Taste, Value, Judgement

Taste
Sociology - personal/cultural choice
Beautiful Aesthetics

Greek philosophers
Plato
  order symmetry definetness

Art was supposed to be beautiful
  - German and British thinkers

aesthetics - younger sister of logic
            - can understand not just see

German philosophers
  Banmgarten, Kant, Schiller, Hegel, Schopenhauer
- being moved to action - children in need

nothing to do with you but you can experience it - makes it pure

Wittgenstein

Oscar Wilde
beautify the outward aspects of life, beautifies the inner ones

Hagarth + Burk

Aesthetics
 Beauty as a platonic ideal
- on one side
Beauty is culturally determined
- on the other

Anthony Ashley-Cooper
- beauty the sensory version of moral goodness
- things that are good are beautiful

The Picture of Dorian Gray
  - Oscar Wilde
- bad things will show in your face

Mean Girls
Jeremy Irons

Proper             differences + changes in historical view as important
Kant  "class taste"   not everyone in the same class will agree

"Proper" = taste
taste + consumption lined
- Punk purposely went for bad taste
economical context
- "supply creates its own demand"

taste creates demand
demand creates supply

14th century - consumption had a big political element
- made materials + colours for certain classes so lower classes couldn't wear it - cost and status
- segregate and subdugate

5 whys

War of Roses
- arguments about who should be king
- keep them busy with the clothes then they wont think too much bout it and try to overthrow the king

Aristocratic consumption
industrialisation coming around to even middle classes could keep up with fashion

Hogarth "Gin Lane" + "Beer Alley"

show taste through everyday actions
- people reveal information about their positions + hierarchies

U and non-U  English Usage
|              |  
|          the aspiring middle class
upper class

working classes are not mentioned
 - W class used the same words as the upper class

U class use traditional language the don't need to make themselves sound posh
M class use posh words to big themselves up
W class use plain traditional language

Class System (1956)
 Geory Simmel
fashion a vehicle for strengthening a unity of social classes + making them distinct

Thorsten Veblen
 high social status comes from physically not working not doing hard labour

Criticisms
mass consumption
18th century
- not just about social status
people get new goods because they can - consumption

Taste + Class
Pierre Bourdiew
tastes of social classes based on possibilities + constraints of social action

constraints not just because of different classes having more/less money
- education + social origin

social capital    cultural capital     political capital      natural capital
            \                     |                 |                           /
       can \              can |                | can                    / way
        turn \          affect |               | determine         / to  
          into \                  |              |                       / make
                  \                 |             |                      /
                        MONEY
1950's
U class tatse
  refined + subtle definitions
  aesthetic value

M class
   no taste - copying upper

W class
  choose the necessary

not reasonable to trace all social action back to status competition

association between social class + taste isn't as strong as it used to be
- declassifying affects of post modern culture
free floating signifiers
- if you like it go ahead and like it

value theory

Baudrillard - French philosopher

Marx - all objects have a "use value" - what it is useful for + an "exchange value" - what it costs

BMW "symbolic value"

your practice
what you are making
- use value
- sign exchange value
- social distinction
- symbolic exchange

Ted Notten
Evening Butterfly ring
- pure gold
so price changes with the price of gold

Judgement
some people make a decision to go against taste

John Martiss + Divine } idea of taste in film
  |
1st hairspray

Harvey Nichols
- introduced elements of bad taste

re-appropriation in class
 - stuffed cat rug

Jake + Dinos Chapman

shouldn't force bad taste on people who have no choice
   - animals and children

taste - age determined
   taboo around "fat"
               
taste/bad taste can be used to shut down debate

understanding of taste expressed in actions between people

different socio-economic groups likely to have different tastes

what part (if any) does a desire or need for good/bad taste play in your work?

does "good taste" = safety

"Good taste is the enemy of creativity"
Pablo Picasso

Task

we split into groups and had to curate our utopia material 
- a utopian curation

the group I was in decided that in an ideal world everyone would get their say as to what was 'perfect' or the 'ideal'

so we wanted to make an exhibit that was open for the public to have their say

at first we thought of having a glass cube where artists could put an object - either one they had created or one they thought represented 'perfection' but we couldn't find a way to make that work with the public element

so then we thought of hanging items from the ceiling 

people can come in, bring an object that they think relates to utopia or is perfect - it could be a photo, an object, a letter - anything that they feels sums up perfection
 then just hang it from the ceiling

Politics of Display

Museums

+ outside
- impressive buildings

+inside
- not what you expect
- collections usually based around a concept
- show you other that aren't yourself

