I can't think for you
You'll have to decide.
- Bob Dylan
In 1965 when I was a young sophomore at Austin College in Sherman, TX, I attended a seminar at TCU in Ft Worth, Tx. The seminar was a debate about 'What is Art?' It featured Paul Tillich versus the TCU Art Department. The TCU Art Department was overmatched. The betting in Vegas favored the sno-ball's chance in Hell over the TCU Art Department. It's the story of TCU. Poor bastards. They really should stick to football. So, Paul Tillich said "Art is anything that fills space and has meaning to the one that beholds it." A professor from TCU responded, "How do you know so much about Art if you are not an artist?" (Applause, from his students here.) "Well", said Paul Tillich, " the same way a psychologist knows more about what a chimp is gonna do than the chimp does!" (Applause, laughter, and giggling from those not in an Art class at TCU). I have been told by my friend, Steve Schmidt, that if I have a blog about Eureka Springs, I must include Art, because art is the the lifeblood of Eureka. I told him that I thought there was a lot of hucksterism involved in art. Steve said, "If by 'hucksterism' you mean that someone is trying to convince you to buy something you do not need then yeah, there is some 'hucksterism involved. Just like there is at Dillard's or Wal-Marx. Or", he went on when he should have stopped, "have you been to the Doctor lately?" Couldn't argue with him there, having recently been referred to a sleep clinic.
Well, is art anything that fills space and has meaning to the beholder? Duh? How do you argue with that? The reason I used the Floating Woman Suffocating Under Saran-wrap picture to introduce this blog was simple. When I think about art, it is how I feel. Suffocating. When someone is explaining the artwork to me I often feel like I'm listening to W.C. Fields selling Dr John's Magic Elixir off the back of his medicine wagon. Fortunately, for us, the artist is capable of stripping away the facades that we hide our souls behind and appeal to our imaginations in ways we have not thought about. I was setting here working on this blog and looking around the house and trying to find something that would not be considered art. I can't find anything that would not be considered art by someone. The hucksterism involves the buying and selling of art, putting a price on it. In Joseph Heller's book, Picture This, he points out that in the 1940's there were about 2000 authenticated Rembrandt's floating around but by the 1980's there were only a couple of hundred. Those people with the 1800 Rembrandt's that are technically Rembrandt's because he signed them, were actually duplicates painted by his students. Of course, this was before the age of prints or giclees.
A friend asked me, "Which Van Gogh painting is your favorite?" I replied, "The Sunflower painting." "Which one?" my friend asked, "he painted over two hundred of them." "Uh-h-h. number 97", I responded. I was genuinely surprised to find out I had been admiring different paintings, thinking they were all the same one. My friend asked what would I do if I had an original Van Gogh. I told him I would sell it. He was disappointed and said I really did not appreciate art. It's not that I don't appreciate it, I just happen to think that it is highly over-appreciated. Artists are fond of saying, "Life is like a haunted house and Art is the only stair that doesn't creak." Yeah? Well, that's because they keep it so well-oiled. So why does a Van Gogh fetch such extravagant price at auction? There are a myriad of economic theories out there used to explain why a Van Gogh is worth more than the painting of Elvis I have on black velevet.
One theory is that there are not very many Van Gogh's and there is a very high demand for them that creates their value. For example, everyone has a wrist watch today but if you had owned a wrist watch in 1898, you would have been one of the wealthiest people in the United States. A more recent phenomenon has been watching the price of computers continue to diminish. As an entity becomes more plentiful its value decreases. In the 1930's about 25% of high school students graduated. If you had a high school diploma during that period, it was a valuable commodity. Today, about 75% percent of all high school students receive a diploma and it has lost much of its value because everybody has one. Now, you have to have a college degree to be in that valuable 25%, but the percent of students receiving college degrees is starting to creep up, which will require having a master's degree in the very near future in order for your degree to have the same value as a high school education in 1930. I hear all the time about how many engineers there are in India and China. Like, duh, how valuable is that? I remember when the NASA program downsized back in the early '80s, there were engineers serving up Big Macs at the local MacDonald's all over the country. I think the medical profession in this country has figured this out. The AMA controls how many doctors will graduate every year, they make their profession valuable. Let's hope teachers, police, fire fighters, and other service professions do not figure this out!
So far, I have been focused on extrinsic value, or the value that others place on art. The artist will tell you it has nothing to do with the intrinsic value of their work. They like the appreciation shown by the fact that someone is willing to pay for their art, but would continue to create even if there were no buyers. So, I guess, we've come full circle at this point. If you you like it, if it moves you in some way, if it has some special meaning for you, whether it's a movie, a painting, a song, or a book then it's art and it's okay for us to appreciate it.
Art is anything you can
get away with.
- Andy Warhol
Until next time,
I remain,
Just another Zoroastrian Cowboy
Trying to understand why Gottfried Helnwein made the Baby Jesus look like Adolf Hitler
