There are many forces at work either stretching, appropriating, exploiting art. What we used to understand as art is rapidly becoming a historical period in the story of art. What is the next chapter? — Punshhh

Historical? It's just that the local crafts store and automation have made given tons if us the time to copy rembrandts and so he doesn't seem so divine if we're all doing it.

Art is a cultural touchstone, so in some ways it always comes back around to the same things, but technology gives us more: more time, more potential.

One cycle I see in art is from raw to refined. A new explosion of art starts raw. As things progress, processes become more exact. Something is lost in that transition.

When refinement becomes too rigid, art is born again as something new and half-assed.

What I was thinking is what is the next movement in the progression? We've had Impressionism, Cubism, Surrealism, Modernism, Post Modernism, Post Post Modernism. What's next?

I ask because I can't see where art can go now, because it's already been everywhere and we've past the realisation that everything can be art, or art can be anything. So is that it now? Do we just repeat something?

Is this what you mean by half-assed.

Does art now divide into before modernism and after modernism and never the twain shall meet?

What I was thinking is what is the next movement in the progression? We've had Impressionism, Cubism, Surrealism, Modernism, Post Modernism, Post Post Modernism. What's next? — Punshhh

All those things grew organically out of their times. Cubism, like Surrealism, was about discovering and presenting the truth.

Cubism said become free of the static point of view because that stasis is the lie.

Surrealism said... actually I'm not sure. That the way to the truth is to go inward instead of outward?

What is it that preoccupies our contemporary generation? What would they say about truth? Do they even care about truth?

I notice you didn't mention what Modernism said. It seems to me that it said anything is art and anything can be art.

So what does the next movement say? It can't say anything that hasn't been said before, in theory, by implication of what modernism said.

If we look at what happened after modernism, I can't think of anything in art which has regained that level of meaning.

I expect that the next movement might be digital and related to digital gaming themes. Themes which seem to be determined by fantasy, science fiction, cartoon imagery. When it comes to high Art, I expect it will emerge from Artificial Intelligence via digital imagery. Such a source might produce things we can't come up with any other way.

I agree with you. Art helps us find out what Comes next. Not the other way round.

↪frank I agree with you. Art helps us find out what Comes next. Not the other way round.

So art helps itself to find out what it is, or will be?

Yes if "art" means an art movement, or something that a number of artists coalesce around. But life might not be like that any more. It might for example all be dictated by the media. Also where canart go after modernism? That said it all, surely.

↪frank I agree with you. Art helps us find out what Comes next. Not the other way round — Razorback kitten

I don’t think that’s what frank meant at all.

This is what he said; “ All those things grew organically out of their times.“

The time happened first, the art grew out of that, maybe simultaneously, but certainly not before.

What is it that preoccupies our contemporary generation? What would they say about truth? Do they even care about truth? — frank

This is what the next art will grow from. You may not even recognise it as art, you might reject it, but it will exist. Just read the newspaper, watch the news, go on the internet, not to be informed but to see what others take in, which is nothing actually. More use of cartoons, animated toothbrushes, talking bananas, and that’s the advertising for adults. Taylor Swift: political activist, a candle that smells like Gwyneth Paltrow’s vagina. Truth, who can say what it means anymore.

Maybe your life’s the new art. Greta Thunberg to trademark her name. We all become products, we’re all art, we’re all artists. Everything’s priceless, nothings for sale, we all live the illusion, we’re all perfect, we don’t have to do anything except be.

From @ZhouBoTong on the OP “What is art?”; “Does that mean life/existence is professional space manipulation?”.

There’s the next art; the space you fill.

“ The notion that works of contemporary visual art can have multiple interpretations which are created by the viewer is the alternative to the traditional approach to understanding an art work ” (https://www.tate.org.uk/research/publications/tate-papers/02/contemporary-art-and-the-role-of-interpretation)

So no under standing of the artwork and it’s intent is necessary, just the interpretation of the viewer. So, art is what I say it is, not the artist.

I notice you didn't mention what Modernism said. It seems to me that it said anything is art and anything can be art. — Punshhh

I went through an Andy Warhol stage. I started putting empty coffee bags on the kitchen wall and had a moment where I "got it." It's not exactly that the empty bag is art, it's the experience that opens up to the viewer.