Collection Classification Surveillance
+ ordering of the other

'Wunder Kammer'    - doesn't have to link
- artists like to display work like a wunder kammer rather than classically

house of a famous person
- make it look like the person is still living there

museums invite artists to change the displays around 
 - choose things to display from storage

Tate - galleries
-> sugar - Tates made millions in sugar plantations - with the money, donated art works to the public
-> all the money came from the slaves - 'blood money'

original site of the Tate was Millbank Penetary
now for lookin at art

- Foucoutt said they are alike - to make you a 'better person'
galleries - free - civilising culture

Tate Britain
relatively traditional 
canonical movements
usually ignore women artists

MOMA
Museum of Modern Arts - New York

Alfred H Barr
- torpedo diagrams - display concept - "machine for the future"
- interested in education
   - displays
- letting people understand art

making a map of all the different ways of making art + how they fit in with each other
usually exhibitions of one artist work
but can start to mix artists work 
 - to compare them

Barr - put art + craft in galleries together
 - he saw craft as art
- interested in design as well as art 
- idea of 'what is art?'

Mary Beth Edelson 1972
Female - the last supper
  'Some Living American Women Artists'

Gordon Matta Clark
Bingo Niagara Falls 1972
house form 'love canal'
 - houses built on a chemical dump
- environmental activism

Matta Clark took the houses apart
 - interested in splitting up words - letting them decay
-> de-construct what goes into a gallery
outside -> inside

museums after modernisms - Griselda Pollock

Original Display Theme Tate Modern
- split into 4 areas
same now but different topics/titles

idea of juxtaposition

Richard Long
 walking works

museums - Power Structures - scale - past happenings
craft galleries - don't look as spectacular

- viewing of artwork would be different in different galleries

Gustav Mestka
 made art that fell apart/destroyed itself after a period of time

Idyllic Utopia

I decided to do another Utopia, in case you didn't like the last one

my ideal world would include:

 - no poverty

 - no danger to the planet and the beings that live on it

 - no war

- people don't see the need to commit crimes

- they feel safe and secure wherever they go no matter what

- people can be what they want to be and not get ridiculed for it

My Utopia

please don't judge me

Google definition: an imagined place/state of things in which everything is perfect

+ to understand with perfection there must be imperfections

   - for there to be good there must be bad

+ for things to be perfect there has to be bad going on to determine the difference

+ so by my thinking there can't be a Utopia

+ when I think of Utopia I automatically think of Doctor Who (because I am a Who-er) where Dr YANA (AKA The Master) makes a paradox machine and turns the people of the future into killing machines in the past - which is definitely not Utopia (unless you're a crazed Time Lord)

So I can't really imagine an ideal world, because despite it's many flaws, to me Earth is perfect

Obviously I could say

 - no more wars/violence

 - no global warming

 - no poverty

 - etc.

but without all these disastrous problems in the world you wouldn't be able to see the good

but then again I'm not an idealist so that's just my vies

many people want to change the world but all I can say is we did it to ourselves - why change it at all

I won't say "don't fix what isn't broken" because Earth is definitely broken, but no one is perfect

human beings are all broken no matter who they are

Orbits.2

Orbits - the Second

Morris, Marx, Manifestos

Stuccist manifesto

OK Arts manifesto

Futurist manifesto

Modernist manifesto

Industrial Revolution

Dark Satanic Mills

 - working condition

- still goes on now - just  don't see it

Carlye -> 'a radical'

quote 1829 - spiritually + physically machinery

"google brain"    lost of concentration, because of looking at new links every few seconds

who's the beardy guy 2? - famous for saying "everyone can paint they just ave to practice"

Ruskin

- after meeting Carlye 

- quote 1854 - men are divided not the labour

William Morris - his wife Jane, went off with beardy guy 2

- v. influenced by Ruskin + Carlye

"Red House" - he designed it + had it built

    - he + his friends furnished it

Business model

art + the artisan brought together

workers co-operative inc. Morris

1881   - socialist politics

has an art manifesto but also a political one

- most people think of Morris as a designer not a politician

disillusioned

- wanted to be able to make stuff that everyone can buy/afford

libertarian socialism

 - giving everyone liberty

originally socialism called for creation of a classes society - a form of Utopia

                             goods go back 

                                to the workers

                            -------------------> 

GOVERNMENT                           WORKERS

      d \                 <-------------------         

       e \                 goods owned by            +

        t  \                 the government                       

         e \                                          FACTORIES

          r  \                                            / s

          m \                                          / e

             i \                                        / t

             n \                                     / a 

              e \                                   / t

               s \                                 / c                                  

                   \    wants, needs,   / i

                    \      resources     / d

                   people, competition

Panopticon                Bentham

 prison design

      - prisoners can be seen all the time by the warders

      - prisoners can't see the warder

 - describes it as a machine

          - the idea that machines can help us "to induce a state of concious + permanent visability that assures the automatic functionality of power" - Michael Foucoult

