Art for Art, or Art for Exhibition ?

C-PI--

What I interpreted the OP to be getting at was the degree to which the audience is taken

into account by the artist.

Art for Art needn't be taken to the extreme of unexhibited art.

Perhaps it's just a way of expressing art created (to the degree possible) without concern

for the viewer/listener.

Given that a work of art does not exist until it is exhibited, and a tree falling in the forest

is irrelevant if someone's not there to witness it, to what degree do different artists

successfully or unsuccessfully allow their potential audience to influence them?

These are questions that interest me as well, in terms of art's ability to communicate

something while at the same time communicating something deeply personal coming from

the artist.

"...communicating something deeply personal coming from the artist."

Fred G said that. He partially addresses his own tough questions, but he begs questions that are for me invalidated by the standard use of the term "artist."

Some of us want more to communicate, others of us want recognition or money, and yet others have personal urges of their own. These issues are tough enough without invoking "art," evident in AmirAli Sharifi's questions.

AmirAli might first ask himself what he means by "art." If confident in that answer, his other answers would follow.

I use the word "art" sparingly because for me it carries the implication of "fey" or "magical" or at least "transporting."

Similarly, but paradoxically differently, "art" is heretical to certain Muslims, Jews, and Christians who condemn it as a grave sin, suggesting as it does belief in a deity other than the purported "one god."

In the name of expediency, let's substitute "photographer" or "person who takes pictures,"

"musician" or "person who writes and/or performs music" for "artist."

Gratefully, John K. has understood both Amir's and my own essential meaning, despite

the distraction caused by choices of terms.

The issue at hand and what I'd like to hear about is how people express the personal. If

expression entails communication which entails an audience, how much of a role does that

eventual audience play in the expression of even the most personal urge.

I like to think of self-expression as the tie that binds. Self is more personal, expression is

more public: the bridging of the communication gap? Language (e.g., verbal, imagery,

photographic language, symbols) is the medium through which we understand and

consider our own

feelings and communicate them to others.

It goes back to the quote from Langer on "significance" which got lost in

the shuffle. There is a difference between the groan one utters in a moment of personal

ecstacy or pain and

what

the picture-maker needs to do to communicate ecstacy or pain or to communicate

something stimulated by such a moment.

There is not necessarily a one-to-one nor a simple relationship or translation from my

personal demons, feelings, and emotions to the feelings and emotions I convey through

photography, music, or painting. My pain may lead me to express what come forward as

very beautiful or idyllic emotional chords. The challenge may be for each of us to develop

the

language of

our

photography, music, or painting in such a way as either to come close to expressing what

the

groan accomplishes at the time it occurs or to transform the emotions of that experience

into yet a different message.

"The issue at hand and what I'd like to hear about is how people express the personal. If expression entails communication which entails an audience, how much of a role does that eventual audience play in the expression of even the most personal urge."

"Expression" would seem not to "entail communication" unless it's within the range of the audience's understanding and perception. That would require luck, audience selection, and/or audience education.

I find the "luck" potential most rewarding...it's easy to appeal to selected audiences, which makes positive responses less significant.

If, for example, we make beautiful motel wall decor photos, perhaps the response of our happy lumpen audience won't be as meaningful as that of the individual, visiting the same cheap motel, who happens to have struggled to that very rock outcropping and truly respects what was involved.

<i>"It's easy to appeal to selected audiences . . . which makes positive responses less

significant."</i>

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There are two ways to elicit a positive response.

<p><p>

One may communicate easy and or uplifting messages, typically popular, or one may

communicate sinister, harsh, disturbingly ironic, discomforting things yet be appreciated.

Thus . . . "joyful sorrow," "grateful terror."

<p><p>

There's the simple positive response and the more complex positive response. It makes

me feel good so I respond well / It makes me feel bad but I respond well.

<p><p>

Luck is great, so are happy accidents. Good photographers have intentions as well.

<p><p>

In my mind, respecting what was involved in creating a photo and appreciating the photo

for itself are two different things. There are photographers who I respect greatly for

certain accomplishments and talents but whose work doesn't hit me.

