RoR: Forum

hahahaha, what was I thinking? 90 years ago!!! But I seem to remember on our art history exams they gave a grace time period of about 15 years, in the fun game of date that painting on the screen.

Post 41

Monday, April 21, 2008 - 6:57pm

I imagine the real tricky question would be - when was the 'invisible canvas' first shown? which would take that blankness to its ultimate, total nothingness.....

Post 42

Monday, April 21, 2008 - 8:58pm

Yeah, but why not take it further? No frame and no title (but maybe a blank label on the wall), but how would you get people to look at it or even know that "nothing" was there?

Sam

Post 43

Monday, April 21, 2008 - 9:39pm

It's been done, Martin Creed, 2001, empty room. turner prize.

Come on Sam you are behind the times.

;)

Michael

Post 44

Tuesday, April 22, 2008 - 6:01am

Yeah, I guess I'm a troglodyte all right, but if I dare predict the future ... someone, somewhere, will enclose a captive worm hole.

But we don't have to go to the future,

The blackest black can be placed in a frame. Nothing can be reflected or depicted. Has this been done yet? Will I be famous if I do it?

:-)

Sam

Post 45

Tuesday, April 22, 2008 - 6:28am

Come Sam, you have to leave your nihilism behind and step into a brighter future.

Michael

Post 46

Tuesday, April 22, 2008 - 7:29am

btw,

Some issues in art are difficult to communicate as they depend a great deal on the perspective of the receptive audience.

Though, I think Jeffery is closest to my idea about it. The gray area is not so interesting.

Still gimmicky, I like seeing people painted up like a statue and freezing in place. I get a kind of idiotic pleasure from that.

I like magicians. I like mimes. I like comedians.

An actor catapults me onto a different plane.

All the above work with a process--like a tennis player plays tennis; a skater skates.

But performance artists are artists without a means. If they do any of the above they become an actor, comedian, etc. So they straight jacket themselves from being anything.

A big part of making art is rejecting what you don't want. But you can't reject every process or you end up a mangled mess.

In another way it is like trying to be a pure altruist and live at the same time, it simply isn't possible to do in a pure way.

Michael

(Edited by Newberry on 4/22, 5:07pm)

Post 47

Tuesday, April 22, 2008 - 9:06pm

Newberry confessed: "I like magicians. I like mimes. I like comedians."

My first wife and I went to see Marcel Marceau about 40 years ago and I enjoyed it. I thought that some of it was obvious and not subtle or craftsmanlike, but most of it was ok. She felt differently. For her, it was a complete waste of time. She pursuaded me to her perspective.

It would be pretty easy to write an "objectivist" denunciation of magicians. It is all trickery of course, cheap sleight of hand, wires, smoke and mirrors to make you doubt the validity of your senses and the objectivity of reality. But to me, that would be sophistry. I like magicians, too. One of my favorite is Penn & Teller's burning of an American flag. (Here and also here.)

Comedy, for me, works along the lines suggested by Arthury Koestler: the intersection of two planes of meaning. I bought Julia Sweeney's Letting Go of God and gave it away to another ex-Catholic atheist (my ex-wife above, actually) as I found it contrived. It took me a while to get around to Seinfeld. He was in his last season when we rented some disks. He is fairly insightful about foibles and follies and yet positive in his sense of life in that he "never" (seldom?) denigrates his subjects.

I like jokes. My favorite gallery item is a joke in fact. I like "walks into a bar" jokes. (A horse walks into a bar and the bartender asks, "Why the long face?" I could go on all night...) I like situational jokes.
Two Englishmen are standing on the corner when a convertible full of people pulls up and the woman who is front passenger asks a question in French. The one Englishman shrugs and the other shakes his head. The woman tries Italian, German and Spanish in turn, but receives only negative body language in reply. The car pulls away. The one Englishman turns to the other and says, "You know, old man, perhaps we should learn a foreign language." The other replies, "Why? Those blokes knew four and it did them no good."

(Edited by Michael E. Marotta on 4/22, 9:16pm)

Post 48

Wednesday, April 23, 2008 - 8:10am

Marcel Marceau almost singlehandedly revived mime.... I, too, had the pleasure of seeing him many years ago - met him even [and yes, offstage, he spoke passable English, as well of course French], and learned that yes, a good number of his routines were from old sources, but with new inovations such to better carry out stories - one could call mime, at least as he did it, visual storytelling.... Red Skelton learned much from Marceau, and added mime to his shows, further popularizing the art... moonwalks and the like - all that came from mime.... it is easy to do, he had told me - but hard to do well, and to keep improvising to further it as an art, especially when the familiar routines oft were the most popular and thus had to be kept in the performances.... and - I might add, in this fast paced age, watching those routines for many is harder than in earlier times, except for children - which, oddly not, mime is best for what it is - visual storytelling......

Post 49

Wednesday, April 23, 2008 - 9:03pm

"Newberry confessed"

I have never confessed in my life. :)

M

Post 50

Wednesday, April 23, 2008 - 9:55pm

Robert Malcom said:
" Red Skelton learned much from Marceau, and added mime to his shows ..."

Funny you should mention it... I was going to say something about Red Skelton's mimes and what I learned from them, but deleted it for lack of continuity.

Post 51

Thursday, April 24, 2008 - 4:47am

I have never confessed in my life. :)

the pleasures of not being Catholic, huh...;-)

Post 52

Thursday, May 22, 2008 - 12:04pm