Posted on 01/10/2023 9:50:39 AM PST by 4Runner
Came across this by accident. This Joseph Kosuth is an American ex-pat world-renowned "concept artist" whose works typically are comprised of electronically reproduced illuminated text projected across an art gallery's wall. His works are in every major public museum collection in the U.S. and abroad.
Historically, visual artists have been vehemently "apolitical". Much like philosophers. However, this charlatan has the audacity to exhort YouTube viewers to "Vote for Biden!!!" and get rid of the "nonsense" in the White House".
Recorded in October of 2020, just before the stolen election. Predictably, You Tube/Google has disabled all of the comments to the interview.
Good grief.
Is that all you can think of to do, besides not listening to the interview, is to attack the OP for what he wrote? Since you are obviously an authority on the Arts, please share your brilliance with us.
Why don’t you just go away. Your insults, which you doubled down on, and amplified and reinvigorated in your second comment, are gratuitously abusive and completely uncalled for. The point of the original posting wasn’t the OP’s informed commentary. The point of the original posting was the YouTube video, which you have proven yourself to be completely unqualified to discuss, even at room-temperature IQ level. It must truly suck to be a common site bully. You have my sympathies.
“Historically, visual artists have been vehemently “apolitical”
This is patently absurd. Visual artists have been rabidly anti-conservative in almost unilateral lockstep. And, anti-Catholic. And, anti military.
One could not get a gallery show of Catholic art without have Christ in a toilet bowl or a Nun in drag.
Hear me out, don't just skip past this. I have not had a lot of interactions with you, and I have been on FR for a while, so I don't want my first interaction with you to be a terrible negative one.
The statement (even unrelated to the video) that "visual artists are vehemently apolitical" is preposterous, especially to anyone who has spent any time interacting with those kinds of people, as I have, because my wife paints. Perhaps I misunderstood your reference to "visual artists" which may be broad or narrow depending on how you define it.
A visual artist is broadly anyone who creates art that can be viewed, and that includes everything from movie directors to watercolor painters.
You must agree that if you take the broad definition, that they are "vehemently apolitical" is preposterous. That would include the likes of James Cameron and Michael Moore to any person who paints on canvas, and I have had plenty of interaction with them, enough to know that they are not only apolitical, but "vehemently Leftist".
If you describe a "visual artist" narrowly, for example, as an industrial artist who may design logos for corporations, it is possible that person may be more "apolitical", since their livelihood depends on them being able to emotionally take on any number of clients to design a company logo for them, so they cannot afford to be political, they must be professional, not artistic, with all the benefits and negatives that many accrue to an "artist".
Those "visual artists" have to be professional to get ongoing customers and jobs to design logos and web pages. Those "artists" do not have the luxury of being political. If they do, they risk losing half of their potential work.
4Runner, in today's digital world, people have to make choices.
There is a lot of information that may be of interest to people, and people must (and do) make choices on whether they are going to delve into the information based on how they are introduced to that information.
If you are looking for a house, and you go to a website displaying images of houses for sale, and you see a picture of one that is dilapidated with paint peeling, the door off the hinges, and the gutters falling down, do you drill down on that one if you have a family and are looking for one you can move right into?
Of course you don't, and so you make a choice. You have already spent your valuable time visually scanning the image, maybe even reading the description, but you will skip right to the next house on that web page.
We only have enough time to expend on things that have a reasonable chance of being valuable, and that forces us to make choices. In this case, the prima facie statement was so far off base that it was the equivalent of a person shopping for a new construction house who sees the old one in a state of disrepair that they don't even investigate. That's all.
Personally, I would have created that thread with a very different introduction. The amount of people drawn in to post in the thread should be an indication that you might have done things differently to describe the content. Honestly, nobody wants to go in and see some lunatic Leftist artist railing against Trump or Conservatives. Anyone can get that by turning on the television or opening the Boston Globe.
If you still decide I have offended you, I will accept that and avoid discussion with you in the future if I can remember to do so, if that is your inclination. I come to Free Republic year after year for rational discourse where I can find it. If I can't find it with you, I will settle for not getting in your way of whatever it is that you wish to pursue.
See my post above. It could be that 4Runner is using a very broad definition of what a “visual artist” is, and that could be the source of disagreement. I can see that you had the same visceral reaction I did, anton.
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