When people did back-breaking work 12 hours a day, every day, their minds became numb. If they had time to walk into and dwell in the world of associations and feelings bound up in a coffee bag, they were too tired to do it.

Andy Warhol reflects a time of technology-driven egalitarianism and prosperity. I'm not sure how to express where the art is here, but it's something only rich people could have had access to in the past. Does that make sense?

interesting take. The technology angle reminds me of Veblen's Theory of the Leisure Class on steroids.

It also made me think of Andy Warhol and how he turned a mundane tomato soup can into a work of art while rendering the Mona Lisa mundane.

In some sense, a purported piece of art that makes you question art is a work of art.

The technology angle reminds me of Veblen's Theory of the Leisure Class on steroids. — Arne

Could you say more about that?

Could you say more about that? — frank

Yes.

In addition, I strongly recommend people read Thorstein Veblen's Theory of the Leisure Class. The technology age has a similar democratizing effect upon culture as did the mass production age as described by Veblen. Technology provides information and entertainment to the masses in the same way that mass production brought material goods to the masses. Technology fills in the leisure spaces with entertainment in the same way emulation of the habits of the leisure class filled the leisure spaces created by the automation of mass production.

In addition, I strongly recommend people read Thorstein Veblen's Theory of the Leisure Class. The technology age has a similar democratizing effect upon culture as did the mass production age as described by Veblen. Technology provides information and entertainment to the masses in the same way that mass production brought material goods to the masses. Technology fills in the leisure spaces with entertainment in the same way emulation of the habits of the leisure class filled the leisure spaces created by the automation of mass production. — Arne

That fits with what Warhol was. When technology gives people more time, they don't use it to relax, they use it to go faster, get more stuff done, run the economy hotter.

They resist being arrested by simple stuff as if they're hungry for action. This may be getting more social-criticism than Warhol really is, but it's there.

That fits with what Warhol was. When technology gives people more time, they don't use it to relax, they use it to go faster, get more stuff done, run the economy hotter.

They resist being arrested by simple stuff as if they're hungry for action. This may be getting more social-criticism than Warhol really is, but it's there. — frank

I agree.

The mass emulation of the leisure class is a mass emulation of the superficial trappings of leisure rather than of leisure.

This is what the next art will grow from. You may not even recognise it as art, you might reject it, but it will exist. Just read the newspaper, watch the news, go on the internet, not to be informed but to see what others take in, which is nothing actually. More use of cartoons, animated toothbrushes, talking bananas, and that’s the advertising for adults. Taylor Swift: political activist, a candle that smells like Gwyneth Paltrow’s vagina. Truth, who can say what it means anymore.

Maybe your life’s the new art. Greta Thunberg to trademark her name. We all become products,we’re all art, we’re all artists. Everything’s priceless, nothings for sale, we all live the illusion, we’re all perfect, we don’t have to do anything except be. — Brett

This all seems in line with my thinking (the bolded bit in particular, but I think it all works). I am not sure why we are so opposed in the other art thread. I think my hatred of Shakespeare is clouding our understanding of each other??

Well I have gone through a bit of a change of heart in these conversations, or tied things down a bit better anyway.

I realise now that my definition of modern art is more narrow than the academic definition. For me it was the 1950-60's, with abstract expressionism and conceptual art, I suppose this was the epicentre. With pop art emerging from it with Warhol. I agree with your experience, although I didn't get it in the way you mean, I don't think. For me it was an intellectual understanding, or realisation of what they were saying, but I didn't like it and saw it as largely pointless. I do accept that it needed saying and that they went about it in the right way in order to do that, but it wasn't for me. I was more interested in artists like Dali, Klee, Picasso, Kandinsky. I grew up with a print of Dali's Metamorphosis of Narcissus on my wall, my mum had bought when we went to Barcelona when I was I think 6 years old, I don't remember the Dali museum, but I remember the reverence for the work and contemplated the painting many times as I was growing up.

For me I saw the modern art movement through the prism of this painting and subsequently through Dali's other work.

There is a quality of transformation in the minds eye from one thing to another, or the appearance, or hallucination of something else, things not being as they seem, or seeming to be something else. An interesting take on the world of art.

There is a quality of transformation in the minds eye from one thing to another, or the appearance, or hallucination of something else, things not being as they seem, or seeming to be something else. An interesting take on the world of art. — Punshhh

I didn't get into surrealism until recently. Have you ever painted that way? Like Dali?

