Is Art Meaningless? | Philosophy Tube

[Music] I am the portrait of Madame X by John Singer sergeant I was first exhibited in 1884 and I caused quite a stir in Paris because although my artist intended for me to be a study in light and shade audiences and critics thought I was trying to be sexually provocative so which is it what does the artwork mean now you might be sitting there thinking well it's subjective there's no right or wrong answer but I am willing to bet that you don't really believe that there's a big difference between saying that the quality of an artwork is subjective and the meaning is subjective if you don't like the portrait of matamax then fair enough I guess I'm not to everyone's taste and I suppose when I pose for it it's more like the portrait of Madame X Y but is it really the case that I can be about anything if somebody says to you I just saw Doctor Strange too and you go oh yeah what's it about and they say it's about how love has an everlasting value even between two people of different social classes on a doomed ocean liner you'd be like no that's Titanic it definitely seems like you can look at a work of art think you know what it's about and be wrong which means the meaning at least is not subjective so assuming artworks do have objective meaning how do we find out what the meaning is if I don't get it how do I get it [Music] if you enjoyed today's episode and you want to help me make more free educational material consider signing up at patreon.com philosophytube I'm pledging a couple of dollars a month to keep the show going these paintings are some of the most famous examples of Modern Art in the world and I have absolutely no idea what they mean foreign murals they were painted in the 1950s by American Artist mark rothko originally he was commissioned to make them for an upscale restaurant in New York but when he actually visited the place he changed his mind and gave the money back the paintings are still displayed in accordance with his intentions close to the ground in a small room with off-white walls in low even lighting rothko said he wanted audiences to feel trapped if I want to get it maybe those facts are a clue if somebody tells me rothko's paintings are about being happy and having a nice time at the beach I can point to his intentions and go no you're wrong because I don't want to get it wrong I don't want to misinterpret something that could be really awkward like when your friend who you thought was straight sends you a bunch of flirty messages and you're like babe is that something you need to tell me and she goes what no I definitely straight definitely interested in men everybody sends messages like that right girls like you some philosophers have said that the meaning of an artwork is part of it albeit not a part that you can see with your eyes take for instance fountain one of the most famous works of art ever it was presented in 1917 by Marcel Duchamp and it's what's called a ready-made a sculpture that was already made because it's just an ordinary urinal he bought it from a shop to the eyes Fountain is identical to other urinals that are not art so the argument goes what makes it different is its meaning you don't get that meaning you have in a sense failed to experience the artwork that is Fountain you've just seen a rhino funnily enough I have some artwork with me today that is about this very question interpreting art not whether your friend is flirting with you although actually kind of both this is pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov one of the most famous novels of the 20th century the story is that the poet John shade has been murdered on the night that he completed his greatest work so the poem has been published posthumously by his good friend Charles with notes explaining its meaning but as we read on Charles's notes get weirder and weirder he starts claiming that certain words in the poem are really a coded message about how John was in love with him but his wife wouldn't let him say it and really the poem is all about Charles until he's talking about things that are completely unconnected and we're like hang on a minute did he murder John a lot of the humor comes from the fact that Charles's interpretation of the poem is wrong he says it's about one thing it obviously isn't and that's why it's funny but how do we know he's wrong well it would be very helpful if we could just ask John what his poem is about and indeed some philosophers have said the way you find out an artwork's meaning is you look at the artist's intention if it seems like your friend is flirting with you but it's kind of ambiguous just ask her how she feels but it doesn't really help us with pale fire because the whole setup is that John shade has been murdered we don't know what he intended maybe Charles is right and the poem really is about him and this problem comes up a lot in art history we have evidence of what artists like rothko and Duchamp intended for their works but often that isn't the case especially if the art is very old and even if we could go back and reconstruct an artist's intention it might not be a very secure foundation on which to base an interpretation of their work the French philosopher Michelle Foucault pointed out that the author of a text is sometimes a bit of a vague construct even a brand basically our reconstruction would kind of be an interpretation as well as Charles shows us it's perfectly possible to imagine an idea of somebody in your head who supports your interpretation of