Freeland, Chapters 6, 7, & Conclusion

Cognition, creation, comprehension
Freeland poses a valid question in this chapter, "Can we just look at an artwork for enjoyment?" I feel like this addresses what we've been talking about during our classes. Do we have to know the background of the pieces? Do we need to know what the artist's intention was when he/she created it? I don't think that we do. In some cases yes, it does help to know some background about the piece or the artist or the time period the art was created in, but at the same time, I think it's almost better to take your own reaction and form your own thoughts about a piece of art.

Digitizing and disseminating
Mona Lisa and Michelangelo's David are images that are being reproduced in the world so much that, She poses the question of whether we actually know what they look like. The many reproductions show Mona Lisa with a mustache or David wearing clothes, Freeland says are all ubiquitous. Not only is some art reproduced so often it almost loses its value, you can now visit a museum without even going to one. Websites offer 360' degree panoramas or artworks, and view their scrutinize the details of every paining. Art has become this widely accessible by the technologies of the world. Walter Benjamin said in his essay, "the loss of aura was not a bad thing."

Are we losing the real sense of art in our world, by not viewing them in person? Will Museums that hold the wonders of past artists become something extinct due to the widening use of technology and our busy world?

Freeland, Chapter 5

Gender, Genius and the Gorilla Girls
She talks about women being a minority group when it comes to art institutions. She makes a distinction to make sure the reader understands she is not saying that women are a minority in society but just a minority in the "histories of art." She questions whether gender and sex are relevant to art.
She then goes on to talk about Gorilla tactics. In 1985 a group of women artists protested sexism in New York. They would hide their identities under Gorilla masks and dressed in all black clothes, sometimes short skirts and high heels. They created ads with big bold black text and images of women, like the "Do women have to be naked to get into the Met," poster created to display the facts that only 5% of the artists are women but 85% of the actual nude pieces are female. Their ads were published in magazines and on street corners, even in bathrooms at museums and theatres.
She then goes on to talk about Nochlin's essay and how influential it was to the society of women artists. Since her essay in 1971 there have been more museums dedicated to women, such as the Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, DC. She discusses genius and the origin of the word, something that Kant, Genius is 'what gives the rule to art.' The artist make the forms that are beautiful, it's their genius. She says Genius is usually used to excuse an artist strange behavior. Van Gogh, Pollack, Gauguin, these artists all pushed the boundaries and limits in the art world creating their viewers to "need" and explanation of their strange works.
Freeland discusses how even though some women have been noticed and acknowledged in the art world they are still not acknowledged to the same par as the men. Gender has constantly been a significant matter in art. Museums are filled with female nudes, not male, done by male artists and not female.

Is this just because of our society, the famous begining of Adam and Eve, Adam was created first, expected to provide, while Eve was created from Adam and expected to be the caregiver and lover to Adam. Is this the way that society will always be? The male getting more attention, going further in the workplace, and being ahead of the female?

Why do men get their pictures of female nudes in museums?

Why are there more male artists in museums than female?

And why are the art of these male artists depicting women in a vulnerable and quite "open" state?

Freeland, Chapter 4

In this chapter Freeland discusses museums in the art world today. She talks about how even small towns can support museums. There are all sorts of museums and art museums today are now more commonly including anthropology and sociology. She talks about tribal museums something she classifies as tribal musemums, and how almost every group has their own art museum. She then goes on to talk about Pierre Bourdieu, a french sociologist who studied taste. He wrote a book on taste called "A Distinction: A Cultural Critique of the Judgement of Taste," But says his book is hard to assess being written from the french perspective.
The first public museum was created by the overthrow of the French monarchy after the Revolution. Later around 1793, they nationalized the Louvre and after that museums were built from donations and private collections. In 1965 a shift occurred in museum funding causing the private charitible people to bigger $700 million dollar corporations. This was all done in spite to promote the arts and culture. When the funding changed so did the purpose of museums.
Freeland notes that she could not talk about art and money without noteing how much the pieces of art were selling for. She gives examples such as Van Gogh's Irises sold for $53.9 million dollars. A large price for a poor artist.
She goes on to talk about how some art is "outside this nexus, using public or government funding." She gives and example of the project "Culture in Action," a group who in 1993, took art into the streets of its cities and surrounding neighborhoods.