    - the prisoners become warders of themselves

'a metaphor for modern "disciplinary" societies + their persuasive inclination to observe + normalise'

 - police can film us but we can't film them1

 back

"fear allows very few people to control us

 - because they can, you think they are eg reading people's email/tapping phones

'country has 1% of the population but 20% of the CCTV cameras'

Ideology

"a set of values, beliefs, feelings, representations + institutions by which people collectively make sense of the world they live in"

- not consciously thought of 

- often forcefully/invisibly imposed

- fashion interesting indicator of ideologies

A Theory + A Practice

repeated actions of everyday life

Role of Ideologies

1) explain political phenomena

2) provide adherents with criteria + standards for evaluating right/wrong + good/bad

3) provide identity

4) provide with a program of action - what is to be done?

Karl Marx  - one of the first to look at ideologies

- ideologies arise in class-divided societies for the express purpose of political domination

the class that gets people to work also tells them how to think

"the opiate of the masses"

"some think, others do" 

thinkers get paid more

the brain better that the body          - cartisian split

false conciousness swaddles people against deep critical reflection

at the times of Marx's writing the idea that some people are natural slaves

Legitimacy

- almost always concerned with a claim to a bona fide membership of a class

Gramsci (1892 -1937)

 - interested in ideology

   - represents a system of interest + reproduction

Hegemony - when the dominant ideology becomes the 'norm'

ideology - way we create meaning in our lives

eg. might not want to so the written side of a course so you might prefer an apprenticeship, but you are still at uni doing a degree because it is hegemonic

people do things that don't appear to be in their interest

Althusser
each society has a dominant ideology shared by the majority
- doesn't necessarily support everyone's interests
"meaning in the science of power"

- police function by violence ultimately
- don't do bad things if  the police are watching also don't do bad things incase they are watching

Mechanisms of ideology

RSA's force people to conform
ISA's try to win you over

Ghandi influenced by Thoreau

trained by school since the age of 4 tells you how to behave - rights/wrongs

Tony Benn

Russell Brand - Jeremy Paxman interview

when we forget that there are alternatives
get the concept of hegemony

find ideologies

1) language, text and representation
2) material institutions
3) heads and hearts

More modern ideas of ideology
James Scott
thick + thin versions of false conciousness

thick - claims consent
thin - people are resigned to it

"The Spirit Level" - book

Legacy           Morris

Gropius
Bauhaus
Futurists
Veblen
Leach
Hamada
Studio Crafts

Morris - has a 'fictionary' rather than a factory
     - had the workers but didn't want a factory

Utopia - paradise

design your own
- not too private

Distopia - opposite of utopia

My Manifesto :/

here goes nothing :S

I Sybella Buttress

- will carry on doing the work that interests me

- will try new ways of working with materials new and old

- will carry on doing work that I enjoy

- will always try my best in whatever I do

- will do what I like and won't let anyone tell me otherwise

signed by me :)

A Craft Manifesto

http://www.craftmanifestos.com/

A Modernist Object????

Find an object and think about why it is a modernist object?

Clarice Cliff

Sun Ray Double-Handed Lotus Jug

1929-1930








- a modernist object is analysed using the formal elements, so when it is made there must be some thought given to them as well

- so to determine whether this is a modernist object I'm going to go back to one of my older posts; Formal Elements for a quick reminder.

Clarice Cliff's pieces are know for having bold colours, clear outlines, unusual/interesting shapes, but still look like they would be functional.

