Comments on: Context May Diminish Art Appreciation

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 06:53:10 +0000

It is clear that Mr. Durham and Anon #5 know a great deal concerning such matters. Please, eminent personages, dazzle us with your expertise.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 18:03:32 +0000

Just a related comment about music. I so admired Aaron Copland’s music and relished it UNTIL I attended a class that gave contextual background info on how one of his pieces was developed and originated. The background info actually lessened my appreciation of the composer’s work because of this “insider knowledge.”

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 05:22:53 +0000

It’s pretty simple – a piece of Dadaist or other highly abstract art may look cool to the average viewer, but once you try to explain it and invest it with some deep meaning, it becomes clear to most viewers how full of BS these artists are. For example: shark in formaldehyde or a big Jeff Koons bunny = looks pretty cool. Pretending that these either of these is a profound statement on modern life = annoying.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 17:06:36 +0000

Without offering context to a work of Art how can the museum make money selling their show cataloges?

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 22:25:33 +0000

What does this say about art appreciation courses?

By: Tom Durham

Tom Durham — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 22:56:42 +0000

The problem with most contemporary art today, is the explanation is more important that the visual, unfortunately that is what’s taaught at most Universities

By: Aristos

Aristos — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 21:33:37 +0000

I have not yet read the study in question or seen the photos of sculptures and paintings, but a few preliminary observations can be made. The abstract of the study reveals that “Dada art” was liked “significantly less” than the others and that Renaissance and Impressionist work was the most popular (as suggested in the above article). No surprise here. So-called Dada art is, in truth, not “art” at all, not by any objective or formal definition of the term (one constructed by the “rules of definition” found in logic texts around mid-twentieth century—see, for example, Lionel Ruby, ‘Logic: An Introduction). On some level the students in the study perceived that. (“Outsider art” is often non-art” as well.)

Little acknowledged by critics is the fact that chief-Dadaist Marcel Duchamp, when asked how he had “come to choose a mass-produced object, a ‘readymade,’ to make a work of art,” Duchamp had replied in no uncertain terms: “Please note that I didn’t want to make a work of art out of it.”

See Michelle Marder Kamhi,”Museum Miseducation: Perpetuating the Duchamp Myth,” Aristos, June 2008

http://www.aristos.org/aris-08/miseducation.htm

Louis Torres, Co-Editor, Aristos (An Online Review of the Arts, Co-Author, ‘What Art Is’ (2000)

http://www.aristos.org