Should high art be involved with society or be completely detached from it?

used to live near these. they were amazing up close. the Nelson itself is a sight to see.

used to live in westport, or pretty close by it. shitty schools man. i miss KC sometimes, but it has changed quite a bit since i was a youth.

also, understand them? they're fucking shuttlecocks, and they're in a huge typically beautifully manicured field. the message of the sport on a beautiful day is quite clear. "come have a picnic" they tell you. it isn't misunderstood at all by anyone who has seen them on a beautiful summer day, and you lose yourself in an illusion of giants playing badminton in fun.

Reading leftists is the intellectual equivalent of huffing bleach

Picasso is a lousy fraud, abstraction is not an end in itself, neither is expression. Only beauty.

>he hasn't seen picasso's mastery as a youth
you obviously know nothing of the guy. a genius on the level of Joyce, playing with a medium that he was a genius in.

boredpanda.com/pablo-picasso-self-portrait-style-evolution/

a neat thing, the work reflects his age to be sure. especially at the later years as he diminishes. almost heart rending.

another. no hack, my man. no hack involved.

looks pretty hackneyed to me

show me a great painting.

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Why are Mediterranean girls so hot? Is it the slight hint of Saracen rapist ancestry?

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Not the same user, but whatever skill Picasso had is overshadowed by the fact that he was a conartist.

I don't mean to completely derail the thread, but I think it'd merit discussion on what "high art" is to begin with. Only then can we start describing how to enable that goal based on a definition. For the sake of this comment, I'll assume a definition that approximates to "conceptual art".

In very broad strokes, all art is mildly dependent on society. Without society there wouldn't be anything to comment on or to dissect. Whether it's haughty academic art that hides in the small corners of the world to dissect its eccentricities at a macro/micro level, or the modern literati that's actively involved in social and political change, both have merit and both contribute interesting perspectives that we can learn from (and, in turn, that lead to interesting art).

In regards to "high art" in particular, I hate the idea of the zeitgeist being controlled by a small group of men who claim to be part of an inner circle. We're collectively only as good as our weakest members, and enabling art to be accessible by everyone serves as a stepping stone to more challenging pieces. Creating fabricated divides of art discredits what art can accomplish, to the point of being masturbatory ("oh look at how smart we are", etc).

It's relatively easy to make high art, it's much harder to make high art that transcends beyond those barriers to be accessible by all. I think creating that engagement with the broader public is the most important goal of modern art, collectively lifting us up instead of tearing sections of us down through exclusion.

were either of these artists 15 when they created this?

What does the age have to do with this? It's art, instead you treat it like sportsmanship, or some sort of a circus show where freaks of nature are supposed to amaze the crowd.

Leave that attitude for the circus, artists aren't trained monkeys dancing for your pleasure. Showmanship isn't art.

guy calls picasso a fraud, and you yell at me. age has quite a lot to do with this. what were you doing at 15? jerkin it for the first time? were you crafting beautiful prose? let's see your diary desu.

if you think art can have no sportsmanship, no competition, then you misunderstand the expressive capabilities of art. incredibly, you name the circus as some base thing, when they are themselves art.
art is an act of communication. some communication is superior to others. much like a choppy sentence is incapable of communication when compared with a marvelous essay. often, the act of amazing a crowd is the greatest form of communication to an artist themselves.

forgot my artsy fartsy circus pic.

Not sure when your youth was, but KC is a nice place. The art scene here is vibrant and isn't overly dominated by hype and money. Lots of cool underground stuff. Going to a poetry reading tonight in the basement of a coop, should be fun.

Don't get me wrong, it's got it's problems and sometimes feels ignored by the world, but that's fine. The lack of focus on KC means artists can be themselves. If this place was NYC, there'd be gossip column in the morning about the poetry reading I'm attending, and I'd probably have long ago been shut out for not pandering enough to various ideological causes.