their work but who isn't that close to the real thing maybe your friend is flirting with you but maybe you're just projecting because secretly you kind of wanted to the risk is that we just end up repeating what other people have told us about the artist's intentions regurgitating the marketing rather than actually engaging with what they made that's why the philosopher Roland bath said we should forget about the author and just focus on the text in his famous essay death of the author which yeah John is dead so I guess you got what you wanted there Roland bath where were you on the night that John shade was murdered just to make things even more hazy the British art historian Michael baxendor said that artists don't really have intentions for their work the same way that an architect has an intention for a bridge when you design a bridge you plan it all out beforehand and you have a very clear goal in mind but art doesn't really work that way every brush stroke you add to a canvas every line to a script every note to a score changes the relationships between everything else and changes the whole as you work your intention develops so if we're trying to reconstruct the artist's intention where do we start there isn't really one intention there's an infinite sequence of them John Singer Sergeant took almost a whole year to finish the portrait of Madame Max and he tried a lot of different poses for he settled on the final thing Rothco took years to finish the Seagram murals and he changed his mind about what he wanted to do with them as somebody who is a working artist I can tell you from experience that intentions absolutely change I recently finished writing a play it's going to be on in London soon it's called the prince I'm really really excited for it tickets available in the Doobie video if you're interested when I started it I intended to write something about the monarchy but the more I worked the more I realized it actually needed to be about something completely different and the final product has almost nothing to do with that so if we try to reconstruct my original intention to decide what the play is about how is that going to work it definitely seems like you can be wrong about art but I'm still not clear on how you can make sure you're right I am the portrait of matamax by John Singer sergeant am I a study in light and shade or am I a sexual Scandal I have a suggestion maybe you need a different angle on things I am Pablo Picasso's paintings Maybe some people think that I am the greatest artist of the 20th century and my suggestion is don't Focus too much on the intellectual stuff or you might miss out on what the art really has to offer the philosopher Susan Sontag says we should stop trying to interpret art stop trying to get it and just experience it like duchamp's Fountain everybody says oh he's making a statement about the art world and Picasso's paintings everyone says oh he's asking the big questions like what if there was a really up looking woman but art isn't a statement or a question if it was the artist would just write it down art isn't philosophy with pictures it's art so turn off brain and tune in to the aesthetic experience I sometimes feel a little bit like that with my videos sometimes people comment and they're like can you just make a list of all your major points and read them out without all of the extra stuff and I'm like no sometimes art is supposed to be difficult to get for example I have another novel here what it feels like for a Girl by Paris Louise full disclosure Paris is one of my best friends but I liked her novel before we met it's about a kid called Byron who grows up on a council estate in the Midlands and has a really rough time and the whole thing is written in the dialect of that region if you're not from that specific Geographic and socio-economic place it is sometimes hard to interpret and that's a good thing because spoilers Byron is trans which is also never explained there's never a scene where like a doctor turns up and explains to the audience what trans people are and confirms that Byron is one the readers struggle to interpret the text parallels Byron's own struggle to just live free of the interpretations other people push on them the challenge to the reader is even if you don't 100 understand stand this person can you still feel for them so in a way if you 100 got it you'd almost be missing out interpretation is the Revenge of the intellect upon art even more it is the Revenge of the intellect upon the world to interpret is to impoverish to deplete the world in order to set up a shadow world of meanings real art has the capacity to make us nervous interpretation makes art manageable conformable I think we can really get to grips with this idea by looking at the work of modern American playwright David Mamet who is a little bit of a problematic fave of mine in 2009 Mamet wrote a play called race the story is content warning a wealthy white man has been accused of raping a young black woman the whole thing is set in the offices of his defense lawyers as they try to invent some way of getting him off the hook the witnesses say that they heard sex noises and racial slurs being shouted so the defense they concoct is that she was into that the whole thing was actually consensual and she's just lying to get his money the slimiest possible thing but as the play goes on it starts to emerge that maybe that really is what's happening maybe there really is some kind of Reverse Racism reverse me too thing happening here and