Art Project Options

[rnicron]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/17/y...ly_n_97194.html

Discuss.

[mipadi]

Aside from the fact that this incident is clearly gross, I'm reluctant to call the exhibit "art".

While I come from a family of artists, and I'm a writer myself, my background is more traditionalist, and so maybe I'm just not "hip" enough to know good modern art when I see it. However, I stick by my claim that this is not art. :)

I don't know if there's an official definition of art, but here's my basic criteria: 1) first and foremost, art should express the creativity or thoughts of the artist; 2) good art should convey some sort of message -- hopefully clearly and thoughtfully, but at least convey some message (without requiring an immense amount of background knowledge or exposition); and 3) art should be aesthetically pleasing, be it in a visual, musical, or other manner.

Good art doesn't have to fulfill all of the above criteria per se, in some circumstances.

However, I don't feel this case is one of those circumstances. This piece was clearly made for shock value, and so the artist could get a lot of attention. Any message the artist may have intended is being lost in the shock of the piece.

A lot of young artists often mistake "talking about the art" for "talking about the message behind the art". Good art provokes discussion of the second time; art fails when people become so wrapped up in the mechanics of the art that they don't even talk about the message. Take this case, for example; everyone's talking about what the artist did, not why, and her message is getting lost in the glare of the media. Which means her "art" is a failure.

Secondly, a lot of artists seem to go merely for shock value. Let me elaborate. Any artist likely has a million or so ideas for a piece -- many of which never see the light of day. In the heyday of my writing hobby, I had a good idea for a character, or scene, or setting almost everyday. The problem is, a lot of them never materialized into anything usable. They were merely a glimmer. They were good ideas and had cool connections to worthwhile concepts, but they just weren't moldable into an actual piece of literature. I'm not a visual artist, but I'm guessing a painter, or even a dancer or musician, has similar experiences.

The point I'm making is that, while an idea might be good, its execution might be bad. I think once upon a time, when artists were just people who painted or sculpted or wrote symphonies, this limitation was central to their creativity -- even a good idea can't always turn into a work of art.

But in the age of mass media, sensationalist art exhibits often make headlines, even if their execution is bad.

What's my point? Well, perhaps this girl had a good idea; but she didn't really bother to think it through and try to actually execute the idea in any sort of "artistic" manner. I have no doubt she thought, "What will get me on the front page of the newspaper/social news networking websites?" So she did the grossest thing she could think of, without really trying to mold the idea into anything remote artistic.

So my take is that, assuming what she claims is true, she's a failure as an artist, and this idea was just stupid -- and certainly not art. (It also seems to be dangerous from a point of view of health, but that's a different story. I also agree with the criticism that she trivializes the very serious topics of abortion and miscarriage, but that's another discussion, too.)