Kirsty MacLauchlan: Week 4

Kirsty MacLauchlan: Week 4: This is not my final but a following idea from my development. As it is getting closer to the October break it is time to finalise...


Looking at a fellow class mate her life drawings are, really nice.  check em out :)...

My Critique Review...

Art is still very much alive

I am going to talk about article written by Camille Paglia, titled “How capitalism can save art”.  From the Wall Street Journal, dated Friday 5th of Oct 2012. This is from  a liberal  democrat point of view which the author clearly states.
The Author talks about how the visual arts are diminishing in a world dominated with design technology.  Artists cling onto shock factor ideas, with no depth.
Paglia has intended to make us aware of economic shifts of the past century and how this has disengaged students from learning practical trades.  She proposes a solution that artists evolve with business minded intentions.  Talking of design and how it has overshadowed the arts, with a world of commodity’s and shiny technology.
She then wraps this up with “Thus we live in a strange and contradictory culture”.  Stating that the younger generations are very materialistic minded rather than spiritually minded.

Paglia talks of how “industrial design has steadily gained on the fine arts and has now surpassed them in a cultural impact”.  This is very true all around us we are constantly “immersed in this hyper-technological environment”.  This is apparent of today’s world, at least the most part of it, where would humanity be without all of these objects?  We as a society very influenced in a methodological way.  Are we being diverted from our true intuitive energies?  Or are we evolving into a cyber human race?
“The spiritual Language even of major abstract artists like Piet Mondrian, Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothgo have been suppressed”.
 We have artists out there that have captured the media, through their use of art as a public diary and their shock arts.  Unfortunately these have overshadowed artist with much more talent.
“Unfortunately to many artists have lost touch with the general audience and have retreated to an airless echo chamber”.
 Yes most of a mainstream audience don’t understand what contemporary art is.  Isn't that what art is supposed to do?  What would be the point of it if art didn't make it’s viewers think?  Each individual person has a separate perception, thus an individual experience also.  “Its high time for the art world to admit that the advant-garde is dead”. From the days of pop art, when Paglia’s hero Andy Warhol incorporated commercialism into art, followed on minimalism and postmodernism.  With that there was the birth of the celebrity Artist, entrepreneur artist.
This is where art seems to lose it’s value at a glance but if you look into it more that is not the case at all.  As I said before the people out there with real talent are overshadowed by those that have latched on to fame and riches. As a result of all this in the  90’s a new movement was created, “Stuckism” This movement was derived by group of artist’s, who broke away from the mainstream art scene in Britain. This movement is about getting back the integrity of Art.

Paglia’s article is very informative and it gets the reader thinking about the impact of capitalism, whether it is a good one or not.  Although she could have looked at the bigger picture instead of just at her students and not the veiw out her window.  Her proposal that all artist become entrepreneurs may be good from a commercial point of view but not from an artistic point of view.  As at the end of the day the visual arts are not about materialism but more about spiritualism, if you look all around you can see that the Avant Garde is still very much alive.


Refs:05/10/2012,Paglia Camille, “How Capitalism Can Save Art”. Wall Street Journal
 <http://www.stuckism.com/info.html>
<http://www.stuckism.com/#HirstStole>