Objectivity vs. Subjectivity in Music, Movies, etc

[Stadler]

I get tired of the objectivity argument. It often just feels like people have a need to validate their opinions and feel like they're right, instead of just accepting and respecting differing tastes as having equal value.

I am fully with you except for the equal value. If someone compares the song Blurred Lines, vs. Fur Elise or something else of the sort, many would say the later is objectively better, more artistic or whatever else.

I would say contrasting views are not fully equal, as someone with a background in knowing the structure of songs, changes and so on would have a more informed opinion. But yes, people need to accept various tastes. Instead of asking "what do you get out of Blurred Lines," often the 'objective person' would probably cite their knowledge and become arrogant about the prestige of their art music pieces vs. the latest popular song.

And more than a few who like Blurred Lines probably don't give a damn about the components of Fur Elise. 

See, I disagree with this strenuously.   Tastes ARE equal.  There is no correlation between "education/knowledge" and "what I like".  All you're doing here is arbitrarily (and without telling anyone) assigning an objective measure to something and assuming we're all going to take it as fact.    The other problem here is that you are only using two data points.  if you say that "Fur Elise" is "of higher taste" than Blurred Lines", for whatever reason, you're only right if you can apply that comparison to EVERY other song and have it pan out.  Do you see what I mean?  Many people here would say that "Stargazer" is "better" than, say, "Paranoid" because it is more complex, has more melodic intricacies, has more complicated playing, or whatever... but what about those songs that Zappa "wrote" on the Synclavier that that are allegedly "unplayable" by humans.   Certainly those would be more intricate, complex, etc. than "Stargazer", but would you extend that and say they are better?    If you don't, then you concede the "subjective" argument.  If you do, then you have to go to the next example, and the next, and the next, and so on. 

[ariich]

"For instance, I think Voices and Trial of Tears are 2 of D's best-written songs, but they're not in my Top 20 favorites to listen to."

That's one of the same reasons I think there is a difference between what makes a song subjectively great (It's just your favorite!) and what makes a song, well, not subjectively great, but great according to some objective standard.

And what objective standard is that, exactly? An objective standard that you, personally, and subjectively, have decided on.

[rumborak]

One could consider this art;



There is nobody on this Earth that could convince me that it's not shit as far as art standards goes.

And there's also no way you can prove it's objectively shit. I find it very pleasing with its minimalism, vertical symmetry, and achromatic palette. It's like a clear horizon.

Not only that, but consider giving that picture a name like "Middle Class".
Now, as the observer you start pondering how the name relates to the image. Does the artist mean society is split in half? Does he indicate the middle class with the black line, so it's being squeezed (as every politician these days says)? Does the image say it's a black-and-white issue? Or is the black line a timeline, so that it's been flat over time? Or is it a heartbeat, which means the middle class is dead?

That is art for me.

I've said it a million times before, art is about the message that transcends the medium. You can say a *lot* with a deceptively simplistic image. In fact, far more than an overly explicit turd such as this.

[Zook]

Speaking of turds, I'm going to smear shit all over the wall, cut it out, frame it and sell it for ONE MILLION DOLLARS!

I'll call it, "Shit on the Wall".

[73109]

It's been done. You'd be boring and you're art would be boring.

Most people don't realize how innovative innovative art is after years of its just sitting in galleries.

[Lucien]

 

[Zook]

A brilliant work of art.

[rumborak]

Are you guys bitter or something? Is it killing you that people can get meaning out of objects that you don't?

[Randaran]

A brilliant work of art.

I'll take it for a million!

[Zook]

A brilliant work of art.

I'll take it for a million!

Unfortunately it isn't mine. I wouldn't want to go to jail for plagiarizing someone elses shit.

[Chino]

[Zook]

I'd buy that for a dollar.

[hefdaddy42]

Are you guys bitter or something? Is it killing you that people can get meaning out of objects that you don't?

This.

Come on.

"I don't understand it, therefore it is wrong."


BTW, I love "Middle Class."

[rumborak]

I find it particularly amusing to see these opinions on a forum for a band that has certainly been accused itself to be little more than finger exercises (and thus not art).

[ariich]

I find it particularly amusing to see these opinions on a forum for a band that has certainly been accused itself to be little more than finger exercises (and thus not art).

An argument which is, itself, exactly the same as what Zook and co are saying.

[rumborak]

Of course. But someone's shoddy argument hardly becomes more valid just because it is used the other way around.

[ariich]

Well, obviously.

[Scorpion]

I'm going to ask again - why does it bother people that some people consider things to be art that you don't consider to be art?

[Shadow Ninja 2.0]

because they're WRONG and wrongness is bad

[Stadler]

Nothing in this thread "bothers me" per se; it's more a matter of engaging in an interesting philosophical discussion.   Having said that, something that does sometimes bug me is the elitism.   That somehow because I value it, it MUST be good.  That's just self-serving crap. 

