Politics Isn’t Art

12 Replies to “Politics Isn’t Art”

1. Excellent rant on the state of art. Something I have run into time and time again among my photography group. Most just take good pictures. Sometimes though, when a picture is put into an exhibition, the “meaning” of just a good shot becomes over the top.
   Trouble is though people coming through will ask “What is the meaning”, “What were you thinking”, and other clap trap. I guess some “artists” have to sell a meaning. Me, I just say, I was trying a different technique that I though looked great afterwards. Or I was enchanted with how the light illuminated my subject(s) and so forth. Technique and “WOW” factor is what should sell and drive art.
   Leave all the political baggage on the curb where it belongs.

2. What a great rant. Right on the money too. Captain, you hit it out of the park and beyond!!
   Definitely one of your 10 best. Made my day.

3. I concur with BC, well done.
   In my general experience, once the word “modern” is injected into the description, it ceases to have much value as art.

4. Good one Captain. A promotion to Major is deserved. All artists should be able to follow their dreams, but do it on their own time, after work and without their hand in the taxpayers pocket.

5. Believe I’ve mentioned here before that a close relation has no reply when asked what form her art would take if not defined by far left ideology. Today’s artists clearly have to publicize their left wing bonafides in order to be successful. Pathetic, really.

6. Too much truth in this article. I applied for a Canada Council grant for a book and was denied due to “the prospect of commercial success”. Only guaranteed failures warrant government money. I self-published and eventually came out ahead. I also sold several thousand related prints, so get stuffed Canada Council. I have long said that an artist is a person with enough gall to call themselves an artist. At least I can claim success without a penny of taxpayers’ money, I guess that makes me a ‘conservative artist’.

7. “Only guaranteed failures warrant government money.” And that, right there, says it all about gov’t these days: support one voter base with the other voter base’s money, until you feel like a sucker just for working.
   As for art and the usual leftist nonsense attached to it, I enjoy David Thompson’s posts about The “Gibberish Industry” and “Art Bollocks”. E.g.: “Jones suggested that the preoccupation with labyrinthine theorising is a result of insecurity, of feeling outstripped by the rigours and jargon of scientific disciplines. An unspoken sense of intellectual inadequacy has, Jones argued, resulted in “a facsimile of thinking” – one in which evidence and substantive argument are replaced by obfuscation and sheer weight of words.”

8. This is true modern art.

9. Beyond the fact that almost all modern artists are left wing
   moonbats, is the fact that they all lack even the most basic
   artistic talent.
   The masters painted and sculpted things that actually looked
   like people, or seascapes or whatever. Taking a photo of a
   cross in a jar of piss takes no talent whatsoever.
   If it were not for the fact that art has been “Dumbed down” for
   more than 100 years, one of Picasso’s 3 eyed 4 tit chick
   paintings would not be worth 50 cents!
   A sure sign of lack of talent is two or more liberals arguing
   what an artist was attempting to convey while looking at a piece
   of “Abstract” art. Here is a clue pinheads: If you have to
   guess what it is, it is not art!
   Geeze, these dorks make wine snobs seem sane and unpretentious.

10. I don’t know if you’re old enough to remember the ad that used to run on the back cover of DC comics books,”can you draw the pirate?”.
    I tried,and couldn’t. But over many years I’ve run into too many “artists” hiding in the Gulf Islands, or whatever little outta-the-way place they could find where the rent was cheap.
    I have on occasion asked a few artists I’ve met in the outback if they could draw the pirate,or a dog,or a horse,or anything that looks like it does off the canvas.
    I never got a drawing of any buccaneers, Mr.Eds, or Lassies, just lots of hostility and remarks about “real talent” and “illustrators”, which all artists claim MY favorite artist, Robert Bateman, most assuredly is.
    A few years back,a bunch of activists blockaded logging on the Coast. An enterprising Reporter interviewed about thirty of them, none were on welfare, but almost all of them described them selves as artists.
    But on the last Tuesday of the month, the Reporter saw them all being bused to the Nanaimo welfare office,where they all picked up a cheque.
    The government may not know much, but they know artists when they see ’em.

11. It is worth mentioning Alex Colville in this context. Ms. McMillan ran one of his pictures last year, on the
    occasion of his death. Colville was a conservative, a gun enthusiast, a war artist, and one of the three
    greatest Canadian artists of the 20th Century (along with Tom Thomson and David Milne). He also made his
    living with his brush, not through government grants.

12. I did fail to include my views on public funding for the arts.
    The classic patrons spent their OWN money to promote the
    arts. This produced some of the greatest artworks in history.
    When a bunch of scum sucking assholes (Let’s call them
    politicians,) decided to reach into the pockets of others (Let’s
    call them taxpayers) what was once a thing of beauty became
    little more than depictions of steaming piles of dog turds!
    Does it surprise anyone that government sponsorship of the arts
    would create inferior crap? Let us look at just a few examples:
    Obamacare (Not just the web site)
    Social Security
    The Chevy Volt
    Solyndra
    The Tesla car
    The modern welfare state
    I could go on forever!