What’s the point of it?

I can’t understand what the artist is trying to say, but I do enjoy watching them and staying with them in the same space. Some people may feel the same way as I did after seeing Martin Creed‘s exhibition “What’s the point of it?“

Art is not for ordinary people? Art is something above every-day life? What is art created for?

No matter if the work is minimalism or maximalism, abstract or realism, paintings or installations, inspiring or confusing. Art sometimes is about explaining the world in a pointless way. Yet, this doesn’t mean it’s pointless negatively.

After a whole day’s work, you are squeezing yourself into the tube, keeping your attention on what the next station is, thinking about tonight’s dinner or maybe staring blankly at something. Looking around, people are doing the same thing.

Sometimes to stop and have a look at the things we normally take for granted is to slow down our busy and dizzy life to enjoy what a beautiful world we live in and to discover more possibilities from it.

Art is a major way to express this idea.

Take Martin Creed’s exhibit as an example.

He once won the Turner Prize for his work No.227: The lights going on and off which was an empty room in which the lights went on and off every five seconds.What’s the point of this?

Some people thought lights going off and on symbolized our bad days and good days.

“I can see clearly now the rain has gone. You wake up, things are okay, and the sun is shining. And then out of the blue, there you go again, down into the dark pit of depression. It’s not just a matter of mood swings. Its something more basic and perverse: the inability to preserve joy.” (Maurizio Cattelan, 2004)

Maybe not everyone can understand this work in Maurizio’s way, but everyone will agree with him. Because we experience our own life with similar feelings, similar ups and downs in our life.

It doesn’t need any points to prove it has some point. Instead, it needs our own experience and peace to identify them when you no longer need to rush to somewhere.

Standing in front of this “pointless” art work, try to spend some time just staying with them instead of asking what’s the point of it.

Fu Lei

Designers – Artists or Not?

Art always indirectly inspires fashion designers. The two disciplines benefit one another as creativity is the link. As Alexander McQueen once stated:  “I mix art and concept.”

So can designers be considered artists?

I personally found Moschino‘s Autumn/Winter 2014 collection, launched by the Adidas designer Jeremy Scott at Milan Fashion Week this year, very interesting.

Scott’s taking over from previous creative director Rossella Jardini, astonished the entire fashion community as he made his debut with a McDonald’s inspired collection of Happy Meal handbags, golden arches co-ordinates and calorie-counting and nutritional-advice dresses.

Original.

But fashion critics judged it too original.

“A significant part of the collection just reads as tacky for the sake of being tacky, and that’s a hard sell at a $1,000+ price tag”, published The Gloss magazine.

From the beginning, Moschino has been recognized in the fashion industry for its eccentric designs influenced by surrealism and Pop Art.

It has been loved, it has been hated.

But as long as the audiences feelings are aroused, the artist’s attempt is accomplished, right?

“Jeremy Scott represents notonly an eclectic and contemporary communicator but most of all a designer capable of re-interpreting the identity and the essence of our brand” Moschino’s website published.

An artist communicates through their imagination. In their words and clothes.

Whether it is showed on a wall or on a human body, it doesn’t matter. His role is to express and create.

“We could function with everything that’s on the earth right now. So you have to have this reason to want things. To me, it’s to make you happy, and to me, that’s linked to humor.” Scott stated.

More than humoristic, I judged the collection provocative.

As Andy Warhol did with Pop Art, Moschino did with its collection: they both focused their works on mass-produced commercial goods.

Everything turns around a popular, low cost, witty, glamorous, big business.

It’s the reflection of a society that is constantly “bombed”, affected and simultaneously attracted by popularity.

Scott succeeded.

If his attempt was to polarize the traditional idea of fashion, he totally convinced audience of his artistic soul.

Ludovica Parisi

Are tattoos art?

People are a lot more confident judging tattoos than they are when criticising what we would deem traditional art.

It’s very easy for people who are anti body modification to question the choices that tattoo wearers make.
“How can you possibly commit to something so permanent?”
“Aren’t you concerned about how it’ll look as you age?”
“Won’t it stop you getting a ‘decent’ job?”

Perhaps one of the most important questions we should be asking is if tattoos are truly a misunderstood art form and if they deserve more respect than they are often afforded in society.

They are unique in that they are a collaboration between an artist and their canvas. And, like all great art, require some sacrifice; namely in the pain and the blood-loss it requires to etch them into the skin.

No longer the preserve of gang members, prisoners and hardy sailors, they are becoming more and more mainstream and it’s estimated that more than 20% of the British public are now sporting some ink. The beauty of some tattoos are undeniable but it is often in their stories that our hearts are captured.

Tattoos are an expression of the wearers personality; their loves and their losses; their habits and their hobbies; their memories of the past and their hopes for the future.

In the same way that not all doodles are art, not all tattoos are art. In my opinion, a tattoo that’s more art than doodle is one that holds great meaning to the wearer and is complex and beautiful.

It’s also important to acknowledge though, that what’s on another persons body and why it’s there is really none of my, or anyone else’s, business. So ink on, my tattooed friends, and don’t let anyone tell you why you shouldn’t.

All images taken from weheartit

Lauren Burgess

A Gursky World

The most famous photograph ever sold comes with a price – and not just the tag of $4.3 million. No. The price of a distorted reality.

The Rhine by German artist Andreas Gursky broke the record for the most expensive photograph ever sold at Christie’s, New York, back in 2011. Its value remains to date, an enigma.

The simplicity of the lines that contour the photograph are indisputable. Yet, the image does not depict the reality it sells. The German photographer did some digital manipulation to get the “look” he was going for.

“In the end I decided to digitalise the picture and leave out the elements that bothered me” Gursky added.

Apparently, the real scenario was not bleak enough. Why don’t we all Photoshop our way through life? We’d certainly be worth a lot more.

In other words, the so-acclaimed photograph reflects nothing more but the photographers’ view on life. Simple, straight and grey. With a spin of digital editing, of course.

“My preference for clear structures is the result of my desire – perhaps illusory – to keep track of things and maintain my grip on the world.” are Gursky’s words.

So, life is simple and straight? Plain? Bet you need to take a different grip. That’s not how reality works. Not mine, at least. Yes, life can be bleak at times. But it’s never as straight as an arrow. It’s a bumpy road; sometimes even, “paved with potholes”.

But things are different in the Gursky World. The world is vast. Distant. The individual, insignificant. There is no depth. The lighting is always flat. No glimpse of the decisive moment.

No need to be in the right place, at the right time. No time to step back and think, feel, before you encapsulate a moment for eternity. Time means money. And this artist, is certainly no stranger to its taste.

Gusky is paving a new way for future generations. Artists need not to fear a life of poverty. If effort and crime don’t pay, art does!

“We’re living in a world of funny money” said David Ross, former director of the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Funny money, indeed. But a tragic world where one chooses to spend $4 million on a digitally-altered photograph of someone’s twisted view of reality. Reality. Makes me laugh. Millions spent on so-called “modern art”, none spent on improving the issues of our society.

Who did ever buy The Rhine?

Denisa Rosca