Wes Rolley on sun 10 oct 04
Louis Katz wrote:
Art is only a tool. If craft is just good skill, if it is not the
ability to put meaning into work, we should just buy at Walmart.
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Louis's recent postings (too long absent) have touched some real issues, not the least of which is the subject of "meaning" as it relates to art. There was even a journal by that name devoted to criticism. I wonder how the terms "meaning" would apply to the works of Marla. Personally, I had never heard of Marla until I saw a segment about her on the CBS program, Sunday Morning, today. Since that segment is not yet available on the internet I can attest to Marla's international reputation by giving a reference to a BBC story on her... http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/3701484.stm
While Marla's paintings show a sense for composition that is highly unusual in one so young (4), it is hard to assign the idea of "meaning" to her works which are aggressively abstract. It makes me wonder what she will do if an elementary school art teacher tells her to draw a tree.
The Sunday Morning segment featured gallery owners comparing Marla's works to Pollack and Monet. If those comparisons obvious by looking at the surface quality, they can not be consciously achieved. So, these are similarities, not references.
Vince wrote:
Personally, I believe in the "self-cleansing" process, where, in the long
run, incompetence is shown for what it is.
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I wish that I knew how this "self-cleansing" process works, because too often it does not. My wife is a graduate of the Japan Women's Art University (Joshibi). This year they had an exhibit of the works by graduates in her class, some 40+ years ago. While we could not attend, my sister-in-law and her husband did, and sent us a set of photos. Initially, we were without a list to relate the artist to the photo. Still, we sorted those photos into the good, the bad and the ugly. When we finally got a cross reference, it turned out that the three women who ended up in "academia" were not in the "good" pile. Yet, their works are touted just because they are "professors". The single best work came from a woman who, as we later found out, was still making art while in the hospital with terminal cancer.
John Rogers wrote:
If the object d'art is
truly such, it will, in one way or another, grab me by my emotions, hold
me spellbound --- by one or more aspects of it's being. If it does not
elicit that emotional response, I do not consider it to be art.
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This is a viewpoint that I can appreciate. There is, however, an equal danger that the works in question can be overly sentimental, maudlin even, designed to "pull at the heart strings." Still, without the emotional element what is left is ultimately unsatisfying.
In the end, I agree wholeheartedly with the quote from Buckminster Fuller below.
Wes Rolley
17211 Quail Court
Morgan Hill, CA 95037
http://www.refpub.com
"When I'm working on a problem, I never think about beauty. I think only how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong." -- Richard Buckminster Fuller
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