ermina_h said:
even in this time, when nothing really shocks us, we see more and more artists, who give the name "art" to abstract pieces, in which i (personally) can t see any meaning. i attended an exhibition and for example, there was a video, that showed a man throwing up. i don t know.. i am not conservative and i like innovation in art (even if artists provoke, like gilbert and george), but doesn t art have any limits?! i mean, is everyone who doesn t have any idea about art, able to create something easy and draft and at last give it the name "modern art"?!
in former years, where anti-art was really innovative, provokative and meaningful, this special kind of art was reaching its goal.
but what is the meaning of "trying" to shock now, when no one is really shocked?
From this, I guess that you are saying that art now may have provocative and innovative qualities without meaning, and this is what you would like eliminated.
This raises some questions, firstly what do you mean by meaning? I don’t understand what you have said about souls, maybe you could elaborate. By stating that anti-art was reaching a goal and saying it was meaningful are you saying that having these goals gave the work meaning, and is that the meaning you mean? If so, then, secondly, if the vomit video was to have this sort of meaning, for example, a vomiting video could be consistent with abject art, theoretically related to Kristeva’s abject - would this validate it? However, you may be aware of this and not consider it sufficiently meaningful. (This would be strange, however, because you approve of gilbert and george, and they have also been classified in this way).
A third question arises by what limits you would place upon art. Many different ideas about how this may be done have been put forward, and none have been entirely satisfactory, I believe (and the amount of these different and opposing ideas suggests the same). Or, if you were to attempt to limit art by whatever this particular, or any idea, of meaning, how would you define this meaning and limit art in this way, and on what authority?
This brings more questions, too, such as, why should someone without an education in art not be free to create art? Isn’t that promoting an elitist view that only the specifically educated can understand, appreciate and create art? Indeed, the anti-art of the avant guard, particularly Dada, must not have reached goals of destroying Kantian/bourgeois autonomous art (Berger)(ideas about visual art being exclusive and superior and only really accessed by the specifically educated, talented few) if this belief prevails. And rather, the vomit vid has been more successful in this way by prompting the questions you’ve asked.