[MUSIC PLAYING] Hello, and welcome to another
episode of our art hotline. Our Artline. Bling. No, no, no, we are
not doing that anymore. No, we're still doing it. No more bling. All right, that
was the last time. OK? Fair? Fair. So the way this works is
that we have a phone number. You can call it with
your questions about art, and we will give
you our opinion. All right, let's hear
the first question. [BEEP] RICARDO (ON HOTLINE): How do
you feel about David Hickey's criticism of American
art, that we are obsessed with celebrity artists,
leaving us lagged behind Europe and Russia? How can we close the
gap in the art race and rediscover the soul
and sex of American art? Ricardo, I'm not sure if that
voice was French, Russian, German, or fake. But regardless, I
thought it was excellent. We live in a
celebrity-obsessed culture, and part of what art does is
reflect culture back to us. And so there's no way
to get around the fact that celebrity is important
in contemporary American life, and that makes it important
in the art world, too. And Ricardo, you mentioned
this kind of art race. And I think that that's
a false construct that may have been true previously,
when American artists were trying to make a name
for themselves, maybe in mid-century. But now the art world
is so international and dispersed that that
idea of one country sort of getting their artists
together and becoming great again, I don't really
believe in that. I believe in an
international art world. [BEEP] MARISSA (ON HOTLINE): Having
taken some art courses, I've been really disturbed
by the dichotomy between art and craft. I tend to see them on a spectrum
of artistic communicative expressions, but a
few professors of mine have insisted on lauding
art at the expense of craft. And maybe I'm just biased
based on my area of study, but I don't know. I guess I'm just wondering
what and if you guys have any thoughts on this. So Marissa, in sum,
we agree with you. I think that your understanding
of the sort of lack of separation between art and
craft is really smart and savvy and the way to be. For me, your question
gets at something that's really disturbing about
the pretentiousness of the art world. Like, I think it's fine
when pretentiousness exists because of
academic rigor or because of intellectual rigor. I don't think it's fine
when it exists merely to be exclusionary. And I often feel like that's
the case with the dichotomy between arts and crafts. I think that in
fine art circles today, the division
between art and craft is not as strong
as it used to be. I think a lot of
contemporary artists are engaging with
ideas of craft, like Michelle Grabner, who
was in a past Art Assignment episode. But that distinction, that harsh
line between art and craft, I think it used to
be more of a thing, and that now that's kind
of loosening up as artists are working in really wide
and very different ways. [BEEP] ISAAC (ON HOTLINE):
I was just wondering, how you feel about the
inflation of the price of art to help wealthy individuals
diversify their investment portfolios? In the same vein, is it
wrong for wealthy individuals to amass large amounts
of wealth while they're alive while exploiting
workers, only to donate that money to build
an art museum or a theater after they die? I think that it is
flatly wrong for people to amass great amounts
of wealth and then donate it to start an art museum. I also think it's
flatly wrong for people to take massive tax breaks
when they make donations of art from their
own collections to publicly funded museums. But I think Sarah probably feels
very differently about this. It's complicated. I mean, the money that's
in the art world now is disgusting and
disconcerting, and creates a cult of a kind of art that is
extremely commercial and made for investors. However, in a sense,
it's the engine that makes the whole thing run. Our main repositories
for art and the way that we learn about
art history and have these pieces in
the public realm is because rich people have been
given all of these amazing tax breaks and are incentivized
to give their work-- "give their work" to a museum. [BEEP] PABLO (ON HOTLINE): With the
proliferation of cellphones and everybody being able
to capture an image, do you think itself that the
image is necessarily dead? I mean, we have things like
Instagram, Tumblr, and stuff. Anybody can make an image. Would you say we're at
the post-image stage? This is a great question. I don't think the image is dead. Of course, like,
what does that mean? We're so awash in
images that-- is it-- is it dead if it's
so a part of our life that you can't even distinguish
it from the soup of life? But I think Pablo's question
is, is the specialness of the image dead? And that's a very
interesting question. In the course of
normal human life, right now, if you
look around, there are a lot of images
in our lives. And I think we have to be more
sophisticated image viewers. And I don't mean that in a
pretentious way, necessarily. I mean that we have
to think about, where did that image come from? How has it been divorced
from its context? Who originally made it? What's happened to
it since it was made? How was it staged
when it was made? How does viewing it on Tumblr
change my perception of it? What happens when I forward
it and I add something to the comment chain? These are all super
interesting things. And I think that we have to
think about that, not just as like a free-floating
image, but what it is, where it comes
from, where it's going. [BEEP] ISABEL (ON HOTLINE): What do
