I think we may have hit upon the most pointless discussion in art. Not that it’s an unworthy topic, but I’m surprised it’s generated more than five minutes discussion.
We we asked to consider the role of pleasure in art. Which to me seems like asking if one should taste while eating. Art, good art at least, is inherently pleasurable. I don’t know what argument could be made to counter this notion. And since the material we we given was highly biased towards combating this idea that art should be unpleasurable it seems I’m never going to know. I feel like we’re not having our intellects truly challenged here. When outlining Aristotle’s five proof’s of God Aquinas included multiple arguments against God to show what he was arguing against to show he was serious. Here I feel I’m being asked to slay a dragon that is already dead and who never even got to capture any fair maidens.
Well. I will go one further. I will not only slay this dead beast. But i will do so in a way as to so the farce and artifice of this whole execution. Show how this great task was never anything but a parody of knighthood set up by jesters who have deluded themselves into thinking they are knights.
The first piece of pre-reading we were given was a journal by Dieter Roelstratete called ‘How About Pleasure?’ Certainly in keeping with the theme.
Roelstratete asks if our ‘bodily enjoyment, the invocation of any form of pleasure, visual or otherwise align the work of museum curators with the “evil forces of Entertainment?”’
I wouldn’t worry about that Mr Roelstratete. No entertainment is to be found in modern art. What isn’t trying to disgust the viewer is so abstract it would faint at the thought of providing the viewer with anything but “Art”. Pleasure included.
It is not difficult to make funny art. Comic strip writers across the globe and the internet do it every week. If you mean “fine art” How about MC Eicher Salvador Dali and Matiess? It can be done if you have something to say and say it clearly. I fear what you mean is funny postmodern art. Which cannot be funny because it has to be explained to the viewer. And if you have to explain a joke, there is no joke.
I will agree with him that pleasure is spurned on the grounds of being considered Atopical. How a work makes one feel, specially if it makes you feel good. Is considered more and more a divergence at best and a con at worst
I know I’ve said this question of what is wrong with pleasure seems groundless. But this is a topic that goes back at least to ancient Greece. Rightly or wrongly, people have been arguing against it for some time. Movements like the gnostics have argued that all that is of this world is wrong and sinful since before the advent of Christianity. I suppose some of this purisanism my have seped into the art world over time. But normally these extreme self-denial movements have no love for art at all. It seems foolish to court the sympathies of people who will never like you for the sake of respectability. If critics really have taken to Artistic Catharism then they’re best ignored. I don’t know why these ideas are being talked about as if they were the norm.
Roelstraete seems to struggle with the idea that people might like art for its own sake. He seems to think people approach it with the intellect first and only like it if it is intellectually consistent as if we were Vulcans listening to Mozart. What about beauty? Does Roelstratete not know that people love art because it is beautiful and inspires positive feelings within them? Is the taint of modern art so deep we have forgotten what beauty is? Beauty doesn’t need to make us feel happy. The Dead Christ Mourned by Annibale Carracci is a beautiful painting, even though it is heartrending to look at.
It captures our emotions first and then engages our minds. This real emotional experience, even if it hurts, is still a positive reaction to beauty that is a reason to love art in and of itself.
Another thing Roelstratete says that baffles me is that enjoying art is a guilty pleasure. Art is far from a guilty pleasure. One is seen as a stiff for not liking it. I’ve never even heard of people above the age of 12 feeling guilty in taking pleasure in art. Be they causal art fans or fanatics. I know Roelstratete is a curator and thus meets differnt people to me. But I feel he may have mistaken the views of his clique as those of the whole world.
The one video we we’re given to watch seemed to be in harmony with my view that it is seen as a greater sin to not enjoy something than to enjoy it. It was a sample of two talks give my the modern philosopher Slavoj Zizek. I’m not not if i can say much beyond I agreed with most of what he said and he seems like a really fun guy and he’d be great to talk to. So here’s the video in full
After that we were give two questions to consider.
- Is pleasure a primary purpose of art?
