
The impact of German Romantics on the artist - lermontov
http://thesmartset.com/originality-versus-the-arts/
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mccoyspace
Connecting the emergence of Modern art to developments in Capitalism is hardly
novel in the field of art history. Here is a very mainstream art history book
that develops this thesis in detail [1]. Here is MoMA explicitly linking the
developments in Modernism to changing economic and technological conditions
[2]. And that's before you talk to anyone working from the tradition of
Marxism [3]. It's an undergrad art history 101 observation.

Also, he's off on his origin story. German Romanticism was an elaboration on
Kant's theory of the sublime, developed in 1790 in The Critique of Judgement.
So the theoretical groundwork happened at least a generation earlier.

But my bigger question for him: Is global capitalism fundamentally changing
such that something that appears to look like artistic practices from 400
years ago will return? Is capitalism over? Or are we entering some new
atavistic phase? and if so, why?

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Modern-Art-1851-1929-Capitalism-
Repre...](https://www.amazon.com/Modern-Art-1851-1929-Capitalism-
Representation/dp/019284220X) [2]
[https://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/themes/what-is-
mode...](https://www.moma.org/learn/moma_learning/themes/what-is-modern-art)
[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernism,_or,_the_Cultura...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernism,_or,_the_Cultural_Logic_of_Late_Capitalism)

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GFK_of_xmaspast
> What about subject matter? Suppose I, the greatest creative genius in the
> Branson country music field, decide to widen the subject matter of country
> music. So I write a song about an interplanetary space probe....

Meanwhile, checking the historical record, we have:

[http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2008/07/moon-music-
coun.html](http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2008/07/moon-music-coun.html)

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edgarvaldes
I am not familiar with the history of art, so I wonder what is the first
recorded occurrence of "this is not art because it breaks the very definition
of arts"

~~~
jzymbaluk
If I had to guess, I'd have to say that the first artist and the first person
to proclaim "this is not art!" lived at the same time and probably knew each
other.

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mturmon
This essay needs some focus. The author is a prolific writer and a founder of
a centrist DC think tank, but he's over-extending himself here. In one
paragraph he is critiquing formally-innovative avant-garde artists who stay
within conventional artistic work practices (the "Tripod" series by his former
professor), and in the next he is giving the same treatment to the makers of
corporate lobby art.

These are really different constituents of contemporary art. They are targeted
at two different audiences: lobby pass-thrus, vs. art-world critics and
gallery-goers. Pushing them together suggests that the author does not have
much contact with contemporary artists or the art world now.

To be more specific, there are contemporary artists (say, Chris Burden,
[https://www.artsy.net/article/editorial-chris-burdens-big-
wh...](https://www.artsy.net/article/editorial-chris-burdens-big-wheel-
beautiful-and-simultaneously)) who have deliberately moved outside sculptural
conventions, but it's nothing to do with corporatism, or being blandly
acceptable to everyone. (It might have to do with Romanticism, but make the
case!) Yet, many of Burden's works are _revered_ in the art community.

And obviously there are lots of contemporary artists who make work so
provocative it can't easily be shown, certainly not in most hotel lobbies. (A
blue-chip example would be Paul McCarthy,
[http://www.hauserwirth.com/artists/20/paul-
mccarthy/images-c...](http://www.hauserwirth.com/artists/20/paul-
mccarthy/images-clips/10/) \-- worth the click.)

Finally, even more challenging for the article, is someone like Jeff Koons,
who manages to combine crowd-pleasing qualities with genuinely innovative
objects. Koons, his clients, his work practices, and the critics who like
(some of) his work pose an interesting challenge for the piece.

~~~
edblarney
" They are targeted at two different audiences: lobby pass-thrus, vs. art-
world critics and gallery-goers."

I'd consider that they are one and the same.

Artists makes 'art' \- has a showing, some critics like it, and then he's
commissioned to do some installation for a bank which they put in the lobby.

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contextfree
_" Suppose I declare that I, the greatest genius in Branson, Missouri, am an
Experimental Country Music Singer. I am widening the bounds of country music
by questioning whether it has to be played with twangy guitars and other
familiar instruments. Can a song to the accompaniment of a tuba and a kazoo
still be country music? I, the avant-garde romantic original genius of
Branson, say yes!

What about subject matter? Suppose I, the greatest creative genius in the
Branson country music field, decide to widen the subject matter of country
music. So I write a song about an interplanetary space probe, to be sung to
the accompaniment of one tuba and one kazoo."_

I really don't think it would be too hard to write a song that fits this
description and would nonetheless be easily recognizable to most people as
country music.

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zaaakk
great, another lesswrong/rationalist asshat dumping on a humanities subject
with brazen ignorance. blogposts like this should be used as toilet paper