Freeland, Chapter 3

In this chapter, Freeland talks about culture and how Dewey's argument of art being a window into another culture is true. Art can break down barriers among cultures as Dewey thought. He insisted that art is a universal language, and I agree with that. I think that art is one of those things that can pass from culture to culture and within different culutres and still be understood. She goes on to discuss how even artist within cultures have a hard time finding what the value of art really is. With each new piece of art within a culture, it is like a stepping stone of the history and the future all in one. She also talked about how even though the art within a culture: where the values and traditions of that culture are portrayed; It still has been "touched" by the world, and thus creates a common ground throughout all cultures and all pieces of art.

Reading Due: Freeland, Intro and Chapters 1 & 2

But is it art?
Freeland talks about rituals in chapter one. She also talks about the shock value of blood, and give the example of "Ron Athey who is HIV positive, and cut a fellow performer on stage, and then hung blood-soaked paper towels over the audience, creating a panic." She talks about how the use of blood is controversial and "does not forge meaningful associations." Why is our society so fearful of blood? Is it the fear of disease? the color? the fact that it comes from inside a human body?
She then goes on to talk about the term aesthetics, and how it is a greek word meaning sensation or perception. So is the aesthetic experience simply just evoking a feeling from viewing something? She mentions Kant, and his view as the account of beauty and our reponse to it.
In Chapter two, she discusses great philosophers like Aristotle and Euripides. And goes on to discuss Versailles and Kant, how there are classical allusions everywhere in Versailles and France. She goes on to discuss Andy Warhol's brillo boxes and how Danto objected to them and thought they should not be accepted in the art world. This is intersting because Andy Warhol is one of the great artists of his time, and his recognizable images make him memorable.Danto said that the boxes were well made but did not want to endorse any particular piece of art.

So I find myself coming back to the same question,
Who is the one to decide that a piece of art is worthy for the art world?
and
What makes a piece good, or bad?

Korsmeyer, pp 324-332 and 338-344 (Foucault and Baxandall),

Foucault discusses the relationship between the artist and their work, when the get authorship. He talks about "analyzing the work through its structure, it's intrinsic form, and the play of its internal relationships." He asks questions like "what is a work?" and "Of what elements is it composed?" He then dicusses once an artist becomes an author, we still have to ask the questions about his work, pertaining to whether it really is his work or not, like where did it come from. He uses Nietzshe's works as examples and how everything he publishes is Nietzshe's work.

Baxandall discusses the backgrounds of works themselves. He poses questions like when, why and how was it made? and why is it understood as art? He talks about how culture is a big part of our understanding. How we grew up and the cultures we were experienced to define how we view things. I feel like he is saying that sometimes when you view a piece of art, you have to be able to know the background, culturally and the background of the artist in order to properly view the piece. I agree and disagree with this. If you know the background, yes, it might help you understand why the Baptism of Christ was painted the way it was. However, If you go to a piece of art without knowing anything it allows you to view it how you would like to interpret it. Which I think is a valuable part of art that sometimes is not understood. When you view a piece of art sometimes it is nice to view it as you see it and not view it through the eyes of the "background" or what have you.

Korsmeyer, Part Six – Preface through Chapter 33 (pp 295 - 323)

When I think about genuis, I think there are multiple kinds of genuis. Someone can be educational genuis, like Einstien, or someone can be artistically genius like any of the great artists that are constantly shown in galleries and museums around the world. I don't think that there is one or the other, or one definition for that matter.

In Immanuel Kant's passage, he discusses how genius is something you cannot aquire. It is not something you can pass on or even learn through education. It is something you can only have if you are born with it. He discusses how "genuis must be considered the very opposite of a spirit of imitation," and how learning is nothing but imitation. Science and math are all taught by someone, and art is someone creating something from within themselves, not imitating something that is already there. When you teach something you are simply imitating something someone else has already created, it is nothing but imitation just as Kant said. Kant then goes on to discussing how you don't need education and cannot learn "genuis."

Linda Nochlin discusses education and genuis. She talks about how artists are educated in society and how problems start there. She then goes on to discuss the problem women have with establishing themselves in society and the art world. I think she starts off talking about problems and then kinda stems off on a women's rights subject, which is a problem, but does it have to do with her topic? schooling and education and genuis? She starts talking specifically about womenly artistic genuis.