Comments on: Art for Art’s Sake: Enjoying it

By: Tim J.

Tim J. — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 19:10:53 +0000

“Does EVERY work of art have to be like this?”

Well, no, there are no “have tos” where art is concerned. All art will be culturally relative, to some extent.

I’m not thinking of art “enduring” in terms of being recognized as great art (how many works really end up in that club? Very few), but enduring in such a way that our great-great grandkids generation can enjoy it and recognize its merits.

By: pNielsen

pNielsen — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 18:31:22 +0000

“It’s appeal should be not just narrowly cultural, but broadly human, as well.”

Does EVERY work of art have to be like this? I’ll agree that there are things intrinsic values that will cause certain works to endure, right so, but does that mean that every artist must set to to only make that kind of work?

And I’m not sure that the word “enjoy” implies anything different than what you’ve stated in your second comment. I guess I need to know more of what you’re thinking if I’m to believe we’re on a different page, per your “but.”

By: Tim J.

Tim J. — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 16:31:15 +0000

I also appreciate your sentiment that art should be enjoyed, but I do think it should be (ideally) the kind of joy that remains and deepens over the passage of time, which I think so much of modern work lacks. Art should enrich our lives, even if only for a moment every day as we walk past it. If it only titillates or panders to popular whim, it won’t be of any real value, say, two centuries from now, which is the kind of time scale we should be considering.

It’s appeal should be not just narrowly cultural, but broadly human, as well.

By: Tim J.

Tim J. — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 16:17:56 +0000

“The idea that there is some special magic attached to Hirst’s work that shoves it into the multimillion [dollar] realm is ludicrous,” Hughes says. “[The price] has to do with promotion and publicity and not with the quality of the works themselves.”

That’s how I feel about Koons’ work. As I commented in a recent post on another site;

“The props department of any movie studio makes and throws away more interesting stuff every day.”

http://arscatholica.wordpress.com/2008/09/12/well-there-are-at-least-twelve-people/