sex, art, and politics

lastbutnotleast:

sexartandpolitics:

lastbutnotleast:

[snip]

Depends on what you mean by knowledge and what you mean by enjoy. I have to know how to read in order to… you know, read. But I wouldn’t have to know medieval history enjoy the Canturbury Tales. It would enhance my enjoyment but is not needed. On music, I wouldn’t expect the majority of even classical or jazz fans to know how to harmonize a scale, though that can help. I mean, my art history degree helps me get the more “inside baseball”-type works, but even still, I find myself looking only long enough to get the joke and then moving on and often spending more time talking about pieces than interacting with them. So, is that successful work?

And I don’t need an art history education or a wall label to appreciate a Kehinde Wiley painting but it makes the work pop even more to know that he’s taking African-American men and positioning them in traditional European heroic portraits. I’m not sure what your point is other than maybe you should spend more time looking at the art you’re discussing.

I wasn’t particularly clear of my position in my original response. The above posting is a complaint about a non-problem. Contemporary visual art is as accessible as contemporary fiction and contemporary music. Art that falls completely flat if you have zero knowledge of its context is not successful (hence my hatred of Richard Tuttle, for example). But even high concept work like On Kawara’s date paintings pack a punch, without knowing the constraints he put on himself to make them, if you’re willing to look at them.

Also I’m pretty sure Canterbury Tales in all its middle english glory is a terrible example of an accessible work.

Very true! You weren’t clear originally.

I’ve seen that pic a few times today and had nothing to say about that. What I was reacting to was, “In no other field are there people who want a product that requires no knowledge of the field whatsoever to enjoy.” My first thought was, “all these muthas on tumblr play an instrument? Whuuuut!?” So I gave a few examples from other discplines that I think show that that’s not strictly true. Also, I’m pretty sure (by that, I mean absolutely sure) I didn’t bring up middle english, glorious or otherwise. Things are hard to understand when written in another language. That is some spot on stuff!

Granted, my subjective experiences when confronted with work I personally find to be more interesting in concept than visual execution is just that, subjective and doesn’t hold a whole bunch of value overall, but “look harder” is never bad advice in any aspect of life, so I’ll take it.

Canterbury Tales is written in Middle English.