[Scorpion]

Nothing in this thread "bothers me" per se; it's more a matter of engaging in an interesting philosophical discussion.   Having said that, something that does sometimes bug me is the elitism.   That somehow because I value it, it MUST be good.  That's just self-serving crap. 

I was mainly asking Zook and Chino - I actually think that we are very much on the same page with this discussion.

[Chino]

Which one of these is a better piece of food art?





If you said number 1, you're a liar. 

[Scorpion]

Alright, I'm out.

[Chino]

Nothing in this thread "bothers me" per se; it's more a matter of engaging in an interesting philosophical discussion.   Having said that, something that does sometimes bug me is the elitism.   That somehow because I value it, it MUST be good.  That's just self-serving crap. 

I was mainly asking Zook and Chino - I actually think that we are very much on the same page with this discussion.

I have no problem with what people declare as art and what they don't decalre as art. On a personal level, you might prefer something over something else, and I get that. But as far as one piece of art being better than the other, I definitely think there is a quantifiable way to determine whether one is better than the other. Now, I don't think this can be applied to every single instance of art, but for many types I believe it holds true.

Let's play with Lego art for a second. Assume you are not this kid's parent. Actually, assume you didn't know a kid made it. Which piece is better?




Unless your criteria is being able to fit the art in your pocket, I can't honeslty believe that anyone would say that first one is better than the second. If you were this kid's parent, I'm sure there's a level of proudness you get because it was your child who made the piece. But that proudness shouldn't factor in to whether or not it's better than other pieces.

[BlobVanDam]

Unless your criteria is being able to fit the art in your pocket, I can't honeslty believe that anyone would say that first one is better than the second. If you were this kid's parent, I'm sure there's a level of proudness you get because it was your child who made the piece. But that proudness shouldn't factor in to whether or not it's better than other pieces.

I also don't think many people would prefer the first over the second, but that doesn't make it objectively better, which is the point here. You could list a ton of reasons you prefer the second one, but now prove that those qualities objectively make it or any other art "better". You may prefer it because it resembles something real, because it was difficult to create, because it looks cool, because it's big, any number of valid reasons. Now tell me why those qualities make it better.
Someone else may prefer the other one because it's small and cute, it's colourful, it's neat, and because a dude ripping his chest open is creepy and scary and has made a hell of a mess. Now tell me why those opinions are wrong. You can't prove anything objectively, all you can do is support your own opinion with reasons why you personally prefer it.

Now, I don't think this can be applied to every single instance of art, but for many types I believe it holds true.

And how do you decide which instances of art it applies to or not? If these rules cannot be applied unanimously to all art, or cannot be objectively differentiated based on criteria that cannot be factually disagreed with, then you're still just judging it based on which you prefer, as obvious as you may think it is.

[Lucien]

Unless your criteria is being able to fit the art in your pocket, I can't honeslty believe that anyone would say that first one is better than the second. If you were this kid's parent, I'm sure there's a level of proudness you get because it was your child who made the piece. But that proudness shouldn't factor in to whether or not it's better than other pieces.

I also don't think many people would prefer the first over the second, but that doesn't make it objectively better, which is the point here. You could list a ton of reasons you prefer the second one, but now prove that those qualities objectively make it or any other art "better". You may prefer it because it resembles something real, because it was difficult to create, because it looks cool, because it's big, any number of valid reasons. Now tell me why those qualities make it better.
Someone else may prefer the other one because it's small and cute, it's colourful, it's neat, and because a dude ripping his chest open is creepy and scary and has made a hell of a mess. Now tell me why those opinions are wrong. You can't prove anything objectively, all you can do is support your own opinion with reasons why you personally prefer it.

Now, I don't think this can be applied to every single instance of art, but for many types I believe it holds true.

And how do you decide which instances of art it applies to or not? If these rules cannot be applied unanimously to all art, or cannot be objectively differentiated based on criteria that cannot be factually disagreed with, then you're still just judging it based on which you prefer, as obvious as you may think it is.

Well said 

[rumborak]

In b4 the next example of "what about this one? You can't tell me THAT'S art!"

[Zook]

It doesn't bother me that someone can find art in a white square with a line through it. It just makes me go "what the fuck, why, how, huh?"

An example would be in Netflix's Daredevil. Kingpin thinks a painting that looks like that popcorn wall paint is a beautiful masterpiece. It brings him too his happy place. All I see though is popcorn wall paint. It's very ugly. It might as well be shit on the wall, but I guess art has its own rule 34.