- Is pleasure in art and design a consequence of producing a successful image / object?
To which all I can say is.
1: Depends on the artwork
2: Hopefully yes. Some art will be enjoyed ironically like “The Room”. But all good art will produce some sort of pleasure. Even of it is not happiness. It’s tempting to think of plesure and happiness as the same thing. But they aren’t. A sad piece of music doesn’t make one happy. But it does give pleasure. Not that a work giving happiness is a bad thing either.
Then we had the obligitor lecture and slideshow. Here are some thoughts inspired by what we were given.
Something we were asked to consider early on is this maxum “If we like something that is neither useful or morally good, then it must be because it gives us pleasure”
Four thoughts on that.
1: I’d be wary of taking this as an absolute. It sounds good enough as a general rule. But hard enough thought may produce exceptions.
2:I feel this maxum comes with the implication that if something isn’t useful or morally good but gives us pleasure that that is the least of the three categories. That it’s the least worthy reason to care about a work. Which I disagree with. We value people because they give us pleasure. And while part of maturing is learning to value people even if they don’t, that illogical first step is what allows us to love people rather than treating them like machines or objects.
3: Another unfortunate implication I must address is that you can only be one of these things. This is a dangerous misconception. Things that are morally good are almost always useful. Things that are useful can be fun with the right mindset. And things that are fun can be morally good, useful, or both at the same time! As a child I eat up the Dorling Kindersley Eyewitness video (VHS) series. I was learning at a prodigious rate and enjoying myself the whole time. Finding a new one was a joy. Sometimes people are down and need company. Being with them can be hard. But sometimes it can be fun as their mood comes around. And even when these three qualities don’t overlap completely they will overlap somewhat. It is rare that something is only Useful, Morally good, or Enjoyable.
4: Most importantly, art is fun. I’d argue most art is not particularly useful or morally good. We enjoy Turner for his colours, Miro for his rhythms, Hitchcock for his suspense, and Colleridge for his beauty. Art is a truly sensual experience that we gorge ourselves on first and analyze later. And that’s a good thing. Art that is only focused on being useful quickly turns into a PSA. Dry, cold, and worthless once new data supplants it. Art that focuses on being morally good will quickly turn into sermonising and belittling it audience. And in both cases it erases the need for quality. The revisionist fairy tales of a woman with no understanding of plot, pacing, spelling, grammar, and even the meaning of the words she uses will be held in higher regard than the works of Grimm and Perrault because they preach of the virtues of abortion and diversity hiring in this society. If this seems acceptable to you as a model for critique, think of a society you don’t agree with and imagine a similarly awful work being held up as masterpiece because it preaches abstinence only education and male superiority. Not so appealing this model of virtues before pleasure now is it?
The Work of Homer has not stayed relevant to us because it is useful or moral (Though one could make arguments to say it has qualities of both). It stays with us because a great story with compelling characters is always going to be pleasurable. And that’s not a bad thing. It can be the backbone of a whole civilization.
I’d like to address something that’s inspired by the question asked above.
There’s an idea that if we enjoy something it somehow dilutes the other two qualities. That the usefulness or moralness of the work is tainted because we enjoyed it. That we should live our artistic lives in puritiantic discomfort. That the virtues of the work are made more virtuous by being unpleasurable. Any psychologist or religious scholar will tell you that is not only bunk but it is both dangerous and conceited. Dangerous because inflicting suffering upon yourself for the sake of suffering is never good and can even get in the way of doing good. Conceited because it’s easy to fetishise suffering. To constantly put one’s-self on the back for suffering so well and snubbing those who are working harder than you are, but not suffering as much as you’d like, At that point your serving you own ego rather than doing any good.
This is more general life advice, But it is probably just as applicable to art.
The first type of pleasure we had to look at in art was humour. The examples we were given were at best, able to raise a micro smile. Modern artists are no Chaplins.
