Monday 28 December 2015

What Is Art?



A couple of days before Christmas, we stayed in London for a few days, as we had tickets to see a performance of Handel's 'Messiah' at the Royal Albert Hall. Apart from this breathtaking performance involving The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, a choir of 560 voices, and four soloists, we spent the days roaming the city, walking, talking and laughing most of the time. Most of the time we just see where our footsteps take us, but for a while now I had been wanting to see an installation at the Tate Modern by Abraham Cruzvillegas entitled 'Empty Lot'


Suspended on a huge framework of scaffolding, the artist has constructed triangular beds, and filled them with soil taken from different parts of London. Nothing has been planted in them, with the plan being that whatever is already in the soil will germinate, such as weeds etc, and the public are encouraged  to scatter their own seeds however they may choose (though I only found this out by researching the artist himself) .

The only problem in my mind is that the whole installation lacks a gardener to at least water what is there correctly. There were clear signs that watering is carried out, but the evidence points to someone simply holding an open ended hosepipe or similar and flooding any new seedlings into oblivion. Someone had also cast an apple into the display.....radical.

While I can understand his concept behind the work, I felt that perhaps it hadn't been seen to completion well enough to meet the initial idea.

Now, back to the title of this post. As I stood with Amanda on the walkway that divides this work into two halves, she asked me what I thought. Maybe a big mistake. As a gardener, I wanted to see each bed planted with either different and well growing crops from around the world (to make some sort of 'arty diversity' statement, or have them all planted with a uniform crop such as chives (maybe a statement about how the worlds crop diversity is disappearing?). The two ideas would certainly be more pleasing to the eye, and thus leave one walking away with a certain spring in their step, rather than feeling disappointed, sad (at the desolation that it portrayed to me) and maybe even angry (at the possible mistake of not getting someone with at least an idea of gardening to water correctly).

Amanda then suggested that maybe the whole idea was to just let it be shown as it is, and maybe even the bad watering was intended. Dilemma!......we had a 'What is art' conversation coming up once again, which continued throughout the day, and still continues now. 

What do you think defines whether something is art or not? Please do say whatever you feel, as we need something else to help our discussion. 


11 comments:

  1. What is Art? Well, I suppose it isn't gardening. It could involve gardening, or could be garden design. Art has no practical use. Have you considered writing to Abraham, and asking if he'd be interested in collaboration? I wonder what will become of the apple; was it a biblical reference maybe?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks Cro. The gardening theme is interesting, as during our discussion a live indoor plant display at the perfume outlet Jo Malone became part of the discussion. Later on it was the ornate cakes at a patisserie. I think the apple was just thrown in the hope of it seeding.....or maybe not eh?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The lovely Amanda looks like a work of art to me!

      Delete
    2. You smoothie. We are in the pub at the moment, and that brought a great big smile from her.

      Delete
  3. What is art? Good question, and one we really asked ourselves when we were in Europe back in the early 70's. I think it was the Guggenheim Museum we were visiting or another Modern Art Museum, and one artistic endeavor was a pile of rotting potatoes. There were other things that were questionable in our minds too. :-)
    But, hey, we don't know what the artists had in their minds.

    Something that might turn us off, will turn others on, or they 'get it' whereas we didn't.

    I would have been disappointed in the piece you saw too, a huge let down. Maybe you'll be able to go back and see it in the spring to see how the garden beds have filled out or not.

    Enjoy the rest of 2015 and have a wonderful 2016.

    FlowerLady

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It never ceases to amaze me just what people will take a seat for whilst they mull over the finer points of a piece of art Lorraine. The rotten potatoes you describe,or Lynda Benglis, 'Quartered Meteor'. It's true what you say about some thing's turning people on or off.

      Delete
  4. This would be accidental art for sure but the structure of sure is a great creation. People tend to throw art into a narrow category of what can be hung on the wall. Sculptural forms can be wonderful art pieces. The landscapers will be doing copies of this thing unless he really is copying someone else. I enjoyed seeing it and its concept.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's funny you should mention landscapers Larry,as we have toyed with the idea of replicating the planters on our allotment. Can art be patented I wonder?

      Delete
  5. The Messiah must have been wonderful. We tried to go to a Rigoletto here but the only tickets left were 100 euros each, a bit too pricey for us.

    ReplyDelete
  6. It was a breathtaking performance Alain, and when all stood for the Hallelujah Chorus, well, very emotional. It seems that prices are going up and up to see the performing arts, and I can only hope that it doesn't become totally elitist. Thanks for dropping by.

    ReplyDelete