sex, art, and politics

lastbutnotleast:

My bad. I thought it was in written in Modern English back in the Middle Ages and then translated into Middle English … I know that very well. The fact is that’s not how people typically read it for the first time. My point is that people don’t need a background in medieval history to find tree-sex and poop jokes funny. As a statement of fact, people don’t expect you to learn middle english in order to read the Canterbury Tales in the first place.  I’m not seeing what it has to do with supporting the idea that ”In no other field are there people who want a product that requires no knowledge of the field whatsoever to enjoy.” Independant of any artist is in particular, I take exception to that original statement. How about this, is Jane Austen incomprehensible without knowledge of primogeniture? Better? Whether you think contemporary art is too complicated or not, that cross don’t fit. In other fields there are products that require no knowledge of the field whatsoever to enjoy. Pretty much all the fields. And lots of products.

If you’re not expected to learn middle english to read Canterbury Tales then you’re expecting somebody to translate it for you, yes? Think of art historical context and visual critique as translation of the work from proverbial Middle English to Modern English. If we spent as much time learning visual communication techniques as we do learning how to make marks on a page mean something people would have less of a problem with contemporary art. But because people think they should just be able to look at something and understand it, and if they can’t it’s the fault of the work, they think that contemporary art is meaningless.

Sports are way less entertaining if you don’t know the rules. Books are way less entertaining if you don’t know the vocabulary. Music is way less entertaining if you aren’t attuned to the scales (I’m less knowledgeable about this but doesn’t non-western music use different scales and is thus hard on western ears?)

Pride and Prejudice is probably much less entertaining for somebody who has no interest or experience with Anglophone culture. Film is less entertaining if the person isn’t acclimated to the style of cuts and cinematography. 

But because visual art is not textual (for the most part) people feel like they should be able to just GET IT and that’s not the way it works for other art forms.

Anyway. I’m done discussing this in public and this all came out way bitchier than I intended. You’re welcome to respond in my ask box and I’ll continue, though.