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MacGregor - 2008-04-28 11:57:32
Interesting, the relationship between art, the artist, and the value of art... authenticity. I'll never quite grasp it. I think you're right that something is either good or it's not, but that doesn't seem to be the way things work. Semi-related--I recently finished the book What I Loved, by Siri Hustvedt--they do go into the value of art thing quite a bit. It's a very complex and profoundly moving book.
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MacGregor - 2008-04-28 12:15:33
And you'd think that Elliot Spitzer, being the champion of the downtrodden consumer, could have negotiated a better rate. Max Mosley, for less money, got 5 hours of videotaped Third Reich Romp!!!
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Paula - 2008-04-28 12:44:05
I think you're right that something is either good or it's not
If that's the impression I created, then I should go back and edit. Art--'specially abstract art--is subjective. In fact, it bugs me when anyone asserts that any kind of art is "good" in some absolute sense.
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Sharon - 2008-04-28 13:33:00
astonishingly great film review, as usual.///"Is this a problem? Er, no. However the painting got here, they got here and they're nice. Who cares if it was a collaboration?"// I couldn't disagree more. I can't seem to articulate quite why in a theoretical way, but it just feels wrong in a gut check way wrong. If they had been completely honest about his being the actual artist or about their dad-kid collaboration, nobody would care about this work probably. and if this guy were not an amoral faker, someone without shame, no one be fascinated enough to make a film about his story.//That case is a much easier call for me than other artists with "evil issues". Some friends are bemused by my boycott of Woody Allen films since he touched his 6-year-old stepdaughter inappropriately -no, not SoonYi, Dylan.But what about Wagner (a protoNazi) then,or Keith Richards (who once had a 12yearold girlfriend), or Leni Riefenstahl?
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Paula - 2008-04-28 13:47:38
Sharon: I think if the father was the real artist, and passed them off as Marla's paintings, then there's no doubt that he is a cretin. But my gut sense is that she did really create the paintings, but with his kvetching. He doesn't seem honest to me--his body language seemed insincere. But I don't think he is a total faker. If he had spun this differently--"Marla and I painted these together"--it may have been almost as successful an endeavor.
As for the other stuff, I think, like everything else, it's an idiosyncratic thing. I can listen to Gary Glitter (I mean, not regularly) knowing that he is a pedophile, but Woody Allen creeps me out and I actually stopped watching his films. Maybe I expect more from filmmakers than rockers.
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MacGregor - 2008-04-28 14:50:39
Actually I should have phrased that differently. Something along the lines of "it either moves you or doesn't move you." I don't understand how values are placed on objects or what makes one worth more than another, at least in a monetary sense. On the one hand, I agree with Sharon that if I don't like the artist, I'm less likely to want their art... but on the other, I'm baffled by the cult of personality surrounding certain painters than lends value to their output.
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Mr Lojban - 2008-04-28 14:56:01
Sharon: You sure about Keith? Bill Wyman dated a 13-year-old whom he eventually married.
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MacGregor - 2008-04-28 16:12:34
Paula--I can listen to and enjoy Gary Glitter. It's looking at him that's always been a bit scary.
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Paula - 2008-04-28 16:31:37
Honk!
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Sharon - 2008-04-28 16:47:59
I defer to you, Mr Lojban. I must have misremembered my stones tabloidtrivia. I vaguely remember one the the stones' childbrides eventuallly emerging in her 20s complaining of being beaten, etc. But Keith does get Brownie points from me here and there... Etta James talks about how Richards wrote her soulful letters of encouragement when she was in rehab for heroine ...jeez, I have stonesonthebrain this week, and it's all paula's fault!
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grigorss - 2008-04-28 17:07:20
Hi! -- I'm chiming in to fulfill my duties as the voice of dissent -- sometimes a work of art or piece of literature is of interest purely because it is so aberrant from one's own taste/morals/inclinations: Mein Kampf is an interesting read because it is so removed from a normal moral center that sections of it make for compelling reading (most of it is pretty boring, actually...). I think this can also apply to music, painting, film, etc. You don't just look (or listen) to something simply to agree with it -- but to derive (learn?) something of value from it -- a process that could (potentially) involve appreciating some pretty disagreeable stuff.
Speaking of which, has anyone given a listen to Charlie Manson's latest?
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Paula - 2008-04-28 17:27:16
Grigorss, I think you missed what Sharon is saying. I believe that she's not arguing against art that rubs one the wrong way--she's saying it's hard to reconcile good art with artists that rub one the wrong way personally.
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grigorss - 2008-04-28 18:05:52
Well, I think my point covers both those bases -- but, to clarify: sometimes even the personally reprehensible have something worth saying -- all the same I'll agree with her that Woody Allen has had his day and then some; although my reservations re: his work have more to do with the fact that he's made his latter-day career out of remaking other people's films (Radio Days = Fellini's Amarcord, Deconstructing Harry = Bergman's Wild Strawberries) more than because of who he may have allegedly touched where.
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Sharon - 2008-04-28 19:20:54
"remaking other people's films"good point, grigorss.and his latter-day career doesn't seem unrelated to whom he touched where... in the Hitchcockian sense "directing" Helen Hunt,Julia roberts, and little Mariel Hemingway..yuck.// a philosophical hypothetical: What if OO-day and Koo-say Hussein had an amazing band? (The reviews:"killer!") Would it be wrong to be a fan?
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MacGregor - 2008-04-29 08:55:44
Yeah, there was something autobiographical in the progression of W.A. films and the obsession with older man/younger woman relationships. Not that it's an uncommon theme in art, but there were points where I thought it was a little "in your face," or a confessional.
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Philip - 2008-04-29 11:57:25
This is from a recent interview with Ken Wilbur in Salon, talking about whether enlightenment and goodness go hand in hand. I thought it was relevant to the always interesting question of whether artists one admires need be admirable as human beings:
There's an assumption that master contemplatives, people who can reach exalted states of enlightenment, are wonderful human beings, that goodness radiates from them. Do you think that's true?
Nothing's ever quite that simple. There are different kinds of intelligence, and they develop at different rates. If your moral development reaches up into the trans-personal levels, then you tend to be St. Teresa. But some, like Picasso, have their cognitive development very high but their moral development is in the bloody basement. We think someone is enlightened in every aspect of their lives, but that's rarely the case.
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Paula - 2008-04-29 14:47:36
I love Ken Wilber. I don't always agree with him, but there is something about him that I trust and like, and his books are well-written. That interview is a nice introduction to him.
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Sharon - 2008-05-02 08:49:06
"we think someone is enlightened in every aspect of their lives, but that's rarely the case" Well said, Philip. I've read a tiny bit of Wilbur, but I couldn't get passed his weird use of the word "subsist". I'm a weirdo, I know.
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