capital “a” art isn’t so much concerned with evoking emotion as it is about the philosophy of aesthetics and the relationship of the contrived image and object to the world it inhabits.

eh on April 29, 2009 at 1:23 AM

Spoken like a true art critic.

Wanna know the best way to ensure that your piece will be quickly irrelevant? Make it overtly, purposefully political (or religious). It dates your work, and frankly, it’s cheap. Overtly political art is usually low art, IMO.

Art that touches on politics or is inspired by politics is another thing altogether. It’s the same thing with faith. It’s why there are so very many, MANY terrible “Christian Rock Bands.” The impulse of the faith community to require their children to listen to nothing but “Approved Bible Book Store Christian Music” is complicit in this, but it’s embarrassing to all of us. This does not mean that Christians are incapable of producing good rock (whatever some of the magazine columnists seem to think). The hardcore scene owes a lot to the band Zao and black metal enthusiasts will have a hard time denying the talents of Extol (Undeceived is an amazing album). But they’re not a “band as an outreach to our youth” – they’re creative Christians that are comfortable in their faith and draw inspiration from it as well as other sources.

Don’t set out to make religious or political art. Just make art and let whatever flows out of you be what it needs to be. Your work will, unerringly, reflect a part of you. If you’re a conservative chances are it will reflect that, though the effect may be extremely subtle. Which, frankly, is a good thing. People are best persuaded of truth when they’re just enjoying themselves and exploring things on their own.

Nobody likes being preached at except for the converted. Doing that may earn you accolades and backpats in your own echo chamber, but it’s rather hollow and meaningless elsewhere.

Modern art has no room for subtle ideas, it is all about hitting the viewer full strength in the face and getting the shock value of the encounter. It isn’t art your bring home and make part of your life, it is art you encounter once and then turn from. At the core of this is an educational system that doesn’t teach children to think for themselves, media that exists in tiny sound bites and a populace with an average attention span shorter than most insects.

I suppose I need to actually read the article now, because the above might be rather non sequitur.

But she also hates to share her toys (take that, socialism!)

I think stinginess is a socialist trait. The goal is for everyone to have the same crappy toys, not to share them.

eh

most art is made by artists completely indifferent to ideology, but then becomes infused with ideology through the language of critique they have to justify their own creative decisions in.

I would agree in many cases. Many artists do conceive of BS ideology while creating their works only to realize that there is no way anyone could read those things in the work, due to the work’s obtuse or abstract nature. This is why the “mission statement” or “artist statement” is so important to contemporary art-world darlings. These people should be writers, not visual artists. It would be like Herman Melville having to paint an explanation of Moby Dick in order for you to “get it.” As free-spirited as artists claim to be, they bind themselves intellectually and crush their own skills by desiring so strongly to please their critics, instead of pleasing their audiences.

Modern architecture is a good example of that, as shown clearly by Tom Wolfe in “From Bauhaus to Your House.”

I’ve found that most contemporary artists are collectivist authoritarians at heart. And yes, liberals, I suppose, in the modern sense of the word.

He sounds a lot like I did when I was 22 going on 59. It’s just another incarnation of “I don’t like playing with these other kids so I’m going and start my own club somewhere else and you guys can’t join.”.

You can’t lament social engineering on one hand and propose your flavor of social engineering as a solution. Reviews and awards are not there to encourage an anti-state POV; they’re promotional tools to make money.

The idea that an alternative entertainment universe is neccessary where conservative-sanctioned reviews and awards (overseen by whom, exactly?) are produced to encourage the production of conservative-sanctioned art just betrays your own motivations as an artist.

I happen to think we’d be better off with less recognition, less promotion, less box office gross receipts reporting, less fetishizing and glamourizing of individuals and process in the entertainment industry, less self-congratulatory and self-serving awards shows, less superficial politicizing of entertainment.

sanguine4 on April 29, 2009 at 6:45 AM

+1,000,000,000,000,000

Molding culture into a conservative mirror would amount to social engineering. Christian social engineering, to ends that may be more desirable than our current culture…but engineering nonetheless.

You can’t lament social engineering on one hand and propose your flavor of social engineering as a solution. Reviews and awards are not there to encourage an anti-state POV; they’re promotional tools to make money.

The idea that an alternative entertainment universe is neccessary where conservative-sanctioned reviews and awards (overseen by whom, exactly?) are produced to encourage the production of conservative-sanctioned art just betrays your own motivations as an artist.

I happen to think we’d be better off with less recognition, less promotion, less box office gross receipts reporting, less fetishizing and glamourizing of individuals and process in the entertainment industry, less self-congratulatory and self-serving awards shows, less superficial politicizing of entertainment.

It seems to me that the point of art is that it is what it is. Art Criticism is typically cryptic, self-important prose intended to justify the writer. I wonder if they write generic columns and insert the name of whoever.

Artists are actually children, still living in kindergarten.

You can’t stand infront of Michelangelo’s Pieta and not ‘feel’ the piece. This Texan will admit to tears and the power of the sculpture left me in awe of the artist and the message. You could hardly classify Michelangelo as a conservative of his day. Sad, we find ourselves 500 years more ‘evolved’ and appreciate Elvis on felt.

