On 12/09/15 08:11, Chris Hogg wrote:
On Fri, 11 Sep 2015 22:11:19 +0100, Tim Streater
wrote:

In article , Chris Hogg
wrote:
(Tracy Emin is actually a very fine artist).

In your opinion (which I hasten to add is a perfectly valid opinion).

My criterion for initially filtering is: could I do that. If I can, and
since I am not, in my opinion, an artist, then it is not art. Thus, an
unmade bed is not art. A simple pencil drawing of someone's face, or of
a landscape, however, is. Simples.


Oddly enough Tracy's unmade bed brought back memories of squats and low
rent shared houses I have known, and brought a smile to my face. As a
symbol of a certain sort of lifestyle, I reckoned it made its point, and
that's probably what I would call 'art'...a symbol for a larger idea.

I would absolutely agree with you. An unmade bed is not art. I should
have qualified my comment about Tracy Emin. She is quite capable of
good traditional or conventional art, the sort that we both would
recognise as art. 'My bed', and much of her other 'conceptual' stuff
is/was something of an aberration, IMO.

When I knew Anthony Gormley, back in the day, he also was capable of
some superb drawing and painting. That he also needs to be radical and
fashionable and do massive 'installations' is a sad sign of the times
and the way art is funded not by rich patrons, but by faceless
bureaucrats and luvvies.


PS: Why has 'simple' become plural these days. I know it's widely
used, but why the change? I don't understand...

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