Re: [Leica] The fine line between art and pornography now animal art

[Leo W Wesson <lwwesson@pier1.com>]

http://www.hqartgallery.com/elephant.html

http://www.mulatta.org/Thaielephantorch.html
http://www.mulatta.org/NYTimesElephant.html

In Thailand you can buy paintings and music created by elephants.
Is this art?  Are elephants advanced enough in their creative process 
to create art?

Leo

On Dec 12, 2003, at 6:59 PM, Jim McIntyre wrote:

> 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
>
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