Limerick on April 28, 2009 at 11:32 PM

capital “a” art isn’t so much concerned with evoking emotion as it is about the philosophy of aesthetics and the relationship of the contrived image and object to the world it inhabits.

part of what alienates conservatives and most ordinary people from art is that the intellectual discipline behind it has diverged so far from the work itself that the image or object is practically incidental to itself. this is where we get the apocryphal “pile of rusty pipes” story, in which renovation debris in a museum is mistaken for art.

conservatives can acknowledge this as a problem to be solved in art – it would be rather rebellious to attempt to sew intent and content back onto the object displayed at this point – but it has to be done forthrightly. a “conservative art” must develop at the front door, through the parlor and finally back in the kitchen. further, the problem and that remedy would have to be meaningfully established.

you can’t, for instance, set up a “conservative artist guild” and expect anything to come of it. what you end up with is abominations like the half-hour news hour, which failed because it tried to create a topical comedy show despite the discipline of comedy. surnow hired some tv writers to come up with “conservative” jokes, hired non-comedy (and non-conservative) actors to deliver them. the result had the same level of authenticity as a potemkin villiage and was unfunny.

conservative think-tanker and columnist, julia gorin, makes a more sincere, individual effort, and similarly fails, because the craft of comedy is subordinate to ideology.

as much as conservatives would like to think so, liberal artists, comedians, writers, actors, etc. are not in those disciplines because they are liberals. at least not intentionally. the daily show is a comedy show first, made by people who are comedic performers and writers first, and liberals only incidentally.

so it must also be for some vision of “conservative art” to manifest itself.

That’s how to battle the awards, etc. Learn the agenda and do the opposite.

The artists~ of all genres~ will tire of upholding the sacrosanct liberal icons of the culture, from Global Warming to “torture” memos, and will strike back.

You cannot rebel against the minority.

profitsbeard on April 28, 2009 at 10:16 PM

nope.

progressives type “revolution” exclusively for the left. “revolution” is defined by them as overturning only “reactionary” paradigms, and so “revolution” moves in only one direction regardless of who the empowered elite is.

superficially, you are correct; progressive tropes and icons become universally tiresome. consider sally struthers, for example. the fall back is never onto conservatism, though. it is always to a more “sincere” or “authentic” progressiveism.

you will see in the coming years that when progressives take the reigns of power, they see no discontinuity in “rebelling” against disempowered opponents, continuing the siege against meek and isolated voices of opposition, because their goal is eliminationism.

they will often dissemble – for instance, the lie that the tea parties are “astroturf” directed by powerful elites – to justify their position as a goliath stomping a david. but this is not necessary. as organizations and icons of the opposition are defeated, there remains for the progressive a panoply of tokens (racism, greed, fear, etc.)the remnants can be consolidated under by which they can continue to justify their continued stomping on the dispersed and disempowered opposition.

The artists~ of all genres~ will tire of upholding the sacrosanct liberal icons of the culture, from Global Warming to “torture” memos, and will strike back.

You cannot rebel against the minority.

profitsbeard on April 28, 2009 at 10:16 PM

+1

He may be an outlier, but my 15-year-old is in a punk rock band and their most popular song is “Stop Shoving Obama In My Face,” which he wrote. He is as rebellious as they come and he hates socialism and fascism — and he will be a voter in 2012.

most art is made by artists completely indifferent to ideology, but then becomes infused with ideology through the language of critique they have to justify their own creative decisions in.

Slublog you should email me, we should continue the conversation some other time.

C.S. Lewis who said something along the lines of ‘what we need are not more Christian writers, but good writers who are Christian.’

I like CS Lewis. Read many of his books. Totally agree with this statement.
I think there some in the church who think that unless all of their art (music, paintings, writings, etc) are overtly Christian they have sold out.
CS Lewis said something else that I have always remembered. There are never any “new” truths. The trick is to remember the old ones. We have to be reminded of things more often than be introduced to new things. that is actually what good art should do. One of the things, anyway. Remind us of what is real. What is important.

the best/worst movies lists you ran a while back were a display case of the conservative grassroots’ inability to read the ideological content of art.

i resisted the notion that conservatism and artistic innovation are incompatible for the first thirty years of my life. but i’ve been there, and i have to say: there’s no “blacklist” of conservative artists, there just are no conservative artists.

conservatives regard art as either big city pointy-headed stuff homos do instead of watching sports or something which happened 200 years ago.

who are the “blacklist”? game show hosts and guys who wrote one produced script. idle rich matrons who sculpt greek deities in connnecticut.

klaven, though he may be good at this, writes detective novels. nothing wrong with that, of course, but it’s hardly an exploration into edgy, unsafe new literary territory.

This truth has a double meaning today… which will make the majority of pompous p.c.-pimps seem boorish and tame and prissy, and in need of mockery.

The artists~ of all genres~ will tire of upholding the sacrosanct liberal icons of the culture, from Global Warming to “torture” memos, and will strike back.

You cannot rebel against the minority.

……… just kidding, I just had to write it. Excellent post.

I’ve personally thought about creating a conservative movie studio, complete with sets and the like. But myself being Jewish I’d like to see less “Christian” and more “Conservative values” programs. Shows that celebrate america, capitalism, freedom, etc more then religious movies. Those I think sell and appeal to a big audience.

But again I think we might be thinking too much in big picture terms. Maimodidies said that a fool looks at the torah and says “How can anyone learn all this?” but a wise man says “I’ll learn two laws today and tomorrow and on until I’ve learnt it all”.

It takes a few people in a few areas but a culture can be built

Something else to consider is the fact that art is sometimes seen as antithetical to capitalism and commercialism. Capitalism rewards productivity and talent, while socialism supports artists regardless of success. Perhaps if it’s framed that way it becomes clear that a culture of government largess is the friend of the less talented.

I love entertainment and it’s a shame that in that industry conservatives sometimes have to hide their beliefs for fear of losing one’s income. Big Hollywood is a great first step in breaking the left’s control of the public face of the entertainment industry. When being conservative in Hollywood is acceptable, we will see a change in national politics.