But you could also make the argument that an artist's intention dominates the piece and so the expression is more than the culture or society from which it came but an objective output of human nerve. I believe there can be such a thing as transcending parochial cultural limitations in fine art, although postmodernists would argue otherwise. I'm past the whole 'identity politics' shit.

i dunno, it's probably "you can't go home again" syndrome. it's been about 10 years since i lived in KC. i remember when eden alley was somewhat underground, and when Murray's ice cream shop was the place to be. felt like the center of the world. I wasn't old enough for the literary culture scene, i wish i were. I do remember being a stupid 1-16 year old vegetarian living all over the place in the city though. You ever been to LC's barbecue?

I think it takes a lot of ego and willful naivety, or otherwise complete isolation and amnesia, to think you can escape your milieu. That doesn't mean you're bereft of choice in what you create/produce, but art doesn't get the pleasure of escaping ideology except with total ignorance of culture (feral children, the insane, exile). Anyone posting on an image board is beyond that point of ignorance, anyone calling themselves and artist is beyond that point too.

Artists do have the power to influence the direction of culture, in a limited fashion, unless you want to go full /pol/ conspiracy theory tier and think that the frankfurt school orchestrated 9/11.

Artists can be antagonistic, they can reject a culture, but that means they remain within it's orbit. But all of the modernist psuedo-science about formalism and pure objectivity is just the wishful thinking of people with their heads buried in the sand.

Who is an artist to the people? Where is the man who will understand or see the thought behind their work?
Doomed is the one who wastes his voice on the people, his tongue lies to his voice, and his voice lies to his thoughts. Art doesn't need the people's ears or eyes, let it swim and grow inside the artist, let God, let nature listen. It is communication, yes, but the listener need not be there, let the artist speak what needs to be said regardless if somebody listens or not. He who speaks only because somebody else listens is nothing but a fool.

Haven't been to LC's bbq, but I've been to Eden Alley and Murray's. And yeah, you can't go home again. I think I'd kill myself if I ever moved back to Madison or Milwaukee.

The last 10 years have seen a lot of shift in the culture scene. The Crossroads Arts District (Leedyville) is starting to gentrify, galleries and artist studios are getting pushed out by restaurants and boutiques, architecture firms and law offices. Most artists are finding spaces now in the West Bottoms, but even that is start to develop with full on night clubs instead of haphazard illegal raves. The mayor branded the city, "The Paris of the Plains" and the economic development of the arts is now scene as a vital city strategy... which has led to all sorts of god-awful public art projects. I was riding the trolley the other day and there were paid dancers, doing experimental breakdancing and ballet at every stop (paid by a city hall initiative "Art in the Loop"). Of course they can only dance while the trolley is stopped, it's unsafe to dance in a moving trolley and the city couldn't afford that liability. Felt bad for the dancers, people were just like "get the fuck out of the way, you're blocking the exit".

ah man, yeah, if only i were my age or close when i still lived in KC. LC's is in what feels like a bad neighborhood, but is in reality one of the greatest fucking restaurants in existence. their brisket is beyond compare. suggest you grab a bottle of sauce while you're there too.

i dunno, most of my memories are food and schools for the most part. i know some of the black areas since that's where half my family is based.
but yeah, i'm sure the art scene has suffered, it's no surprise that it's being driven out, as it should be, it should be pushed out of these conglomerations of human filth like KC, though i fucking love it, it is a monument to something other than what it became. the guy who effectively engineered KC was a brilliant guy, a man with a vision, a leader.

guy was really cool, and made a place that likely doesn't exist anymore.

forgot to post his name.
countryclubplaza.com/art-history/one-mans-vision-shapes-the-city/

>the pointless reproductions of reality that the Renaissance enjoyed

So the Birth of Venus was real?

you bet your sweet ass it was

Ah, I'm familar with JC Nichols. Can't say I idolize him though, he was another capitalist making money off rent. If anything, the Plaza is the epitome of what I despise about kansas city. Stupid consumers buying over-priced clothes and coffee from 3rd world countries, not watching where they go as the cross the street. Not my idea of culture at all.