Mamet loves to write these kinds of stories he did another play called oleana which is about a female student who falsely accuses her professor of sexually assaulting her but then he really does he loves to write these Tim Pooh last thought experiments if you tried to take race and translate it into a political statement the statement that you get would probably be a little bit incoherent and I'm not just saying that because I personally disagree with mamet's politics in his book theater he occasionally talks about his political views and it contradicts itself from chapter to chapter the stuff about theater is really interesting the stuff about politics kind of reads a little bit like discount Jordan Peterson and fair enough man's a playwright not a political scientist but I saw race on Broadway in 2010 it was Electric the performance was so good that when I came out of the theater I was like that's it I have to be an actress and years later I did a monologue from race at my drama school auditions and I got in Mammoth says that if you are writing a play creating a work of art for the stage forget about politics forget about interpretations and meaning and getting it and all of that is it entertaining do the audience want to know what happens next if you're sitting in front of a work of art and you're trying to get it then you're a fool the play the story that's the thing that we're here for as somebody who's just finished writing a play and is going to be in it soon there have been times where I've found that to be really useful advice In fairness I'm white so when I watch race I can turn off the bit of my brain that worries about the politics stuff maybe someday David Mamet will write a play about trans people and I won't have the luxury of being entertained anymore but for now let's take this idea and run with it forget about trying to interpret the art just how do you feel when I look at rothko I feel uh big uh it's black it's maroon it's red it's uh I feel humbled I feel in all I feel sad you know that feeling where something bad happens but you kind of knew it was going to like when somebody tells you they don't love you anymore and you kind of saw it coming or you're at a funeral and the person's died but they've been ill for a really long time and it's like well it's sad but at least it's done now that's kind of how rothko makes me feel or at least that is part of it but there might be a bit of a problem here truth be told whenever I'm in an art gallery I always feel low-key anxious because I used to date an art historian and we would sometimes go to galleries together we're talking ancient history now says years and years ago but that relationship ended pretty badly for reasons that were my fault so now whenever I'm in an art gallery I'm always like what if she's here my point is people feel all sorts of things when they look at Art sometimes I look at rothko and I feel anxious about my ex sometimes I look at rothko and I feel like suddenly I have to pee so which feelings are the right ones even if I'm just focusing on my emotional reactions how do I know that I've got it we can probably narrow it down a little bit like we could say that your feelings should be caused by the particular artwork you're looking at yes I might look at rothko and feel anxious about my ex but that's not caused by rothko any painting in any Gallery would do that I might look at it and feel that I have to pee but again that's not caused by the rothko that's just coincidence but even then that might not be enough whenever I look at the Seagram murals I think about Spider-Man 2. the story of how rothko made them was adapted into a play called red which starred Alfred Molina who played Doctor Octopus in Spider-Man 2. I really liked Alfred Molina's performance in Red so now whenever I look at those particular paintings there's a part of me that feels happy because I'm like oh yeah Alfred Molina there's a huge amount of input and a whole new Vibe really my feelings are caused by that specific painting and they don't seem relevant to its meaning but then we are right back where we started it really seems like the artwork has a correct meaning that determines whether or not I get it and you might be like well okay but what did rothko feel he probably wasn't feeling anything to do with Alfred Molina or my ex-girlfriend probably but the despair the sadness that trappedness yeah maybe I mean he did say that he felt those things when he wrote about the paintings so maybe that's it maybe if I stand in front of them and I feel the same thing that the artist felt when he made it that means I've got it but hang on a minute we've already tried this remember a minute ago we learned about how the artist's intention can be a tricky concept because intentions change over time and the artists themselves might be just another interpretation how do I know I'm not doing the same thing with rothko's feelings in pale fire John shade obviously felt a lot of things but how do we know whether or not Charles picked up on the right ones in my play there are like nine characters some of whom feel things that I've never felt in real life so what is the audience supposed to feel I am Pablo Picasso's paintings how do you feel about me here's an idea who gives us I am Salvatore Mundy by Leonardo the big dog Da Vinci in 2017 I was bought by Saudi Arabian ruler Mohammed bin Salman for 450 million 312 500 which makes me oh my gosh I guess that makes me the most valuable painting in the world who cares what art means or what