"Art without meaning is nonsense.

"Art with meaning obfuscates that meaning and is propaganda."

Discuss.

I'll start by saying it all depends on what the meaning of "meaning" is,
since if it doesn't include "description", or isn't satisfied with that
alone, then the dilemma doesn't seem to be describing art, exactly, and if
it does then the second leg of the dilemma seems to fall down.

Simple description is fundamental but simple art; higher art utilizes
lesser descriptions in the course of and in the construction of a greater
description, eg Camus' _The Plague_, with its voluminous sequence of
descriptions of more-or-less tangled events fleshing out his description
of a greater event, and capped with his ultimate and overall description,
"These people were just the same as ever".

Again, Hume considered that if you have an important argument you should
just make it, as such, but also considered it important to treat important
and incontrovertible subjects as often and in as many ways as possible,
and also that undecidable subjects lent themselves readily to dialogue at
least ("Pamphilus to Hermippus", introducing his unfinished classic
_Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion_).

On Aug 5, 9:23 pm, mimus hotmail.com> wrote:

If obfuscate "means" [To make so confused or opaque as to be difficult
to perceive or understand or To render indistinct or dim; darken] I
need more information in support of the premise for it to warrant the
implication that all provisions of "mean" obfuscates. The idea that
you can say something about all applications of meaning, in the past
and in the future, will always obfuscate, seems to be an inductive and
probable argument disguised as certainty.

On Aug 6, 12:23 am, mimus hotmail.com> wrote:

(snip)

Everything has meaning when you think about it.

"Meaning is only something that is for an individual, it only has a
home in one person. Thus it is 'subjective' or should be understood to
have an anti-system or anti-answer sensibility." --wiki

On 6 Aug., 06:23, mimus hotmail.com> wrote:

There are two kinds of art. One with meaning, and one without. Simple.

- Tue

"turtoni" fastmail.net> wrote in message
news:2726425a-1587-4bc9-a0a0-fe697ec11d86@e39g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...
On Aug 6, 12:23 am, mimus hotmail.com> wrote:

(snip)

------
See, this is why I hate wikipedea. This guys definition cancels itself out.
Can you see it? He reduces all 'meaning' to opinion, including it would be
assumed, this very definition he wagers. And a single opinion is hardly
something we want to be a 'reference' for all to go by.

I say there are meanings that are external to our senses, and something we
can all uncover as a common sense. Red or blue may be qualia we cannot
prove...but it does not mean we aren't all experiencing the same thing.

On Aug 6, 3:27 am, "tooly" bellsouth.net> wrote:

On Aug 6, 5:23 am, mimus hotmail.com> wrote:

What I go by is, if you see a work of art in a dumpster, can you tell
that it is a work of art? For instance there is the famous Marcel
Duchamp piece that appears to be, for all I know is, merely a fixture
of plumbing, and that has been used as such more than once, I hear, as
a form of protest. You wouldn't quickly distinguish that from any
other discard from a refitted restroom.

Any statement is subjective. Even the most disciplined scientific
effort towards objectivity is not utterly pure of personal attitude
and bias. For this reason, good science depends on multiple
researchers with different personal bias coming up with similar
findings.

On Aug 6, 2:55 am, Tue Sorensen gmail.com> wrote:

Nah. The problem with all this is what we mean by "art" not what we
mean by "meaning".

Art evokes a response, and its creation is the result of some actions
by an individual or group of humans. (To distinguish it from 'natural'
experiences, as in a mountain range.)

On Wed, 06 Aug 2008 00:23:47 -0400, mimus wrote:

Art is meaning.
'Intention' may be a better term here.

Propaganda is a loaded word. It usually is tied to politics. Is this the
association you want to make?

Discussions about the definition of art, I suggest, have little real
meaning and a forced dilemma. Do not think about art, do it.

"Yes, but is it art"?

"This aRt =======================>>>>> is..... BUT?

On Aug 6, 6:23 am, Robert Carnegie excite.com> wrote:

Rather poor scientific analysis---you can't practice reductionism
arbitrarily. The experience of finding the urinal in the dumpster is
not the same as the experience of finding it in the gallery. Kind of
the point of the urinal in the gallery, eh.