<p><p>

Distinguishing photography as an art and as a craft:<br>

To

appreciate the external struggles (climbing mountains to get an amazing landscape,

navigating dangerous rocks to get a great angle, risking death to

shoot a fire or documentary, sweating during hot nights in the darkroom, breathing

poisons), in my book, leans more toward appreciating the craft. I'm not diminishing any of

that, but suggesting another level of struggle and appreciation, more internal to the

photograph and photographer, which

is where the dreaded "art" word comes in. There is also much overlap.

<p><p>

It's funny that, in another thread, you're searching for what would make your own

photography more significant, yet you continue to reject references to "artists."

Perhaps if you stopped coming from the same perspective as those religious zealots who

"condemn it as a grave sin, suggesting as it does belief in a deity," you will allow yourself

an inroad into artistic significance and your own photography may change and flourish as

a result. Your bio reads as an impressive and somewhat objective laundry list of

experience with the craft. Is there something

more?

<p><p>

I was thinking of "expression" as a baseline

communication with oneself (but will consider your suggestion that there is more to

expression than

this). That's why I suggested it

<i>entails</i> communication. If the groan sounds in isolation it still seems to

operate as an exclamation to oneself. In that respect it feels like the beginning to

communication. Many of the same tools and symbols that we use to understand and

express to ourselves our own feelings, sensations, and experiences can get translated via

language and photography to others.

Fred, I think communication with oneself is much like developing film, a craft, and it deserves respect as such. It's like meditation or, presumably, psychotherapy in the same way.

I think the magic in very rare images has to do with something breaking through. Breaking through what? Deception, probably. Self deception. We progress to the right and something leaps out from the left, giving us a thrill. That's a Taoist idea, maybe: we are, after all, god. And we are, after all, entertaining ourselves. If we don't do it, who will?

I think we create romantic deceptions for ourselves as entertainment. For example, we envision ourselves as dashing figures in photojournalist costume, or we envision ourselves as digital gurus or minor Ansels. The plainness of my work reflects, I think, habitual and perhaps excessive aversion to that sort of romance. But that has led to evasions and lack of commitment to singular ideas, and I've become concerned.

John, I think a lot of the stuff we're talking about is coming to grips with differences between

what are romantic deceptions and what is photographic or visual depth, also between

plainness and boringness (not suggesting your work is boring to me, but seems maybe to

have become boring/habitual to you).

Josh recently used a term that rang a bell: mature simplicity.

Perhaps you need to get out more - LOL! Many of my friends and acquaintances are nothing

if not entertaining.

"the degree to which the audience is taken into account by the artist". Well, audience is not

something that can be taken into account because opinion and aesthetics vary. However, a

certain sense of what is received as "Good" by the audience is dveloped by all Artists. The

question with which an Artist is faced is whether to follow this sense and be successful and

sell more or not. In my humble opinion it takes more courage for an accomplished Artist to

ignore the large audience and lead by innovation and personal "character". What leaves me

rather indifferent is an unknown Artist declaring "Art for Art" (I am not referring to anyone in

this forum) even when there is no audience. It's like that tree falling in the forest when

nobody is around!

You create art.

Do you do it for yourself?

If you do, then store it in your bathroom where only you can see it.

Do you do it for yourself, and the "do it" involves showing it to others?

Go exhibit it and let people form an opinion.

Everything else is none-existant in between. Its either or.

You can argue and debate over and over, and bring in references from a lot of other

mediums, but at the end of the day, its back to you.

I had a professor in college who never showed his work to anyone, only because he didn't

need to. He shot his work for himself. In his office he would have a selected number of

pieces he hung on the wall, for himself because he is really proud of them and he uses

them for decoration.

Later on he went and did an exhibition in our school for a week, and that was because

people were asking him about his work, and he wanted to show them the work.

"I work because I breathe."

That was his answer, and that would be his answer to a question like this.

Fred Goldsmith: And what a pompous and useless answer it would be.

lol. Agreed, Fred.

If I had a perception of world's things, which is a primary function of art, I might need some kind of validation, I won't be a comment whore, but other people's opinions do count for me. I am not a god, for God's sakes.