another problem here is, we have to differ between the question 'what is art?' and 'what is good/bad art?' - i guess, when mjp (for example) says about anything, that it isn't art, he means, it isn't 'good' or 'valid' art - NOT in the sense, that he simply don't likes it, but he doesn't 'get' what would be 'art' about it. (i fear i don't find the right words, but hope you get the gist.)
I get your gist, brother. But I am indeed always questioning
what is art. Not what is good or bad art. Good or bad is in the eye of the beholder, or victim, depending on the circumstances.
As much as it pains me to say it, VALERIAN is an artist. Assuming the awful "music" under his caterwauling is original, I have to classify it as art.
That clown who played Bach music on a piano and sang Bukowski words is not an artist. He merged two things, he has created nothing.
Club DJs are not artists, they create nothing. "Look at his/her skill in getting a crowd to dance!" No son, the music on the records, made by musicians (artists), is what makes the people dance.
Burroughs cut-ups of print or film media (that he didn't create) are not art.
If you co-opt Bukowski's life story and write poetry or prose about what a low-life gambling whoremonger you are, you have created nothing.
If you start a band that sounds just like Green Day because you love Green Day, you have created nothing. You are copying copiers. Maybe you've created less than nothing in that case. Some kind of anti-matter. I don't know, I will have to look that up.
Marcel Duchamp hanging a urinal on a gallery wall is not art.
Create something out of nothing, that's art. Use, abuse, bend, adapt other peoples work (or toilets), you are not creating anything. You're adapting, and adapting is for the lazy, the talentless and every screenwriter in Hollywood.
That's just my admittedly biased opinion, and I understand it's largely generational, and that of someone who finds most conceptual art laughably idiotic, and the people who admire it sheep who need to be told what is significant or important to them, who to vote for, what to listen to, what to eat, etc., etc., etc.
It's hard to be original in art, music, the way you walk, how you look - it's very difficult. I understand. But we are awash in a tidal wave of shit since the advent of personal computers, and we would be much better off without 99% of it.
The alternative before that wasn't perfect either, with a few companies deciding what would be entertainment. But it's just too easy now, and the result is the tidal wave.
15 or 20 years ago the kid in his bedroom with his music under a Bukowski track, or the Bukowski imitator with his poems or even someone who wanted to start a legitimate literary or music magazine had to
work like hell to get even a few people to notice them. You had to suffer and sweat and like it or not, it separated those who were serious about what they were doing from the dilettantes. But that filter is gone now and I do not think we are better off for it.
Fucking hell, too much typing. Sorry, I got wound up there. "Stop it you kids! Don't excite grandpa!" Ha.
