P3D Re: Shreiber and what is art

["Xal razutis" <razutis@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Doctor Shreiber wrote:
--------
>     Visual art criticism, to put on the pedantic hat, breaks down
>historically into issues of line shape, color, form, and texture.
---------
That comment, restricting the term 'visual art criticism' to a few formal 
categories is, (by any measure that is the LEAST bit informed of art 
history, criticism, and aesthetic theory) an oversimplification that borders 
on nonsense.

Such an assertion ignores:

a) issues of history and cultural context
b) issues of ideology and political intent
c) issues of subject
d) issues of technique
d) issues of psychology and perception
e) issues of philosophy and aeshthetics

and one could go on with the list of 'issues' ignored.  But these issues, 
represented in volumes of scholarly and non-scholarly writings on art and 
its contributing subjects, are a 'given' in contemporary art criticism.  
Though perhaps not on this list.

Shreiber further posits:
--------
 > As
>for the image, there is realism -sometimes known as objectivism (make it
>as close to real as possible), surrealism (bend reality somewhat to make
>a point), and non-objectivism (the object is immaterial, and only the
>issues of line shape, etc. are of importance).
----------

Ladies and Gentlemen, really! And Doctor Shreiber: 'As for the image...' 
there is a lot more!

I suggest that before one invokes 'surrealism' and trivializes it as to 
'bend reality somewhat to make a point' he/she read the surrealist 
manifestos, the writings of Breton, Artaud, and others,  the various 
debates, publications.  I suggest he/she survey the large and at times 
disparate body of work that was dedicated to 'the marvelous' and uprooting 
of conventional tastes, dedicated to unconscious exploration of subject and 
author, automatic writing, chance art, dedicated to political action and 
interventionisms.

One could go on.  One could bring up Impressionism, Futurism, Cubism, 
Constructivism, Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, Minimalism, etc. etc. -- 
and one could IMPLICATE photography in all of those movements, since 
photography AND stereo photography, and later film, video, and digital 
imaging are invariably expressions of various art impulses, unique to their 
time and purpose.

Stereo photography (and stereo film, video) are mediums for expressing art 
in its many forms.  If one reduces to a trivial and inconsequential level 
the conception of 'art' then one can suppose that ANY expression could 
qualify as 'art' in any equally arbitrary definition, and that we'd all be 
'artists' feeling good about it.  This of course would be most appealing to
some hobbyists who 'dabble' (at 'art') rather than professionally work (and 
risk failure) at it.

Meaningless categories are meaning less and contain a strange sub-culture 
conceit: like tribal subjectivity they depend on an immediate consensus to 
keep the value system going 'us' against 'them'.  There's nothing more 
'populist' than a definition that makes 'art' so trivial, formal, general 
and arbitrary that 'we are all artists!'.  There has always been a 
'populist' resentment against the 'elitism' of art.

Problem is that the 'artists' of those many great movements (you've seen 
them in the books) weren't led by the nose of any theory or non-theory.  
Their work created NEW theories about art, psychology, direction of history, 
etc.

And they weren't creating what you Dr. Shreiber term: "issues of line shape, 
color, form, and texture".  If anyone thinks that's all there is to art, or 
to photography 2D or 3D, or any expression of art, then they're caught in a 
time-warp of 'high-school art class'.

The next time an art work moves you to tears, remember what 'it affected' 
and on whose courageous shoulders it survived into the present.  Remember 
the biography of the artist, his/her writings, battles, discouragements, and 
new theories.

The depth of the discipline is what got me hooked on it.  And after 30 years 
I still don't know how deep it is.


Al Razutis


Visual Alchemy
razutis@xxxxxxxxxxx
razutis@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
web: http://www.alchemists.com/
film-3D-video-holography-VRML



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