Tracey Emin: artist, fraudster or nutcase?

[Alltaken]

@osxrules

Like people have been saying, if you put anything in an exhibition (toe-nails etc.) then people will talk about it. Philosophy is like that - you can spout the most detailed descriptions and possible meanings of every object on the planet but if we define every object on the planet to be art because it’s going to affect at least one person, then art loses its value.

this is called creativity.

creativity has a lot of value, and a lot of meaning, the first artworks that ever changed the perception of art were specificly designed to challenge the meaning of art, and subsequently it worked.

personally i do not like much post modern art, but none the less i can appreciate the creativity behind it.

the tent would have taken an equal amount of time as many highly skilled paintings.

but ti has its value because a TENT is not a standard canvas for working on, hence is stands out from the rest through creativity.

how many artists are highly skilled? the answer is many many.

how many artists are crap? the answer is many

how many artists are creative? lots

you tell me if this work is shit or not

and if so why, if not why?

i might very well agree with any opinion you have, but i can also add somthing to whatever you say.

art is about much more than just looking at the final piece, you need to have heard the justification of it, and empathised with the meaning and story that it tells.

a tent with words on the inside witha date on the outside, tells a story, it says “i travelled from so and so till so and so” or i was a kid from so and so till so and so. then it adds information with what is in the inside as the the history and experience.

whereas a painting may be good, but could very well not tell a story at all.

always question art, i think its important to look at somthing and say that it is shit. and i do agree with you that i wouldn’t pay bugger all for any of her works. but i do accept their value. (in none money terms)

Alltaken

[osxrules]

[quote=“Alltaken”]

@osxrules

Like people have been saying, if you put anything in an exhibition (toe-nails etc.) then people will talk about it. Philosophy is like that - you can spout the most detailed descriptions and possible meanings of every object on the planet but if we define every object on the planet to be art because it’s going to affect at least one person, then art loses its value.

this is called creativity.[/quote]

Yes, the creativity to make someone believe junk is valuable. You could say car salesmen are creative, too.

@Alltaken

creativity has a lot of value, and a lot of meaning, the first artworks that ever changed the perception of art were specificly designed to challenge the meaning of art, and subsequently it worked.

True, but is Tracey Emin’s work redefining art? If so, then it’s in a degrading way.

@Alltaken

personally i do not like much post modern art, but none the less i can appreciate the creativity behind it.

I appreciate creativity when it’s applied in the right way.

@Alltaken

the tent would have taken an equal amount of time as many highly skilled paintings.

I hardly think so. Considering the tent was burned in a fire and the newspapers were able to recreate it in less than a day shows how little effort was put into it.

@Alltaken

but ti has its value because a TENT is not a standard canvas for working on, hence is stands out from the rest through creativity.

My ass isn’t a standard canvas either. If I draw a smiley face on it, would you say that I exude creativity?

@Alltaken

you tell me if this work is shit or not … and if so why, if not why?

I like it because I can see forms and shapes that stimulate my imagination.

@Alltaken

art is about much more than just looking at the final piece, you need to have heard the justification of it, and empathised with the meaning and story that it tells.

I did hear the justification of it. I gave a link of a review and a description Tracey Emin gave of her own work and I was far from impressed.

@Alltaken

a tent with words on the inside witha date on the outside, tells a story, it says “i travelled from so and so till so and so” or i was a kid from so and so till so and so. then it adds information with what is in the inside as the the history and experience.

whereas a painting may be good, but could very well not tell a story at all.

My dirty jeans may be stained with bodily fluids with puke down them and there may be a cinema ticket stub in the pocket. Despite the fact you can deduce a story from them doesn’t make them artistic or creative.

@Alltaken

always question art, i think its important to look at somthing and say that it is shit. and i do agree with you that i wouldn’t pay bugger all for any of her works. but i do accept their value. (in none money terms)

Alltaken

I agree there and I do accept the value of certain pieces of art but I reserve my acceptance for those works of art I feel deserve it. I won’t accept any old rubbish as art.

[Haunted-House]

Look, I respect this modern artwork it actually took creativity:

Some modern art is creative her’s is not. Anyone can find a dirty bed and say ‘It looks like the scene of a crime as if someone has just died or been fucked to death’. I bet she pulled that out of her arse right after she found the bed.

