"High Culture v Low Culture" Lecture Notes
Richard Miles
Definitions of "Avant-Garde"
- French meaning 'The Advancing Guard' or 'VanGuard'
- The 'Elite' who drive us forward and pave the way for the rest to
follow
- Idea of doing quality art/design that is progressive/challanging/innovating
- Also, refers to a group of people being innovative
Term refers to artists who are shocking (Rebellion, Challange, Experimenting, Innovative)
- Marcel Duchamp "Fountain
Leeds College of Art Course Prospectuses- Assumptions based on these qualities:
- Innovation
- Experimentation
- Originality
- Creative Genius
Why is it so important to be all of these qualities?
Post-Modernism suggests that there is no such things as originality anymore.
Before Institutionalisation, Old Art & Design Practise:
- Master & Apprentice- Copy thier work until you were good enough
- Slavishly learning a style and a technique
2 Different Aproaches at the end of the 19th Century/ Early 20th Century to Avant-Garde Art:
- Art that is socially committed
- Art that seems to only expand/ progress what art is
- Romantic Poets (eg. Chatterton- Ripped up poetry as no-one understood his creative genius)
- Myth of Creatives being Geniuses, Superior and Special who see those who don't
understand as philistines
- Tries to seperate Fine Art from the rest of the creative disaplines
- Placing yourself above everyone else
- Corbae- Revolutionary who depicted the peasentry earning a wage "The Broken Peasantry"
- Reminding people of the poverty that thier affluence has come from
"Art for Arts Sake"
- Whistler (1875) "Nocture in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket"
- Being Aesthetically Avant-Gared (Experimenting Aesthetic Interest)
- Critic Ruskin made a characature mocking this work and was took to Court
" I got paid 20 Guinies to show all the knowldge I've learned in a Lifetime"
- Whistlers comment to the Judge at the trial
Artists and Critics have made a lifestyle for themselves:
PRODUCTION- EXPLANATION OF WORK- REPRODUCTION BY OTHER ARTIST
"The Relation & Combination of Lines & Colours, which when organised give the power to move someone aestehtically"
- Critic Clive Bell on the notion of 'Significant Form'
This is a commonly used reoccuring defensive argument used by artists and critics
- Cezanne (1900) "Mount St.Victoire"
- Jackson Pollock (1950) "Lavander Mist"
- Stopped Conceptual work in Russia as no one understood it- Became Conservative
Major Problem is the Elitism
- So Left-Wing (Social Change) Members have a tendancy to rely on academics to get people to
understand thier work
What is Kitsch?
- Critic Clive Greenwood- 2 sides to art: Upmarket like Pollock and Kitsch (sold to mass market)
- Used the term Kitsch to distinguish betwen High & Low Culture
- Constable (1821) "Haywain" - Original is High End but if reproduced and on your wall then it is
Kitsch (eg. commemmorative plate, mug, print of the artwork)
- Jeff Koons (1988) "Michael Jackson and Bubbles the Monkey" - A Giant Life-sized replica of some
tacky object he found
- Playing with the idea of taste
- Thomas Kikade- Calls himself ' The Painter of Light' (Puts logo and strapline on his artworks)
- Sells to high-end celebrity clientel
- Sells prints and replica merchendise of his paintings on QVC shopping channel
Why try to teach us how to break bounderies and be different when we could learn to make popular style paintings so we become millionaires?
Public v Specialist Taste:
- Jack Betrians- Tate wouldn't give him a show because 'he isn't an artist' even though he is popular
- Tate would allow Carl Andre to exhibit "Equivalent VIII" sculpture even though it
was heavily criticised in the press
- Tracy Emin- Chosen for Turner Prize and was jumped on by other Fine Artists
- K- Foundation (1994) "K-Foundation Award"- Letting the public choose who was the worst artist in
that years Turner Prize
- Rachael Whiteread won both Turner Prize and worst
artist prize!
- Shows distinct difference between specialists and
public choice
- Damien Hirst- Comes up with the idea but doesn't do the work for himself
- Work done production line style by his artists
- Work bought as a status symbol
- Adbusters- Media speaks to people in an understandable way
- Avant-Garde Today
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