Quote:
|
Originally Posted by This Is Not Here
Don't knock it, it's a way of life (Albeit a futile one). I'm half way through a degree in Fine Art now, and I've got to mention here that rarely, if at all, has the question "is it art?" come up. I have no memory of posing or being posed that question. Mainly I think because the "is it art?" question is just a massive cop-out on behalf of the viewer. If something isn't art, it doesn't cease to exist, it's still a THING, and a thing you've got to deal with, or as the case may be, not. The word "art" isn't there to separate things that aren't worthy of you attention from those that are. I'd say about 20% or even less of the officially-certified-by-the-mysterious-afficionados-on-this-subject art is even worthy of the faintest smidgeon of my attention.
|
we rarely argue about it because what we do in the graphic design/illustration department is not really considered art: our work usually has a function, and even if it's a free assignment, we tend to tell stories. we learn how to work around a theme, in funcion of a subject, for someone, and with limitations, but still make it something creative and recognisable as our own work. a lot of students make quite conceptual graphic design that is similar to conceptual art anyway. i remember a guy who midified a photobooth so it would cut up different pictures of people who'd sit in it and create a video with them, it was his final project for graphic design.
i do this because i love to tell a story in my work, and i love how it can reach people. lately i've been doing some actions in public, mostly with my boyfriend, also related to another interesting question: can art change the world? we've been debating about this, and came to a conclusion that what is seen as 'high art' can give a nice impulse to the public to actually make a change, but its main problem is that it only reaches a very small part of the world. here in antwerp an artist/theatre maker has spent all year doing small actions to disturb daily routines in antwerp and open eyes, this worked for some people (he has a rather large fanbase now) but most people don't know about it or don't know the meaning of what he does. that is why the world needs these 'popular' artists giving out a message, even though they're not considered 'high art'
me and my friends love bringing unfamiliar elements into the street, we even keep it quite legal. in the summer we went around at night making chalk drawings that pointed small funny things out that would have been gone unnoticed, or posting little notes between announcements and posters on walls or in mailboxes. right now we're working on a set of poster prints to hang on shop windows. they say things like 'very small man is looking for very small woman' and then we post them low to the floor. they're meant to surprise people and make them smile.
i realise this isn't very related but yeah.