Problem with making art specifically about yourself: If you don't do it *bloody well* nobody else will see anything in it because they don't know you.
My other main issue with Emin's work (although it's not just her, to be honest - it's most of the current crop of contemporary artsits) is that it's a mixture of messages so blatent it's offensive; and so subtle they're invisible and in all likelihood imposed by a critic or writer rather than the artist herself. I mean, if you're going to do a piece on gender, sex and abortion, one would like to think a world class artist would be able to come up with better than a bunch of explict drawings of genetalia; or as a tribute to Munch's Scream, perhaps more interesting or subtle than a video of yourself literally screaming on a bridge....?
Yes, I'm with you there: I remember when I first saw "My Bed" at the Tate in the 1990s, I thought - as most others did - "I could do that!" hearing the story made sense of it - but frankly, I'm not sure I needed the installation: the concept - the idea - and the story were sufficient. So without knowing Emin, it made no sense; and knowing (a little bit) about her made sense of the art, but didn't necessarily make it "good" art. I just understood more its creation.
And there is something a bit weird in objecting (as I see it) to objectification of women - and yet having photographs of your breasts all over the place.
I wasn't sure if one's gender made a difference to the way one saw the show: the extent to which the art was gender-specific. Perhaps if I had been raped, had an abortion, been depressed, I might have perceived the work in a different way. (In which case, I'm rather glad not to have fully experienced the work!)
I think the 'I could do that' is one of the most important and most misinterpreted messages of modern art. The correct answer to that response is 'yes, you can. Now go do it.' I certainly don't think there's much in *my* art that anyone with a bit of practice and maybe some basic training couldn't do themselves. Fact is, most people just don't make art
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My response to the "I could do that!" debate is "Yes, but you didn't and they did - it was their idea!" The ideas are important to me - the act of having the idea is more about the art than actually making it for "conceptual art", I think.
I do agree that everyone sees things differently - I am sure one's response to art is bound up in our view of ourselves.
(My brother told me the other day that he thinks some of the things I say in my journal are pretentious. I can't think why...)
I think having the idea should always be subserviant to communicating the idea. It's all very well sitting there saying "I have the most wonderful ideas, you know" but without the ability to share them you can't really expect recognition or acknoledgement for it.
Besides, even when the artist's intentions are revealed, I tend to find that very little conceptual art actually has original thought behind it. For all it claims to be groundbreaking and shocking I actually find it pretty formulaic and extraordinarily limited in subject scope. It's become a bunch of people all trying to say the same thing with minimum effort.
I think I'd have more respect for it if it was actually about ideas over presentation, but when presentation has been relegated to irrelvance and the ideas have become recycled and stale, there's not an awful lot left to appreciate. At least when you see your hundred thousandth painting of a northern European landscape with a windmill, a river, and a small boat in it, you can usually marvel at the technique.
My other main issue with Emin's work (although it's not just her, to be honest - it's most of the current crop of contemporary artsits) is that it's a mixture of messages so blatent it's offensive; and so subtle they're invisible and in all likelihood imposed by a critic or writer rather than the artist herself. I mean, if you're going to do a piece on gender, sex and abortion, one would like to think a world class artist would be able to come up with better than a bunch of explict drawings of genetalia; or as a tribute to Munch's Scream, perhaps more interesting or subtle than a video of yourself literally screaming on a bridge....?
Maybe it's just me.
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And there is something a bit weird in objecting (as I see it) to objectification of women - and yet having photographs of your breasts all over the place.
I wasn't sure if one's gender made a difference to the way one saw the show: the extent to which the art was gender-specific. Perhaps if I had been raped, had an abortion, been depressed, I might have perceived the work in a different way. (In which case, I'm rather glad not to have fully experienced the work!)
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I do agree that everyone sees things differently - I am sure one's response to art is bound up in our view of ourselves.
(My brother told me the other day that he thinks some of the things I say in my journal are pretentious. I can't think why...)
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Besides, even when the artist's intentions are revealed, I tend to find that very little conceptual art actually has original thought behind it. For all it claims to be groundbreaking and shocking I actually find it pretty formulaic and extraordinarily limited in subject scope. It's become a bunch of people all trying to say the same thing with minimum effort.
I think I'd have more respect for it if it was actually about ideas over presentation, but when presentation has been relegated to irrelvance and the ideas have become recycled and stale, there's not an awful lot left to appreciate. At least when you see your hundred thousandth painting of a northern European landscape with a windmill, a river, and a small boat in it, you can usually marvel at the technique.
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