hmm that may be, but I very much doubt Tracey Emin had this in mind - I think she just thought "I can rinse these mugs for a few 100k by making a mess and putting it in a gallery mwa hahaha"


Beauty - I would say nature rather than people. Unless you count Gerard Butler :-x

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That's the thing... beauty is what you believe it to be. What you find beautiful, I may not, and vice versa. To someone out there, that urinal, and that unmade bed are beautiful. We question why they may find it beautiful, but I'm sure they will have their reasons. Whether it brings back a memory, or because it makes you think outside the box... there is beauty in everything, but we are often blind to the beauty of some things.

I think the more pressing question is "What is beauty to you?"

I think it is more a case that people can relate to such art, and find them interesting because of that, rather than because they think it is beautiful. Real beauty comes from somewhere else...perhaps like a spiritual feeling, like those moments when you were happily walking along down the road to catch a bus, but something, perhaps a branch on a tree, moved and captured your attention for a moment and transported you from the practical and ordinary thing you were doing, to a higher sphere of contemplation.
We too often ignore those moments and carry on walking, for fear that someone is watching us and thinks we've lost our marbles. This is why we need good, creative, and skillful art - to bring those beautiful moments to our attention and remind us of those simple beautiful things in life among the practical.
Art today is too reflective of the practical. It doesn't free us.

I agree with you Cobweb... but do you not think the unmade bed may be beautiful because it makes us think about those waking moments we all forget shortly after the occur... the beauty in knowing we have woken... we are alive.

The urinal... representative of our biological needs? A symbol of evolotion from cavemen to present day? An illustration of how the very private moments of our lives can be so clearly on show to others (a public toilet)?

Like I said there is beauty in everything if you take the time to look. Try not to take things at face value.

You made two points in your post though Cobweb: firstly, that we need 'simple beautiful things' and secondly that good art should be 'skillful.' Are those things not contradictory in a way? The branch of a tree that you mentioned is a simple, beautiful thing. But if you took that branch and put it in a gallery for other people to admire, that wouldn't involve much skill. Martin Creed's light going on and off in a room was simple, and to my mind, quite beautiful. But it wasn't skillful in a traditional sense.

hmm I would find the light thing just irritating. I think you have it there keep_calm. There can be beautiful things e.g. branch of a tree, that are already beautiful, why do we have to pay for someone to hack it off and lump it in a gallery - why can't we appreciate it anyway? I can appreciate a messy bed - why should Tracey Emin be applauded over it?

Sneaks... it's not just about the messy bed. You're looking at the object rather than the meaning.

With the branch thing... yes you can appreciate it without it being in a gallery, but sometimes, it takes someone to bring it to the forefront of our attention before we can appreciate the beauty of it. As humans we do a lot of things absent mindedly, we don't "see" the simple things, because we're so busy with life. Art like this allows us to take a step back and appreciate those things. It provokes thought. Thought that we may otherwise not consider.

On the flipside... you're writing a thesis which will be read by only a handful of people. To many, that might seem pointless. But hopefully, for those who read it, it provokes enough thought to justify it's existence. Hopefully, there is some beauty in what you've discovered, which will allow you to pass your PhD. That's very much like art. We are similar to artists in that we are trying to engage with our audience. We are trying to make them think, and appreciate the effort we've gone to to bring these matters to their attention.

Essesntially, we are all artists of something or another.

I get your point. I guess I have an issue with how much they are paid. And i think even though there are some artists out there doing it for the right reasons - as you say, to bring it to our attention etc. I think there are some that are ruthless money makers, as with any discipline.

You've kind of got me there keep_calm. I do agree with you...but then again, wouldn't that destroy the beauty? If you hacked it off and stuck it into a gallery, wouldn't the cutting down of the tree and presenting it in a caged environment, represent something far more sinister than capturing the essence of what was initially beautiful?

Perhaps then, the skill IS needed so that you can capture the moment, rather than destroying it and exposing it, and thus putting a greedy undertone to it, be it money, fame, etc..

On the one hand, you've convinced there jinkim, but on the other, doesn't a Phd require a lot of skill and thought before it is presented?
We're not just presenting the idea of the research, or the proposal...(don't know where I'm going here, but there is a point in there somewhere :-) )

I agree. But I doubt many artists do what they do for the money. Most have to struggle for years, having their art, their passion, as a hobby rather than career in order to make ends meet. Many don't get their "big break" until after they're dead. I wouldn't write them off just because a lucky few do manage to make it big.

I'm much more against the ridiculous amounts professional football players get paid personally. In my opinion, doctors, firefighters, police, teachers... these are the people who most deserve to get paid millions... they're saving lives, nurturing children, helping society. That's just me though.:-)

Art also requires a lot of skill and thought.... and talent. What we are all hoping to present is that messed up bed. The bed is the thesis. It is up to use as the onlooker to viva that thesis. Defend its worth as a piece of art, just as it is up to our examiners to viva us, and allow us to defend our research. The only difference is that we (unfortunately) don't have Emin here to defend her work, and so the art must speak for itself, whereas out research has us to speak for it.

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ooh firemen, count me in! and I can see why some footballers get paid so much :$ :p



I guess I see two ends of the scale. My dad went to central school of art and is a craftsman, and spends his life making beautiful things that require a lot of skill, skill that would take decades to learn. My uncle fancied himself as a foot loose fancy free artist who although was very 'fun' but basically rinsed other people for money for rubbish art that even he thought was bad. - guess I've been burned haha

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Hmmm, you've really got me thinking now. What if Tracey Emin had painted a picture of her bed instead, and painted it so it exactly 'captured the essence' of the original bed? Would people see her work differently then? If it was the same subject matter, but presented with a different level of skill, would we see it as more beautiful?

I just got thinking there about how much outrage people like Picasso and Dali must have caused in their respective times...(I don't knowif they did by the way, I have only a layman's knowledge of art). But now, their names are barely mentioned in debates about beauty and art. Maybe this is because they were painters. It seems to be installations which cause the most consternation....



By the by, has anybody been watching 'School of Saatchi'? Emin was among the judges selected to review a load of new artists for Charles Saatchi, and one of the questions she kept asking them was 'why is this art?' A lot of them were getting annoyed at the judges for taking such a conservative approach!

I'm going to be starting a modern art career if I don't get any opportunities from my PhD. I'm going to get my thesis, douse it in lighter fluid, set it on fire and chuck it through the window of my Vice Chancellor's office. It'll be called Misguided, Divine Comeuppance: Putting the Thesis to Worthwhile Use.