[Genowyn]

So I'm not really sure where I fall on this debate, but I have feeling it's on the side of there being a degree of objectivity, but only in the following sense:

There are books, movies, songs, tv shows that I ENJOY more than others that I know are technically better. I enjoy Jacob's Ladder more than The King's Speech, I enjoy The Dresden Files more than Pride and Prejudice. I don't think you can really apply these sort of judgments to anything but your own taste, though.

[hefdaddy42]

It doesn't bother me that someone can find art in a white square with a line through it. It just makes me go "what the fuck, why, how, huh?"

An example would be in Netflix's Daredevil. Kingpin thinks a painting that looks like that popcorn wall paint is a beautiful masterpiece. It brings him too his happy place. All I see though is popcorn wall paint. It's very ugly. It might as well be shit on the wall, but I guess art has its own rule 34.

Then that art doesn't speak to you.  That is the only conclusion you can draw.

I really like that piece of art, as well.  However, I doubt that I am drawn to it for the same reasons that character is.

[73109]

As I have said before, the crux of the issue is that many people have an antiquated understanding of what exactly art is today.

Of course, if one wants to claim that art is about skill and beauty and a pleasurable aesthetic experience, by all means, go for it!

All I'm saying is that art—in the art world—is no longer about technical skill or beauty or pleasure.

Here are some of the most important art works of the 20th century:


Picasso
Les Demoiselles D'Avignon
1907


Duchamp
Fountain
1917


Malevich
Black Square
1915


Pollock
Autumn Rhythm (Number 30)
1950


Johns
Flag
1955


Warhol
Gold Marilyn
1962


Smith
Die
1968


Hans Haacke
MoMA Poll 1970
1970


-----------

There ya go. Some paintings, some really large cumbersome objects that a welder made without any intervention from the artists. A large black square. A toilet. A poll. That is the big art of the 20th century. As you get closer to the turn of the century, shit starts to get less and less art-like, or rather, it stops really being objects that one could see. There is a shift to a focus on performance and installation and stuff like that.

What is important from an art historical perspective is to understand why each of these paintings came when they did and why they were so important for the time and for future art. If you want to judge a work of art by its importance or the uproar it caused, then some of these could be just as "good" as a painting by Raphael.

Note how it is quite difficult to find beauty in most of these. Note how it is quite difficult to interpret some of these. That is the point. Certain works of art eschew interpretation—that is what they do. They take the focus away from iconography and make it about the viewing experience (like Die). Some shift the focus on the art institution itself (like the Haacke piece).

What always makes me laugh when people say something like "I'm going to throw shit on a while and call it art" is that if they thought it was so easy, why aren't they doing it? Hell, they could make millions of dollars!

Art is much more complicated than that. Hell, do you wanna hear what is on the cutting edge of art this century?

There is a guy who paid homeless people to masturbate on camera and he filmed them.

There is another dude who makes no art but sells it by word of mouth only—no contracts—for millions of dollars.

There is a photographer who went to Rwanda and took thousands of pictures of the genocide that took place there but refuses to show it to anyone—that is his art.

Perhaps in 30 years, that will seem easy to us, who knows.

I know this is all falling on deaf ears. I'm doing it more because I find the stuff interesting.

[Implode]

I really enjoy your explanation of art, numbers. It's evident you're very passionate about it.

[mimipetrucci]

[mimipetrucci]

 

[Stadler]

Unless your criteria is being able to fit the art in your pocket, I can't honeslty believe that anyone would say that first one is better than the second. If you were this kid's parent, I'm sure there's a level of proudness you get because it was your child who made the piece. But that proudness shouldn't factor in to whether or not it's better than other pieces.

I also don't think many people would prefer the first over the second, but that doesn't make it objectively better, which is the point here. You could list a ton of reasons you prefer the second one, but now prove that those qualities objectively make it or any other art "better". You may prefer it because it resembles something real, because it was difficult to create, because it looks cool, because it's big, any number of valid reasons. Now tell me why those qualities make it better.
Someone else may prefer the other one because it's small and cute, it's colourful, it's neat, and because a dude ripping his chest open is creepy and scary and has made a hell of a mess. Now tell me why those opinions are wrong. You can't prove anything objectively, all you can do is support your own opinion with reasons why you personally prefer it.

Now, I don't think this can be applied to every single instance of art, but for many types I believe it holds true.

And how do you decide which instances of art it applies to or not? If these rules cannot be applied unanimously to all art, or cannot be objectively differentiated based on criteria that cannot be factually disagreed with, then you're still just judging it based on which you prefer, as obvious as you may think it is.

All this is spot on, and I would add something I said before: whatever criteria you pick, you then have to apply it to ALL "art".  I can't see that first picture, so I can't use that example, but by whatever measure you say that guy ripping his chest open is "better" than the what I see as an "X", then there can't be any other Lego structure or sculpture that violates that.