is for baldly making outrageous claims on their own behalf, and the only reason they're able to get away with it on such a large scale is because so many people are afraid of being labelled "philistines" by snooty urban pseudo-intellectuals and art-school wankers who in the main can't draw well enough to save their very lives.

Quoted from post:
http://foreigndispatches.typepad.com/dispatches/2006/06/the_emperors_ne.html

(Hat-tip Commentary South Africa)

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GoodArt

Marnee's picture
Submitted by Marnee on Fri, 2006-07-14 18:48.

Hey that sounds a lot like Brian Yoder on art (he is associated with the Art Renewal Center). He runs the GoodArt blog and yahoo discussion group that I just discovered yesturday. He promotes Rand's theory of art and has developed his own answer to What Is Art? that is excellent. I dont know if he is an Objectivist but he really sounds like one....

From the GoodArt FAQ

    Socially, there's a well-known syndrome summed up in the fable of The Emperor's New Clothes. In the story, the crooks spread a story around that only those who were intelligent and competent could see the wonderful new clothes they were making for the emperor, and since people hate to be thought poorly of by their peers, everyone insisted that he could see the clothes even though they were not there at all. Similarly, the charlatans of the modern art world tell everyone that those who can't see the excellence of modern art have something wrong with them. They are "philistines", "unrefined", or "stupid". This kind of bullying intimidates a lot of people into setting aside their own honest judgment and instead parroting the positions they have been told are the way for intelligent and stylish people to think.

Julian

Lance Moore's picture
Submitted by Lance Moore on Wed, 2006-06-21 09:28.

Julian, it's funny that by trying to avoid being a philistine they actually become a philistine. They accept the dynamic that anything goes. They usually say, "I like just about everything" which means they don't have an in-depth artistic experience with anything. As if it's all equal and disposible.


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