I could find a dirty glove and work outfit and say ‘this represents someone who was worked to bloody fucking death for meager pay’.
Big deal. %|

[laniru]

The simple reality is that the contemporary artworld is full of intellectuals. They are not looking for what most people are looking for when they go to see “art”.

Several statements have been made throughout this thread regarding the “skill” and “talent” of artists, but there are underlying assumptions about art’s purpose that govern your definitions of skill and talent. You have to look at art metaphorically sometimes, and not in some cheesy, trite way like roses representing love or clowns with tear drops…
Jackson Pollock’s paintings (which were criticized earlier in this thread) are so much more than just paint thrown on a canvas. The initial “look” of them offends so many people that they don’t look any closer. They are brimming with metaphor. They can remind you of galaxies, or atomic particles, or semen, or cells, etc. It just goes on and on with his work. It speaks from America’s “macho” mentality of the era he lived in, when we thought we had solved everything.

Osxrules has stated that if Emin or Chicago uses a tampon in a work of art, and that tampon is thought of metaphorically, then any tampon in the world could hold the same metaphoric value.

That’s true… but only if you put it within the context of art. Only if you frame it, or put it in a space that is meant for that kind of meditation.

And I also disagree with the idea that the value of an artwork lies in the difficulty of reproducing that artwork. Artists like Warhol made an entire theme out of “simulacra”.

This all started with Duchamp when he put the Urinal in the gallery. You have to have an understanding of the Dadaist tradition, how it was born out of a cynicism regarding our Civilization’s institutions, and how they just lead to more war and death, and art, especially traditional “beautiful” art, was a target for the Dadaists and the artists after them.

What is the inherent value of “beauty” anyway? What does it do? It has no relationship to truth, or morality, or anything meaningful. Beauty can lie to us, filling us with a wonderful feeling, regardless of what is really going on around us, and that is another thing many of the Modern and Post-modern artists reacted and still react against.

I’m not saying all modern and post-modern art is great stuff, I’m just saying, contemporary art is an intellectual endeavor, and it is at odds with the kinds of art most people can relate to.

I wouldn’t want to live in a world where it didn’t exist.

[Hippie]

Andy Warhole tought whole world very valuable lessons aboout art.

A friend of mine told me, when Andy made his famous Cambells Tomato tin work, some reprter asked him, why is that particular can art? Why is that so different.
Andy had looked the reporter and said “because I chose it”

And that, my friends tells us everything you need to know about modern art. You can take anything you want and if you can explain it so it refers to something thats important, it turns art.

But the fact remains, that if someone makes a video where he chops cats head off with an axe and masturbates after that, we the public have no need nor is anyone forcing us to like it. We, as publlic can ingore it if we so choose.

[lukep]

@laniru

The simple reality is that the contemporary artworld is full of intellectuals. They are not looking for what most people are looking for when they go to see “art”.
…
This all started with Duchamp when he put the Urinal in the gallery. You have to have an understanding of the Dadaist tradition, how it was born out of a cynicism regarding our Civilization’s institutions, and how they just lead to more war and death, and art, especially traditional “beautiful” art, was a target for the Dadaists and the artists after them.
…
I’m not saying all modern and post-modern art is great stuff, I’m just saying, contemporary art is an intellectual endeavor, and it is at odds with the kinds of art most people can relate to.

I wouldn’t want to live in a world where it didn’t exist.

Some points :

• Duchamp did produce stuff which anyone can recognize as art, even if you are still free to like it or not.
• The urinal was more a standing than anything else and must be considered in that moment situation. It was in a context where most of the art community was very conservative and a way to shake things. the Dada movement was in essence a trouble-maker per choice.
  Remaking the urinal now would have no value.
• there is very fine things in modern and post-modern art, Pollock is a good example (even if I prefer its early work, pre action-painting), but intellectualism is not an excuse for some of those absurdities art merchants present as “Art”.
• The conceptual part is important yes, but not at the expense of everything else, and if a particular piece need a 250 page thesis to explain the “artist” intents, sorry it’s only crap.
• Beauty is a relative thing, and a piece can be so uggly that it goes full circle and become beautiful, but a bed with stained sheets is simply void of any beauty-uggliness factor, it’s only an unmade bed.

[laniru]

Good points, Lukep.

To be honest, the stuff I like the most of Emin’s is her Quilts, not that bed piece.

It’s always been a powerful thing to me when women use the Quilt medium in a post-modern context. It sort of shows off how that medium has been ignored in art history, when it has many similarities to abstract painting.