Line - used to outline patterns/images on her pottery 

Shape - irregular/gemoetric shapes used for patterns/images on her works
Form - definetely because her works are all 3D ceramics
Tone - created by the light hitting the piece and creating shadows
Pattern - simple shapes to create an image/pattern
Colour - uses a mixture of primary and secondary colours - usually contrasting colours to make the pattern stand out more - black is used to outline a lot of patterns on her work

Overall I would say that this is a modernist object because, there are examples of most of the formal elements and there is a very stylised image, which is more of a modern concept.

http://www.artsmia.org/modernism/sintro.html
http://hardleyart.wordpress.com/the-formal-elements-in-art/

Orbits

Interior orbits: craft as personal development

craft as self development

Contemporary Art

1964 Harold Rosenburg

done not for the sake of art but for the artists sake

Modernism

- 1863 - 1970's - several phases of modernism through that time

- heavily criticised 

- the subject of lots of discussion over the years 

- covers a range of medium

- compartmentalised - set of boxes easily identified

philosophy of modern art

History of Modernism

renaissance period > promoted citizenship + civic conciousness

confidence potential of humans shaping their individual destinies and future of the world

belief humans can learn/understand nature/natural forces/the universe

everything submitted to reason > tradition, customs, morals, art

"TRUTH" - discovered through thinking

- could be applied to 'correct' problems and 'improve' political +social culture

using art to promote truth etc. 

show people the proper way to behave

Progressive Modernism

- paint 'other things' eg prostitutes - offensive at the times of the painting

individual liberties

wanted radical change

inhumanity shown in the blighted landscape from the industrial revolution

INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

freedom - v. important to modernism

Civil Disobedience - don't pay a tax if you think it is immoral - Beardy Guy

- read by Ghandi

'help people' - good Samaritan painting

Conservative Modernists

freedom of choice - subject matter/style/colour/brush stroke

Art shouldn't be there to make people better

- Art for art's sake

Oscar Wilde

'when an artist tries to supply what the people want he stops being an artist and becomes a dull/amusing craftsmen'

Art for art's sake

> art discussed in formal elements

- civilised human beings can understand the formal elements

a self referential autonomy

-> art only refers to itself

->only criticised in art terms

stands separate from the mundane world

becomes about the artists 

modernisms 'history' talked about through references only to itself

art for art's sake 

Formalism - a form of control over unruly/disruptive art

early art in 20th Century tries to break formalism

search of art - enlightenment terms a search for the truth/essence of art

Kadinsky      -

Mondrion      - both trying to produce universal art

using formal elements - lines/colour/shapes

stripping away the material world to reveal the spiritual world 

Goals of Modernism

- reject tradition

- challenge to false harmony + coherence

- stop painting things +move towards the spirit

machine aesthetic - idea - perfect thing everyone can have

artists tried to be shocking but made their work more valuable

affirms power of human beings

Principles of Modernism

Truth to Materials

what you make it out of you should make it look like that thing

Decoration/Adornment vs. Form

a partnership with a machine can be arty

instead of looking at things + seeing the ugly - look and see the beauty

BAUHAUS about function

- marriage of form and function

Genius

idea of artistic genius appears during modernism

Babbit

The Genius and the Spirit of the Pot

Leech - to describe the clay

- human body parts

- living

- connections with the past

- possessor of virtues + having a spirit

- honesty

Is Self-Development Enough?

questions raise

eg. who does modernism serve?

Thoughts and Reflections

my thoughts

there are different meanings for 'material culture' but they seem to agree that it is an object with cultural/social significance

there's a difference between knowing what to do and knowing how to do it - some people think they know how so don't bother with practice and as we all know 'practice makes perfect'

Reading the Material

Reading The Material

Material Culture

Material World

- world of things/money

definitions of material culture

Archaeology

artefacts/concrete things left by past cultures

Art Historians

an object with environmental + cultural context

Social Sciences

relationship between artefacts + social relations

Mike Parker Pearson

tools are just as much a product of ideology as were a crown/law code 

ideology - how society sees things

archaeologists - Matthew Johnson

anthropologist - Claude Leui-Strauss

"being depends on having" Rowlands, 2002, 127

Folklorists 

MC > a culture made material

includes everything consciously made to sustain ourselves throughout existence

Material Culture - relationship between people and objects

see - meaning perceive/understand > used since 1200

way we talk about mental behaviour - use physical words

Rene Descartes - 'The Father of Modern Philosophy'

> 'Discord on the Method' - book

"cogito ergo sum"

"I think therefore I am" 

non-materiality

- body works like a machine

binaries - opposites

mind better than body

10,000 hour rule - to be good at something you must 10,000 hours practising it

creative grammar

accretion - practice it

omission - if it goes really well - you can leave things out

nihilism - don't bother with accretion

knowledge/skills transfer

world of experience is multidimensional

"live + move in a 3D world + pictures are flat the world doesn't look like a picture but a picture can look like the world"  - Ernst Gombrich

rule of the body - tacit understanding

explicit - know what

tacit - know how

Vionett

Ian Hankey

'I hear I forget,

I see I remember,

I do I understand'

Confucious

The great reskilling

'We see and understand things not as they are but as we are'

Anais Nin