it's about or how people feel not the art world that's for sure Salvatore Mundi is a portrait of Jesus a man who famously did not have a high opinion of rich people but that didn't matter because art is what economists call an asset or in poor people language it's a way to avoid paying taxes let me give you some advice okay this is now Salvatore business influence the tips buy cheap paintings and when I say cheap I mean like rich people cheap like 25 000 there's nothing take those cheap paintings to an appraiser one that you trust and say hey Jimmy how much would you say this painting is worth and Jimmy goes oh I don't know maybe a million dollars and then what you do is donate that work of art to a charitable Foundation preferably one that you control oh but Southie I hear you say why am I giving it away why am I not selling it well because as far as the tax collectors are concerned you just donated a million dollars to charity my friend you're practically a saint so use it for clout and more importantly it's a tax write-off or try it this way around let's say you already own a painting and it's very valuable like me but not me obviously you couldn't afford me I'm Jesus Christ Superstar take that valuable painting to your appraiser and say hey Jimmy how much would you say this one is worth and Jimmy says oh I don't know not much I reckon then what you do is you die the method is up to you there but when you go donate that valuable painting to your spoiled rich kids to Ferdinand and Jemima and amancio they then sell it and oh wouldn't you know it's actually worth loads of money now but by that point they've already avoided inheritance tax boom you can look down proudly from heaven where rich people definitely go the Art Market is pretty unregulated pretty opaque and very concentrated and if you have the millions it takes to buy in there are millions of ways you can stack the deck whilst the plebs are standing in front of the work trying to figure out what it means you already know what it means it means you never have to work again huge five except well it's hard to be completely cynical even in the ritziest of ritzy art circles people do still talk about the meaning in the early noughties a new art movement developed that came to be known as zombie formalism pretty quickly people started to suspect that zombie formalism was just trying to make a quick buck a lot of the paintings themselves were pretty visually neutral so you could hang them in a CEO's office or a fancy Lobby and they take up space without pulling too much Focus some of them pushed boundaries but in ways that didn't always seem significant like oh it's the first painting ever to be done with a fire extinguisher great and a lot of them got flipped bought cheap first time round sold very expensive on the secondary Market these examples are the seven rain paintings by Lucian Smith one of the most prominent zombie formalists and they made him very rich when they were exhibited in La they were accompanied by this description Smith's work acts as a tangible moment a Chronicle of exploration as he negotiates with existence he reminds us that an artist's trajectory is a Sons what I I don't even remember what that said those words just slid off my brain that that was pure and yeah a lot of philosophers and art critics actually said that at the time or words to that effect interestingly Lucy and Smith himself has since come forward and kind of admitted it the model that was set for me when I was younger it wasn't a healthy model it was about sucking up to collectors and trying to sell for the highest prices that stuff isn't real that's not art according to his website Smith is now living in New York making nfts for a company called lobus which I mean if somebody had accused me of making worthless art just so that it could be sold to fools to make a lot of money I I probably wouldn't get into crypto man but even at its most cynical people still had to act like the art had meaning part of the process of building hype around a new artist is convincing people that their work has something interesting to say and zombie formalism didn't last in part because audiences and critics saw through it other Trends took its place including a trend for what you might call woke art or art with social and political meaning yes it's a financial asset but people still want to stand in front of a painting and feel like they get it and I still do with rothko [Music] It's tricky because there is kind of a cultural pressure with art especially Modern Art to act like you get it and I know that there are some people who respond to that pressure by just denying that Modern Art can have meaning they're like oh nobody really gets it nobody really likes it they just pretend to and that's always seemed kind of cynical to me but at the same time I do feel that pressure like I I feel like I should have opinions about Mark rothko I should be that kind of cultured person but I guess if that's how I'm approaching it then I'm not really engaging with the art I'm just worried about the kind of person that I feel I should be like oh what if I get invited to a party and I say the wrong thing about Mount rothko and I make a fool with myself but that's a silly way to approach it because even if I got everything there was to get about rothko there's thousands of other artists here that would confront me with that same anxiety if you come to Art looking for a stick to beat yourself with then you're probably going to find it so maybe we should ask a different