I think you’re probably right about the bed piece being weak, though.

[Haunted-House]

I can understand why you like modern art laniru but, anyone can pick up an object, attach pretentious babble to it, call it art then have every pseudo-intellectual look at it and ramble on about its deep meanings. You don’t even need an artist to produce the work, you can look at any object under whatever context you want, anything can become modern art.
Anyone can fake it for the money and nobody would know. Thats very disturbing…

[valarking]

[quote=“osxrules”]

@Sebastian

But not all cg is very artful, for example in: http://raph.com/3dartists/artgallery/peter_hofmann1.jpg [raph.com]
I do not see anything specially artful, if it were a photo I don’t anyone would give it a second glance. Much cg is just trying to acheive realism and forgets the meaning of it.

Hmm when browsing raph.com I do not see much art, there are many really advanced renders, but not so much else, I rarely see that they have used lines and compositioning.

But it’s a creation from primitives - that’s where the talent lies. If someone can make a CG scene look real, that to me is artistic. Are you honestly saying that you would rather look at an unmade bed than that image?[/quote]

I’m on the anti-Emin side, but that’s a bad argument. I don’t see any difference in creation from primitives and what she’s doing.

Alltaken, I like that one. “Nude Descending a Staircase” by Duchamp?

[Haunted-House]

but that’s a bad argument. I don’t see any difference in creation from primitives and what she’s doing.

There is a difference as long as the primitives are not just sized, colored, cut out, moved around, barely modified.
Using primitive is more like claywork then making a dirty bed.

[Alltaken]

@osxrules

…pretedn your whole post is in here…
I agree there and I do accept the value of certain pieces of art but I reserve my acceptance for those works of art I feel deserve it. I won’t accept any old rubbish as art.

damn you must be SUCH a loser. seriously please address the most challenging part of my post.

you replied to all the parts of my post which are opinion based, yet left out the challenging of an artwork that i placed there.

i have lost all respect for debating with you on any issue.

and as from now will not even read your posts in these topics.

@valarking

Alltaken, I like that one. “Nude Descending a Staircase” by Duchamp?

LOL you studied art? coz nude decending staircase (numbers one through 3 HA HA) are pretty easy to recognise, and that ain’t one of them.

it is “accordianist” and was done by Picasso. picasso being the single most skilled artist of all times, (IMO)

reaching physical perfection is art at the age of 14, he was the best and could not ever become more perfect than he was by 14, his father quit his profession as a drawing teacher the day that picasso was better than he was.

where does picasso have to go?

well he invents some of the most famous modern art styles.

then where does art have to go as a whole, its been totally devalued with DADA and such art movements?

it becomes “post modern” and doesn’t develop in the old way.

its very interesting if you actually know what you are talking about. everything has a place.

Alltaken

[Sebastian]

@Alltaken

damn you must be SUCH a loser. seriously please address the most challenging part of my post.

you replied to all the parts of my post which are opinion based, yet left out the challenging of an artwork that i placed there.

Usuualy I only quote the parts I’m responding too, take it as he did not have any to say against your “challenging of an artwork that (you) placed there” and therefore did not respond nor quote it…

[Alltaken]

sebastian thats exactly how i take it.

but note that he is trying to argue without ever proving me wrong. how does one back up their opinion without either agreeing and adding to it, or challenging a statement i make.

someone who is debating on any subject with me who can challenge my information, opinion and evidence, gets my full respect.

someone who debates by trying to avoid the subject or evidence doesn’t.

so far all i have heard is.

“a preschooler could do that, so it must be crap”

i might agree on that point, but it doesn’t justify their position, as long as someone makes an argument with a sound knowledge and decision process behind it, then i will respect it whether or not i agree.

Alltaken

[osxrules]

@Alltaken

damn you must be SUCH a loser. seriously please address the most challenging part of my post.

you replied to all the parts of my post which are opinion based, yet left out the challenging of an artwork that i placed there.

i have lost all respect for debating with you on any issue.

Which part are you talking about? I assume it’s about the Picasso picture, in which case I answered your question. I said that I liked it because it has shapes and forms that stimulate my imagination. Tracey Emin’s work does not.

@Sebastian

so far all i have heard is.

“a preschooler could do that, so it must be crap”

i might agree on that point, but it doesn’t justify their position, as long as someone makes an argument with a sound knowledge and decision process behind it, then i will respect it whether or not i agree.