another capitalist building the country, you mean. businessmen are quite important, especially real estate capitalists. hell, look at the US, it's run by one.

anyway, culture is what you make of it, those people buying overpriced goods are what are taxed to build your roads. people need to wake the fuck up and realize this. the workers make, the workers themselves buy that stuff. it is indeed culture, and one to be extremely proud of. it's the aspects of greed that one is prone to falling under while operating in a capitalism. the only other option really is global communism. something i equivocate with the borg, really. some soulless methodical entity operating as one, but for no true artistic purpose, just killing what's wasteful down to the last man, working off technology left on autopilot by the master artists who built them.

art is dying but not for the reason i think. commercialism is quite the art, not of oils and paints, but most certainly in operating the minds of men, networking, control, and growth, true growth. it's uglier without it, i promise.

*the reason you think

high art and low art should meld then we'd get pynchonesque works across all mediums

True art is the foundation of society, creator of spectator and not spectacle, without a deeper substance, being empty form, the closest and yet most distinct thing from crude private experience--the first separation, the first crystallization.

speaking of KCMO, chiefs are playin

Nah they have always been qts.

>Should high art be involved with society or be completely detached from it?

Neither being involved or detached is a guarantee of quality, or lack of it, in high art.

Inclusiveness is what we have now, and art is completely dead as a result

>t. Has read breton and now thinks he's an art expert even though he know's shit about renaissance or medieval art.

Society and art are essentially the same thing and society cannot frame art without disrupting it in some sense, and vice versa.

There is no such thing as a shared consciousness of society. That's the paradox.

You're right to defend Picasso but I don't think he single-handedly changed art. Whether it was Cezanne or Braque he was influenced by others. Primitivism, avant-gardism, new ideas of the self, new ideas of art without the logos, etc.

Pretty true but society itself is in a way attached to economy.

I lol'd.

>Showmanship isn't art.

It has been a part of art since the Salons were opened to the public, so like 250 years.

High art is nonexistent. The notion that something is 'high' is nonsense. What is it high on? nothing that cannot be smashed! And smash I must.
Hyperobjects are still comprehensible, though, they just require a certain revelation to discern.

>the notion that something is "high" is nonsense
>"the author is dead and high art is a made up category period blood on a canvas is the same as Michelangelo this leaflet I grabbed from the car wash is as meritorious as Gogol which is to say not meritorious at all because merit mean hierarchy and hierarchies are social constructs we build by stacking up the pieces of the corpse of a God who never really existed"
Why are you on Veeky Forums and not /r/books

Ah, Aivazovsky, what a subtle colour palette he has. He reminds me of a certain contemporary master that is no longer among us.

I'm Christian you redditor. I take art and aesthetics extremely seriously. I just haven't fallen for r*naissance memes.

Most if not all art is a reproduction of reality in some sense. Not necessarily based on 'illusory' appearances but reality none the less.

Why are you not on r/strawmen

haha took you long enough for that one

the bottom one is the most kitsch things i've ever seen

'High art' is a codified category of cultural artefacts that provides a philosophical precedent for the production of objects or performances in the context of the 'art world' -- itself typically defined by the institutions dedicated exclusively to the preservation and continuation of art-historical discourse i.e. that which codifies 'high art'. Whether or not 'high art' actually achieves what justifies the use of the term 'high' is irrelevant in this regard

I already answered my question, stop doing the same with more words.

haha

Not really unless you mean to contradict your first sentence that 'high art' doesn't exist -- it does. How does one smash an ideal anyway?

>how does one smash an ideal

why must you insist on tormenting me with

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WHY?! WHY MUST YOU TORMENT ME SO WITH THESE JEZEBELS? All I want to do is come here for an asexual experience that will exercise my brain but I am constantly titillated by these vixens with their prodigious hips and provocative figures. Can I never satiate this thirst, will I ever know the touch of a woman and enter between her loins? Will my seed ever drip from her moistened hole?

Life is a constant hell. No wonder I resent women too.

High art is what frees you from questions like that.