From: Erin N. (enoonan@kent.edu)
Date: Sat Mar 29 2003 - 19:13:14 GMT
oh cool rick,
i would love to hear your thoughts!
erin
>Hey Erin,
>Thanks for the great quote. I read Timequake when it came out and (contrary
>to the critics) I thought it was great. I'm going to spend the rest of the
>weekend thinking about Kurt's social theory of art and making up my mind as
>to I think whether the MoQ agrees or not.
>
>take care
>rick
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Erin N." <enoonan@kent.edu>
>To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
>Sent: Friday, March 28, 2003 3:16 PM
>Subject: MD Intellectual Art (Ayn Rand)
>
>
>> Here is a chapter from
>> Kurt Vonnegut "Timequake"
>>
>>
>> Question: What is the white stuff in bird poop?
>> Answer: That is bird poop, too.
>>
>> (black and white blobblish picture with question art or not?)
>>
>> My big brother Bernie, who can't draw for sour apples, and who athis most
>> objectionable used to say he didn't like paintings because they didn't do
>> anything, just hung there year after year, has this summer become an
>artist!
>> I shit you not! This PhD physica
>> Chemist from MIT is now the poor man's Jackson Pollock! He sqoozles glurp
>of
>> various colors and consistencies between two flat sheets of impermeable
>> materials, such as windowpanes or bathroom tiles. He pulls them apart, et
>> voila! (snip) .... The message he sent me along with the Xeroxes though
>wasn't
>> about unexpected happiness. It was an unreconstructed technocrat's
>challenge
>> to the artsy-fartsy of which I was a prime exemplar "is this art or not?"
>he
>> asked. (snip)... He would not sign his pictures, he said or admit
>publicly
>> that he made them, or describe how they were made. He plainly expected up
>> critics to sweat bullets and excrete sizable chunks of masonry when
>trying to
>> answer his cunningly innocent question "Art or not?".
>> I was pleased to reply with an epistle which was frankly vengeful since
>> He and father had screwed me out of a liberal arts college education:
>> "Dear Brother: This is almost like telling you about the birds and the
>bees,"
>> I began. "There are many good people who are beneficially stimulated by
>some
>> but on
>> All manmade arrangements of colors and shapes on flat surfaces,
>essentially
>> nonsense.
>> "You yourself are gratified by some music, arrangements of noises, and
>again
>> essentially nonsense. If I were to kick a bucket down the cellar stairs,
>and
>> then say to you that the racket I had made was philosophically on a par
>with
>> The Magic Flute, this would
>> be not be the beginning of a long and upsetting debate. An utterly
>satifactory
>> and complete response on your part would be, "I like what Mozart did, and
>I
>> hate what the bucket did."
>> "Contemplating a purported work of art is a social activity. Either you
>have
>> a rewarding time, or you don't. You don't have to say why afterward. You
>> don't have to say anything.
>> "You are a justly revered experimetnalist, dear Brother. If you
>> really want to know whether your pictures are, as you say, 'art or not'
>you
>> must display them in a public place somewhere, and see if strangers like
>to
>> look at them.
>> That is the way the game is played. Let me know what happens."
>>
>> I went on: "People capable of liking some paintings or prints or whatever
>can
>> rearely do so without knowing something about the artist. Again, the
>> situation is social rather than scientific. Any work of art is half of a
>> conversation between two human beings, and it helps a lot to know who is
>> talking at you. Does he or she have a repuation for seriousness for
>> religiosity, for suffering for concupiscence, for rebellion, for sincerity
>for
>> jokes?
>> "There are virtually no respected painting made by persons about whom we
>know
>> zilch. We can even surmise quite a bit about the lives of whoever did the
>> paintings in the caverns underneath Lascaux, France. "
>>
>> I dare you to suggest that no picture can attract serious without a
>particular
>> sort of human being attached to it in the viewer's mind. If you are
>unwilling
>> to claim credit for your pictures, and to say why you hoped others might
>find
>> them worth examining, there goies the ball game.
>>
>> Pictures are famous for their humanness, and not for their pictureness."
>>
>> I went on: "There is also the matter of craftsmanship. Real picture lovers
>> like to play along, so to speak, to look closely at the surfaces to see
>how
>> the illusion was created.
>> If you are unwilling to say how you made your pictures, there goes the
>ball
>> game a second time."
>>
>> Good luck and love as always" I wrote. And signed my name.
>>
>>
>>
>>
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