I think I’ve made better negative judgements about Tracey Emin than you have positive. All I ever hear from your side is that Tracey Emin should be appreciated because if she says that what she does is art then we shouldn’t criticise her for that. Is that argument based on sound reasoning?

@Sebastian

but note that he is trying to argue without ever proving me wrong.

I’m not trying to prove you or anyone wrong - I don’t think you can do that with art discussions because it’s all opinion based. I was never under the impression that by posting about this subject that I would change anyone’s opinion. I just wanted to hear what they are.

@Ianiru

They can remind you of galaxies, or atomic particles, or semen, or cells, etc. It just goes on and on with his work.

But with enough imagination, you can see lots of things in fairly meaningless objects. As William Blake puts it " to see a world in a grain of sand". I just don’t like seeing ‘artists’ putting forward works which rely solely on imaginitive individuals to justify their existance.

@Ianiru

And I also disagree with the idea that the value of an artwork lies in the difficulty of reproducing that artwork.

I didn’t say that only stuff that is difficult to make should be considered art but I consider that if a piece has been produced with passion and emotion that it would normally take a while to capture those feelings - so as a general rule of thumb, art which is easily reproduced is generally junk but that may not always be the case. I mainly believe that art is something which captures the feeling of the artist - all an unmade bed suggests is that Tracey was too damn lazy to put any effort into it.

Obviously someone who is angry and scribbles red pencil over a page and calls it rage may say they are trying to capture their emotion and it can be done in seconds. But I don’t call it art.

@Ianiru

I wouldn’t want to live in a world where it didn’t exist.

I don’t think I would go that far but I agree that modern art as a whole has a place but I believe that certain ‘artists’ take the piss (or give it in the case of the urinal).

@Valarking

I’m on the anti-Emin side, but that’s a bad argument. I don’t see any difference in creation from primitives and what she’s doing.

I agree with Lagan here. Traditional artists start with primitives too y’know. Usually it’s with faint circles and squares etc. to give the artist an outline and they gradually form the model. CG just does that in 3D.

[Alltaken]

Tracey Emin: artist, fraudster or nutcase?

artist.

and that is not an opinion.

Alltaken

[theeth]

@osxrules

Tracey Emin: artist, fraudster or nutcase?

I wasn’t aware that those three were mutually exclusive.

She may be an artist, but she’s probably a nutcase too.

Martin

[macouno]

Tracey Emin is quite a good artist if you subscribe to the school of conceptual art which is now the standard in most of the western world.

That is the thing really… Art isn’t a set definition… it’s a movement defined by the zeitgeist. Or at least that is how “high art” is viewed by the art community at large.

Also Art can never be anything other than a wholly private definition of whatever you think it should be. Therefore, what you say is art, may be art to you alone.

So on a peronal level… I’ve studied art… I’ve got a degree… I know how it all works… I’ve been tought to think as an artist and as an art critic… so I figure I’m entitled my opinion and can voice it when I want to.

Thus: Conceptual art as it is tought to us now. As we as professional artists are expected to produce. Is complete and utter crap. Art now is based solely on the concept and is rarely allowed to be beautiful. Beaity in art nowadays seems to scare off those that see themselves as serious art lovers. I say… art is nonsense… just make something nice/pretty/intrigueing. And shut the hell up about it’s relevance in society or how it reflects on the art movement of today. I’d say… put a smile on someones face, a sense of wonder in their day and let the critics name it, define it and tear it to bits. That’s what they are there for and actually… they’re the only ones that really care. Humanity could care less… and neither could I.

[rogerm3d]

personally I don’t see much in her work. art is made of poetry and skill, her art shows neither of those to me. Picasso’s work is very impressive because he had the poetry and skill, and using his knowledge of both he was able to make very strong “abstract” artwork. CG or photography are both the same, they cane be strong artwork, but they must have those elements, else its not “good artwork.”
My 1 cent (I’m a starving artist so I can’t give away more ;))

[valarking]

@Alltaken

[quote=valarking]Alltaken, I like that one. “Nude Descending a Staircase” by Duchamp?

LOL you studied art? coz nude decending staircase (numbers one through 3 HA HA) are pretty easy to recognise, and that ain’t one of them.[/quote]

Keep pumping that self esteem…

[Alltaken]

umm actually i think you took it the wrong way.

Alltaken