Understanding Art for Geeks 213
HeadMounted found a great little flickr collection of art for geeks where helpful designers have provided you with useful hints to help you better comprehend the confusing art world. Or not. Some of them are very clever.
peanut butter jelly time (Score:4, Interesting)
Art is subjective (Score:3, Interesting)
To someone in the art world, Giger [giger.com] may be seen as a genius but to someone like your average slashdot reader a mother board or the latest Linix kernel may be more of a piece of art than something Giger could ever produce.
Then again, IANAA and M.C. Escher is my favorite M.C...
Disappointed (Score:5, Interesting)
But I was hoping for more of something like "This work is important because it was the first use of x" where x is a technique that is then explained in mathematical detail. Or "this looks good because of the use of negative space which happens to be expressable as the function y".
Some say 'lame', but as a former Studio Art major- (Score:4, Interesting)
Kudos to the author of the series!
appreciation of art is similar to literature .. (Score:5, Interesting)
Another strand of the study revolves about the construction of a social canon (the 'great' works of genius and orginality) and how it reflects the social shifts in power. One way of understanding this is the common complaint amongst film afficiandos that the academy awards are a popularity contest and that, over and above the wonderful movies, Speilberg has been a brand and is a socio-economic construction.
In short, the appreciation of art is much more than aesthetics and more than meets the eye. In fact, it engages the intellect and a deep appreciation involves a broad understanding of the social historical context.
Re:Art is subjective (Score:3, Interesting)
The instantly recongnizable image of "The Thinker", with an annoying, screw-you, bugs-in-my-code hourglass icon in the upper-left corner is quite well done.
Re:Art is subjective (Score:3, Interesting)
Yet I love Lewis Carrol. The Alice stories are wonderful examples of art for geeks. Perhaps what I like is that everything can be taken at face value. The geeky jokes and math allusions are right there to be appreciated, no deep digging is needed. It's just a lot more fun than any work of great literature I've read.
In the same way, appreciating art for geeks, say Escher or Magritte isn't really going to help someone appreciate the Mona Lisa. An Escher or Magritte usually has a fairly obvious gag. The Mona Lisa is just a painting of some chick, I just don't see the big deal.
Quick guide (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Disappointed (Score:2, Interesting)
Some of my favorite artists (Score:5, Interesting)
1. Brian Dettmer [wikipedia.org]: Dettmer reshapes and reforms older media like old textbooks, technical manuals, cassette tapes, and dictionaries, to make really fascinating derivative works. My favorites are his carved books, many of which are viewable here [centripetalnotion.com].
2. Jason Salavon [wikipedia.org]: Salavon uses software to make art out of preexisting information, with some diverse and surprising work. His work is all displayed on his website [salavon.com].
3. Ai Kijima [wikipedia.org]: Kijima recycles original bed sheets, table cloths, kimonos, and other fabrics to make colorful quilted collages, many of which use pop culture icons. Her work is viewable on her website [aikijima.com].
Enjoy.