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mass culture and art
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in response to what Nick said:
I believe the idea of 'art' as a concept, like other concepts, derives its meaning and usefulness in relation to other similar things which it is not, with which it is contrasted. Principally then we define art as it is contrasted with [a] the banalities of everyday life/experience and [b] other cultural production which is not art. For instance whereas cultural production in mass culture is designed to satisfy certain static preferences or desires, art might be said to challenge the existing values and desires of the individual by bringing him to a radical new awareness of his situation.
As soon as we say then that all culture is art, including elton john, madonna, or 'Troy' we lose any intelligible meaning for the concept. In other words if art can be anything then art is nothing, if it is everywhere it is nowhere, and we may as well then stop talking about it.
Certain things are easy to categorise according to this art/non-artistic cultural production dichotomy e.g Hamlet as as art, and 'eastenders' as not art. With other cultural production it may be more difficult though, e.g do some Bob Dylan or Clash songs or Martin Amis/ Ian McEwan novels count as art? Obviously it is debateable, but criterion do exist for deciding, and the fact that it might be hard sometimes to say what is included as art does not thereby mean that it is futile to even try. We could draw an analogy with morality here, some things are obviously wrong [e.g child molestation] and other acts obviously right, but then there are acts the moral status of which is unclear [e.g an artist leaving his family to realise his talents]. As with art though the existence of these contested acts does not mean that we sholudn't try to distinguish between right and wrong
Likewise with the existence of individuality in art. The fact that discerning genuine individuality in something is not easy and may be almost impossible to prove, since it is irreducibly linked to our individual experience of the object, does not mean that it is a pointless endeavour. Although having said that I don't think you should go out 'looking' for individuality in something, if something is true art its human voice should reveal itself and become apparent.
David.
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