question which is what is the point trying to get it when I was a child we studied Macbeth in English class if you don't know it it's about a guy who murders the king and steals the throne and there's a running theme in the play about clothing people say that Macbeth is wearing somebody else's clothes as a metaphor for him stealing the crown they say that his new title doesn't fit him it hangs loose about him like a Giant's robe upon a dwarfish thief Macbeth is all about the drip and I being a little wise ass put up my hand and said Miss did Shakespeare really intend to put that in there and there's two ways of asking that question the first is did the actual man William Shakespeare actually sit down in 1606 and have the thought I am going to use a clothing metaphor in my new play and then I'm going to send a bunch of flirty sonnets to someone and make them wonder whether I'm bisexual [Music] there's no way we can know whether he thought that without a time machine and a mind reader but the second way of asking the question is do we get more out of the play if we assume that the clothing metaphor is intended do we enjoy it more does it prompt us to some interesting Reflections if we assume that we are meant to notice it if we just go nah that's just a coincidence uh don't worry about it then are we missing out the philosopher Alan Goldman says that the point of interpreting art is to maximize its artistic value now what exactly is Artistic value well maybe that's another story for another time but his point is that getting it is not a competition it's not about being right but then how do we know that Charles is wrong about pale fire because if he's right then the poem isn't good John shade leaves behind this amazing work he writes about being an old man at the end of his life and what it was like to lose his daughter and it's really really moving if we assume as Charles does that oh that stuff doesn't matter it's really all about him well then it's kind of a waste that's what makes Charles a tragic character he's so lost in his own mess that he can't see the true value of what John has made as for me and rothko I can try to put together all the different ideas that we've looked at today I can bear in mind what Susan Sontag said about not intellectualizing things too much I can remember that the process by which art gets exhibited is often a financial thing rather than an Arbiter of its meaning so I don't have to feel pressured by that and I can also try to think about what rothko himself might have intended or felt not so I can reconstruct his brain but so I can see whether I can also feel those things I'm looking for new experiences when I go to his art I'm trying to grow and develop as a person rather than trying to get it as I've been writing my play I've had to deal with a lot of these questions and be in the room with actors as they try to interpret the characters that I have written by the time you're watching this rehearsals will already have started I know that a lot of you already have tickets and I cannot wait to share the prince with you I am so so excited it is a dream come true to be able to make art and I I just wanted to say thank you to all of you basically because without philosophytube I'd never have been able to do this and I also wanted to make sure that even if you can't come to London and see it live you can still experience it so there's a streaming service called nebula where you'll be able to watch a professional recording of the play unlike YouTube nebula doesn't have ads or algorithms or demonetization it's owned by the creators who work on it like me so it's a place where we can put the experimental unusual stuff that wouldn't work here on YouTube like my play and also like the behind the scenes documentary that the philosophy tube crew made last year about how this show comes together fans of philosophytube can get a special deal on nebula if you sign up to curiositystream using my special link curiositystream.com philosophytube you get nebula as well so for 15 a year not a month 15 a year you get everything on nebula and everything on curiosity stream including this little documentary about what happened to Picasso's estate after he died it's a fascinating little insight into the finances of the art World considering that you can get both nebula and curiosity stream for a year for like less than what Netflix costs a month I think that's a pretty sweet deal and you'll also be helping me bring my dream to life on a professional London stage so go to curiositystream.com philosophytube and sign up for the bundle today and I will see you very very soon at the theater [Music] seems what is green is always more than the yard away art is a mean meditation staring at a blank screen in between what we mean and the things we say [Music] I [Music] throw away to create complicate it's the same damn thing once it's made I'm too good to appreciate [Music] people listening [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] too many sides to story all these colors and shapes I'm afraid if I love that you won't agree [Music] eyes to give yourself to it all these work work is love reminding us [Music] [Music] I put a little piece of myself [Music] huge five

Channel: Philosophy Tube

Views: 1,246,560

Keywords: Art, Artist, Philosophy, Education, Rothko, Interpretation, Modern Art, Abstract Art, Duchamp, Art History, Picasso, David Mamet, theatre

Id: T6EOVCYx7mY

Length: 37min 55sec (2275 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 19 2022