[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: Fwd: Reading stuff

I copied my art post to Brian Cady, and here's his response:


Well, if you'll pardon me, I think too much time is
being spent here on labels and categorizing of art.

Art doesn't work that way. It always leads and smashes
boundaries like modernism and post-modernism. Labels
like this only help you decide where art has been, not
where it is going.

Frankly, I don't much believe in post-modernism
anymore. I think it's a time-killer while we wait for
art to matter again. It doesn't matter now. Art
screams for attention and right now, it doesn't get
any in a world that believes in nothing and measures
art by box-office reports.
This is pretty much the point I was making. Post-modernism is passe and the new style is germinating. I do think that art survives in spite of the materialism. There's a huge amount of hype about box office reports, and not so much about art, but I can still see it and still hear it.

And actually, I can hear Pete experimenting with the new trend the same as everybody else. The rapper and the techno on his "Gateway Remix" and the bongos and singing bowls on "Storytellers" are both examples of assembling disparate elements into something new and contemporary--even if the songs were old.

Is this appropriate for The Who? I don't think Pete should completely dump the elements he's used in the past. I love the deconstruction--it's almost his trademark.


Art in the 1960's and early 1970's mattered because it
was taken very seriously. What did the new Beatle
songs mean? Were soup cans painted on canvas art? Do
you love Jean-Luc Goddard's films are loathe them?
Newspapers and magazines discussed the meaning of art
constantly. Young people around the world would stay
up all night arguing the fine points of how art
intersected with their lives. This international
feedback fed art and made it great.

Poetry is experiencing a huge revitalization.  All the kids today are poets.



Then in the mid-1970's a change came. After years of
seriousness, the kids left Tommy's Holiday Camp. It
was a mass rejection of everything serious. Lighten
up, dude! became the new mantra and art became a
fractionalized attraction amongst so many other ways
of achieving instant pleasure.

Until people care about something again and feel art
is a major part of their lives, something serious and
not a distraction, art will be dead and remain dead.
Neither Pete nor anyone else can change that.

Sorry for the downer. I should lighten up, dude!
Artists can't change the prevailing materialism of the media, but they can go on producing their art, and there are always a few people out there who appreciate it--and more who accept it if it's properly packaged.


keets

_________________________________________________________________
MSN 8 helps eliminate e-mail viruses. Get 2 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus