Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2003/12/12
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Mark, Interesting point. From one point of view, I could have taken one of the chimp's paintings, nicely framed, matted and lit, and engaged many house guests on the various emotional responses the painted caused. The exercise becomes a little more difficult when one of my guests aks "tell me about the painter...." What kind of reaction and "reassesment" of the painting's "artistic merits" occur after I reveal that Bonzo splattered the colours hoping for an extra banana? What if I had a beautifully framed and printed B&W 11 x 14 print, which just happened to be snapped by Bonzo on his daily walk? Give the beast an automatic, autofocus camera, and just maybe you might get an interesting image or two out of a roll. Is it the chimp, or the editor who picked the image? (I just realized that this is excellent fodder for major flaming, so please kind folks, be kind!!) In the case of the chimp's paintings, who's to say whether reams of paper and litre's of paint were consumed producing garbage (aka recycle) and it was the keen eye of a true artist that picked out the 2 or 3 images that "looked good" in his/her eyes. And maybe the "art" was not in the images, but the thought provoking process of willingly presenting monkey art as people art. As for the boring yet obviously jolting "portraits", perhaps it is the curator/gallery ower who is playing mind games with us. It could be a crace publicity stunt, an attempt to shock, or just one person's view on something out of the ordinary. > I don't know perhaps you thought the joke was on you but you were asked > to compare paintings not painters. If you were asked to make assumptions > on the painters based on the paintings and you said stuff like "I think > they guy is an accountant in his spare time and had an idyllic > childhood" then you'd have certainly stepped in it. > But a better painting is a better painting I don't care if it's trained > seals doing water colors with their flippers! > > Mark Rabiner > ><Snip> > > "tension" than others. After the debate was over, the prof then revealed > > that all the paintings had been painted by chimpanzes. Along with being > > really teed off that we had been "had", it certainly made some of us stop > > and think about what "art" was. I still don't know, really. There is no > > answer other than the answer from future generations. Mozart 200+ years > > later is still incrediable. This guy will be gone, just a "phootnote".... > > But it's nice to see photography debates along with single malt discussions - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html