Sunday, February 1, 2009

Your reality, my reality both reality

Like a couple months ago, this cat in the world of Facebook had made a comment about a painting that I at the time thought was wack as fuck. I still think it's wack to a certain degree, but I'm working on myself to be more open to others views. I kinda suck in that department.

Recap: Basically, this person had went into a museum and saw a particular piece done by Kehinde Wiley, posted it and said "I guess they're calling anything art now" in the caption. What Kehinde did in the particular painting was he took a Neo-Classical painting done by a famous artist (And I mean famous, like in the way that if you take an art histoy class you have a 90% chance to read about them in the class) and put black charaters in them. Basically saying, that we are just as important as these Kings, emperors, warriors, etc.. Now being an African-American artist, I saw the comment and became infuriated. I thought immediately about years of sitting through art history classes and not seeing any black artists. I thought about sitting through all those classes and seeing no black characters in the paintings. I thought about all the grafitti heads and other inner city artists having to struggle to even get into galleries. So I wasn't trying to hear ANY opposing views after I posted the vent blog. But then my homey dropped this gem on me.

A wise friend once told me that "at a certain point people believe themselves to be so intellectually above things that they find meaning in dumb shit." Art included. Art is quite subjective and the inherent beauty in the concept is that it means something different to everyone. Art to you, as an artist, means something different to the average joe. I think that any position on this subject should be prefaced with "in my opinion" because that's all it truly is at heart. Just like it's offensive to tell someone something they believe is art isn't, the same has to be true of the inverse. You can't tell me what doesn't appeal to me isn't art to me.... Art is always an individual experience and shouldn't be treated as anything else. All art doesn't take skill and we know that... Sometimes it's just about throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks... And i'm a wee bit creative myself so I understand.

So after that, I realized that some cats just arent going to see what you see. Not every one has that education. And even people with that education are not neccesarily going to agree with what you believe. That's life. That's how the world works. And I've come to realization, that unless the idea is dangerous, I gotta let some shit slide.
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I just realized that "dangerous" is a relative term...lol. Damn...uhhh yeah....HEY LOOK OVER THERE!!!

**Runs in other direction

5 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. I had a very enlightening comment, but it disappeared *pout* Anyway, your friend is right! lol

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  3. hahhahahaaha you are a funny guy but I agree...there are some things that really aren't right or wrong...it really is based on a viewpoint and that's about it...good realization buddy!

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  4. yeah art is pretty much subjective
    "I don`t listen to what art critics say. I don`t know anybody who needs a critic to find out what art is."--Basquiat
    like when i find someone who's emcee roster is repulsive to me...i just note that i won't be asking them to put me on to any music. same thing with art...if you can't find the beauty in a basquiat paiting...i'm probably not going to ask you too much about your preferences or discuss any type of art techniques with you.

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  5. I felt the same way in art history classes, so I feel you. I mean it's always good to check yourself, but I still agree with your first response.

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