you do when you no background, but you really hate
a piece of art. You think it's terrible. But people who have so much more
experience in like something. Does that make you wrong? Is there somehow
a knowledge base that makes you better at
appreciating or evaluating art? This is such a great question,
and such a complicated one. I think it was WH Auden who
said that some books are undeservedly forgotten, but none
are undeservedly remembered. So maybe there is a case
that if lots of people like a work of art
that you don't like, that maybe you are
lacking something that would help you to
like it, or maybe there is something valuable in
it that you haven't seen. But sometimes-- I don't know. I strongly dislike works of
art that everybody likes. Yeah, I think it's
fine to dislike art. And I think it's constructive
to think about why you don't like something. If something's
really bothering you, then you could start to
think about, like, well, maybe I don't like
that kind of art. Also, I would definitely
acknowledge the fact that your opinion
can change over time. There's art that I hated 10
years ago that now I see it, and I'm like, oh, you know,
I kind of-- I kind of see it. But there was something
interesting at the tail end of your question,
which is whether there can be a base of knowledge
that helps you appreciate art. And I think that there is. You may not like something,
but the more that you spend time with art and study
art, the more you're able to guess at why the artist
maybe made the decisions that led to that work of art. That can be a fruitful
line of questioning and not just something that
makes you look at the piece and walk away. [BEEP] AHMED (HOTLINE): If art
is an expression that's conveying a message,
asking a question, or presenting an
idea, and et cetera, is art still art even if
it doesn't do those things? When you think about
art presenting an idea or asking a question, I
can't imagine a work of art, or something that
somebody has called art, that doesn't do that. If you look at a basic
cube that someone has anointed a sculpture
or a work of art, maybe it is asking a question. Maybe it's asking a question
about what art should be. So it gets really
sticky and tricky, and I think that it is still art
if somebody wants it to be art and has put it
into that context. You know, I thought about the
kind of question of mere beauty in art, in that question. I mean, is there
something to art being less artful if
it is merely beautiful? I think that merely beautiful
art has meaning in the way that it makes-- opens up
something inside of you. It cracks open-- cracks
you open in a way that you otherwise wouldn't
have ever experienced. Well, and part of
Ahmed's definition was that it's an expression. That's a pretty good
definition of art, an expression of an idea-- But-- Or a question, or et cetera. It's also about the et cetera. It's a-- a lot depends
on the et cetera. I agree. [BEEP] CIARA (ON HOTLINE): Sometimes
when I go to museums or I talk to people
about art, I feel like I'm pretending, because
I'm not super knowledgeable, and I'm definitely not
pretentious about it, because I don't even know
enough to be pretentious. So what is your advice
for someone like me, who wants to know more about
art but doesn't necessarily want to pursue it as a
career or become pretentious? I just-- I want more people
like her in the world. I want more people
like her looking at art and thinking about art
who don't approach it from a "how pretentious can
I make this" perspective. This is kind of my mission in
life, is to learn about art, be involved in art, and
try to not be pretentious. I know some YouTube commenters
might disagree with me about the pretentious bit. But I really try
not to be that way. And I think that, you
know, that feeling is real, though, of the imposter
syndrome, of feeling like you don't have the knowledge base,
or haven't spent the time, or don't know the vocabulary. And I would really encourage
you to silence those voices in your head, and
just go for it, and look at art when
you have time for it. Read about art when
you have time for it. And feel confident about
your interpretations. And speak about
art in plain terms. I think the more you use
art speak, the less likely you are to have
people listen to you. So I think just try to
silence those thoughts and enjoy art, and
forget about the rest. [BEEP] ANONYMOUS WOMAN (ON HOTLINE):
I was just wondering how you guys find art. I find it very difficult
to find new artists, and I don't know anywhere
I can look on the internet where I can just, like, type
in "contemporary artists" and find people I would like. The internet is a magical
place where you can learn about art happening today. But you do need to
know where to look. I'm going to put a list of
possible resources for you in the comments, so you can see. But the internet is a great
place to learn about art, and I don't think you need
to wait till it hits you or till you come across it. I think you do need
to seek it out. Yeah, a lot of museums
now have good websites where you can look at
huge collections of art. There are good non-museum
websites about art, as well. Those will be in the list. And you can also
listen to podcasts. "Bad at Sports" is a
really good art podcast, as is "Modern Art Notes." And that's another way
to keep up with what's going on from wherever you are. Thanks again for
all your questions. You can call our Artline. We'll keep doing these videos. It's really wonderful
to hear from you. Thanks for calling. [MUSIC PLAYING]