The other problem with modern art trying to be funny is just how seriously it takes itself. When artists view themselves as gods with magical powers come to guide morals towards the light the sheer seriousness in which they hold their duty is a detriment to trying to be funny. It’s like that one gamer who is always in character. They’re just not fun to be around
The way modern art tries to be funny is also rather flat. It tries to be ugly and gross, and a little vulgar, Like the artstyle of South Park or Beavis and Butthead is ugly, gross, and a little vulgar. But the thing is, that’s just the visual style. It doesn’t help make those things funny. It’s probably good they aren’t expending a lot of effort into looking nice. Saves time. But if an ugly and vulgar art style was all that was needed Family Guy would still be funny. All modern art does to try to be funny is use an unpleasant style and leave it at that. It is pure style before substance.
We were asked “Is it okay to ‘fart in art”.’ Does art have to be polite? In my opinion, no. But it does affect the tone you will have. If you want to evoke tears it’s best not to have a silly artstyle and make your subject very fat clowns. Just saying. Everything has its place. It’s okay to fart in art, sometimes. But it is also okay, and sometimes necessary, to not fart in art.
Another thing I don’t get. I’m told time and again that everything is art, or anything can be art. No matter how much I refute it it never goes away. So if everything is art, then art being pleasurable is of paramount importance. Because if we are not allowed to enjoy art then we are literally not allowed to enjoy anything
Even if we go with less extreme “Anything can be art” idea then the artist alchemist is now waving their magic wand and saying “This is now art, and now you may never enjoy it”.
Both the ideas that art should be non-pleasurable and that the Artist is an alchemist who can turn anything into art whenever they want money for no work are bad ideas. But put together they become an apocalyptically idea.
So I feel the question of if art can be fun or funny is a non-question. If there is any reason to ask if art can be either it’s because postmodern art has drained both qualities from the art world and its attempts to re-inject them back into art are hamstrung by the above reasons. Modern art is trying to fix a problem it created and doing so poorly.
Another point that is brought up is how children enjoy some modern art pieces like they were toys or play areas. The fact that these things can be enjoyed on such a basic level is a point of concern. I don’t think this matters. We experience works on many levels as we grow up. And that is not a bad thing. It’s not bad that we can enjoy art differently in different times in our lives. It’s the same with music, books and films, why not art? It’s not a mark of shame that something can be enjoyed by a child. I got into Shakespeare when I was 11.
That’s not to say that it’s bad if your art if your art isn’t appealing to younger people. It’s fine to have a particular audience in mind. A movie like ‘The Tree of Life‘ would never appeal to children and doesn’t appeal to many adults. I would not want it changed to accommodate more people. But it isn’t trying to force people out on purpose. It’s just trying to tell its story in its own way.
If doing that gives you big audience that’s fine. And if doing gives you a niche audience that’s also fine. Having people outside your chosen circle like your art is not a sign of failure or on your part or to live up to some invisible standard we have to follow.
Art should not be a club for serious, educated people in their 40s only.
The second type of pleasure we were given was eroticism and the body.
The examples we were given here were very poor. Modern art is too abstract and cold to be erotic. The most erotic thing in the world is the human soul. We are attracted to people for their persona and how we want that persona to interact with us. A bored and lathargic strippler will never turn someone on, no matter what her body is. She has to play the part of someone enticing. Pretend to be interested in the men around her. That is the erotic element. All the work we were shown had all the humanity (And often the presence of humans at all) surgically removed from it. Vague colours and shapes played to the sound of a woman’s breathing isn’t inviting the viewer to do anything. A pile of bodies in a sculpture may as well be a meat display if the people have no life to them.
The final type of pleasure we were offered was abstraction itself. Getting to the nub of all this I suppose. But how this is meant to be pleasurable in a sensual way I can’t imagine. And I really have nothing to say about what we were shown. It was okay abstract art. Nothing special. I don’t find abstract art gives any more or less happiness or sensual pleasure than other art. It’s just about it the art is good or not.
And that’s it. I don’t really have a concluding statement. I looked at all the stuff and it feels like a rather pointless thought exercise. Why did i even bother?
John's Learning Journal 