Only my cartoons have been surrealist in that way. For more serious art, I followed a course somewhere between abstract expressionism and abstract art. I never found myself wanting to try proper surrealism, because I see it as a technique which requires a lot of commitment and a certain disposition, in which surrealism comes naturally. For myself, I am quite surrealist in my character and humour, but when it comes to art, I am more interested in aesthetic and painting techniques.
Dali developed what he called the Paranoiac-critical method, which is a psychological language which informed his work and through which the viewer can interpret the imagery. So his work is like an exploration of his subconscious mind.

This is a cartoon I did during the Iraq war, it is of a Dream I imagined Tony Blair having in which everything goes wrong and he finds himself decending into hell. Blair is the green fellow, the guy with the cross is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, Bush and saddam Hussain are the other skeletons.

Cool! Surrealism is also a kind of literature. I've been reading Leonora Carrington's surrealist stories and I have a picture of one of her sculptures on my fridge.

Your cartoons are very cool. :up:

What are copyright laws in relation to art and entertainment, or the fine line between 'plagiarism' / theft and inspiration, or independently coming up with a similar concept?

(e.x. I used to play the Metal Gear Solid games when I was younger; some of it borrowed themes from James Bond, but it wasn't considered similar enough to be plagiarism).

(Or in other cases, I've heard of bands such as Coldplay being sued by other artists such as Joe Satriani, however it was determined that it wasn't 'appropriated', but rather that the artist independently came up with a similar song; given that all music is based a similar music theory, this is not unlikely).

This is an interesting subject. For me I often refer to photographs I find online for how to draw a horse for example, or a sunset. I don't think that making a painting based on a photograph infringes any copyright, because the copyright refers to the photo and a copy would have to be a facsimile of a photographic image. Not the subject captured in the photograph. So such a sunset can't be copyrighted, even if it can be established that the position of the clouds, or features in the foreground, which confirm that it was copied from a particular photograph. It is not a facsimile, but a painted expression of a scene in the mind of the artist.

I would think that this also applies to other mediums, that any copyright is primarily referring to a work in a specified medium.

I think the problem you identify regarding music copyright is often an injustice. I have heard examples which don't sound like the original, or only have a tenuous link. I see this as a problem with the legal profession.

Duct tape bananas.

Possibly.

As far as defining it, I'm not an expert, I doubt there's any perfect mathematical way to do it, though I do that most people would reasonably distinguish between a Mozart symphony and someone "farting" into an audio recorder and calling it "music".

At least as much as people would distinguish between a legitimate sport or competition like chess or baseball with some measure of organized rules, versus one beating their head against a rock and calling it a "sport". Even if expression, spontaneity, or innovation is a component as well, and it's not solely reducible to purely 'formal' or mathematical rules, I'd still be tempted to argue there would be something akin to logic behind it.

You seem to treat art as a persona. It goes, it becomes. I think that is entirely dependant on the artists, but, generally, it's not going anywhere! Will there be new genres? That's not the result of arts, that's the result of artists and peers.

Here's several questions found in this muddle;

Will there be new genres of art?
Is it all heading towards metal?
What tool will the next generation artist prefer?
Will art effect culture more intricately?
Will more people enjoy art in coming times?
Will we finally be able to define art soon?
Is Da Vinci's mona lisa still priceless?

none of which I think are the process of this thread

Art was not art as we know it today until the mid to late 19th century. Before that, art was considered no different than any other hand craft. I believe as atheism garnered more acceptance, the idea of art serving its own (secular) purpose outside of the church, a means in and of itself, changed the consciousness of humanity forever. But since World War II, and especially in the 60s and beyond, conceptual art has really dominated what we see in the TOP contemporary art galleries. It seems the forefront of Contemporary Art has become an idea, a statement, a commentary on our own sentience. Art is not viewed (in the strictest and traditional sense) as a craft. The abstract expressionists were the last formalists who were the cutting edge of art innovation. YES, all art has its formalist attributes, but it is the sensation of the piece that gets the headlines, and the top bucks. Thank you Mr. Duchamp for the R. Mutt 1917 urinal.

The rise of the middle class was also a big factor, I believe.

Welcome to the forum.

Thank you pop.

I much prefer mirror art to political art.