Wednesday 12 December 2012

Lecture: High Culture vs Low Culture

Objectives:
- Understand the term 'avant-garde'
-Question the way art/design education relies on the concept of the avant-garde
-Understand the related concept of 'art' for art's sake'
-Question the notion of 'genius'
-Consider the political perspectives relating to avant-gardism
-Question the validity of the concept 'avant-garde' today

Avant Garde Goth Bold

Marcel Duchamp

'Fauves' Wild Beasts



LCAD quotes priorise certain concepts:- (feel free to question these)

1. innovation (Creating new stuff)
2. Experimentation (process involved in order to achieve new stuff)
3. Originality (to copy is bad, to be original is good)
4. Creative genius (to bring out a hidden creative depth held deep within the student)

Art for Art's Sake
Whistler Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket, 1875

End of the 19th Contury/ Early 20th C
-two approaches to avant-garde art
1. Art that is socially committed (artists being the avant-garde' of society, pushing forward political objectives)
2. Art that seeks only to expand/ progress what art is (in itself and for itself)/ ar for art's sake.

Clive Bell
Significant form
The relations and combinations of lines and colours, which when generated give the power to move someone aesthetically.

The 'Art for Art's Sake' approach dominated much thinking and practice in 20thC art.

Pollock Lavender Mist, 1950

Another major problem for the avant-garde is that it seems to necessitate 'Elitism'.
So for those members of the 'left wing' (interested in social change) there was a tendency to have to rely on academic techniques in order to appeal to the 'public'.


What is Kitsch?

-Simplification of style - reprinted masterpieces for the modern eye
-Commemoration
-Jumping across media
-(Animal themes) This is true kitsch as it aims to be taken seriously as fine art.


Durer Praying Hands, 1508

Jeff Koon - Michael Jackson & Bubbles the Monkey, 1988

Talous Lautree

Warhol

Thomas Kinkade

Carl Andre 'Equivalent VIII'

Damien Hirst, 2007 - For the Love of God

Adbusters


Awkward questions to ask your tutors:
1. Why does your work have to be 'original'?
2. Is it possible to be avant-garde and/or 'original'
3. If I make my work socially committed so that people can understand it can it still be avant-garde/innovative?




Friday 7 December 2012

Art, Graphic Design and Value Seminar

What are the differences between fine art and graphic design?

-Different contexts
-Graphic Design aims to inform and directly convey a particular connotation
-Graphic Design is usually to be mass produced whereas fine art is more exclusive
-Fine art allows for broader experimentation
-Different purposes
-Media and method of production - fine art could not be created digitally

-Audience
-Value
-Understandable
-High culture (painting, caviar, champagne, opera etc) ELITISM
-Mass production vs. individual production
-Historical specificity vs. timeless

Arisman, M (2003) 'Is there a fine art to illustration?
-Fine art is pure
-Illustration is the beginning of selling out
-Graphic design is commercial art
-Advertising is selling - period

Art vs. Graphic Design
-Ambiguity of complexity of meaning
-The designer as wage labourer
-Cultural significance - ephermality
-Expression and individuality
-Creativity/problem solving
-Function

Manet (1882)
Sigmar Polke (1969) - white canvas with small text and black top corner
David Carson
Allen Hori (1989)
Pollock (1947)
Are these works really that different when compared to one another?