Dr. Hsieh on The Boundaries of Art

Aesthetics Visual Arts
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A segment of Dr. Diana Hsieh’s latest podcast addresses the question of what qualifies as art, and what does not.

Hsieh says:
“…I think you can say, well look, not everything qualifies as art in this strict sense. But that doesn’t mean that the stuff outside of that strict sense of art is without value or without spiritual significance. Often, it’s exactly the opposite, that there’s more value and significance, for example, in a beautifully, well done bit of pottery which has utilitarian function than there is in a bad painting. Right? Uh, but I do think that you can say, look, some things are different, they don’t have all the essential properties of art in the strict sense. So, for example, you have some things like artistic objects that have a strong utilitarian function, so I think pottery, architecture, tapestry, these things fall under that category.”

In the above, Hsieh is stating that architecture does not qualify as art in the strict sense of Rand’s definition. I wonder if she realizes that she is disagreeing with Rand and with the Objectivist position on the subject. The Objectivist view is that architecture does qualify as art in the strict sense, despite the fact that it serves a utilitarian purpose, and despite the fact that Rand stated that it “does not re-create reality.” You could say that Rand viewed it as being so well qualified as art that its utilitarian function didn’t interfere with its aesthetic expression enough to disqualify it – it was so aesthetically powerful that it deserved an exception from her own stated criteria and definition.

Hsieh went on to say:
“Then you have artistic objects also that are more imitative so there’s, the creator has less control over them, and photography would be under that.”

It is not true that photography allows a creator less control. Advanced photographic techniques offer more control than what is available to a painter, including techniques that were used prior to the existence of digital imaging. I would suggest that anyone interested in the subject of whether or not photography qualifies as an art form according to Objectivism should familiarize themselves with the techniques used by renowned photographers like Jerry Uelsmann, Man Ray, Bill Brandt, Minor White, and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, such as orthographic masking, projection and in-camera masking, negative/positive film alignment, multiple exposures, time exposures, color, diffusion and distortion filters, and selective dodging and burning. Anything that can be imagined can be produced on film, including realistic likenesses of objects without actually shooting any objects.

Here’s a simple example of my own experimental special effects photography that I’ve posted many times in the past in Objectivist fora:

http://farm1.staticflickr.com/73/212794949_c4a5801970.jpg

It’s an image of a flower that did not exist in reality. It was made using the using the techniques that I listed above. No real objects were photographed to create it. It wasn’t drawn or painted or cut out, and it wasn’t created using any digital technology. It’s the result of nothing but knowing how to precisely control light, film and other photographic equipment. In creating it, I exercised more control than what any painter could (I should note here that I’m also a painter).

It may be true that certain people who have very little knowledge of photography are limited in the amount of control and selectivity that they can bring to the art form, but the medium’s status should not be determined by their personal limitations. Their limitations are not photography’s limitations, and photography should not be rejected as an art form based on their inabilities and lack of knowledge of the medium.

Besides, even without the advanced techniques that I listed above, a single still photograph can create an imaginary world which embodies a fundamental view of existence, just as a movie can (a series of photographs), and just as a painting can.

Here’s an example of a photograph which is a staged, fictional portrayal of events in an imaginary world:

http://static.flickr.com/22/96847642_9f52d710d1_o.jpg

Now, in the past, I’ve heard people argue, after viewing the above image, that a single image cannot convey enough meaning to qualify as art. They say that a movie of the event would qualify as art because it would provide more information through the unfolding of the plot over time, but a single still image can’t do that. When I’ve asked them, in response, why they then allow paintings to qualify as art despite the fact that they also show only one frozen moment in time, they’ve been unable to offer a coherent reply. Their position appeared to be that a painting that an artist created based on a scene that he staged in front of his canvas can somehow convey enough meaning to qualify as art, but the exact same staged scene somehow cannot convey enough meaning when photographed! Their irrational position was that you could even have an artist who could paint so realistically that his painting of the scene was indistinguishable from a photograph of the scene, and his painting would convey enough meaing to qualify as art where the photograph would not!

Hsieh continued:
“Now this doesn’t mean that these things aren’t valuable or don’t have strongly artistic elements, and sometimes they have more utilitarian or less utilitarian, more artistic, less artistic, but it’s okay, like, people often times get really upset if their favorite kind of artistic endeavor is not qualified as art. But, don’t be upset about it. It’s alright. An object is not less important of less valuable just because it’s not art in the strict sense. Again, great pottery’s better than a crappy painting. So there’s not a kind of moral judgment here, there’s not just like denigration here, um, and so, like, just understand that it’s a kind of factual distinction between what you consider that’s, like, core art, and what you’re doing is separating out particularly the utilitarian function and making sure the artist has this immense amount of control over things.”

It is not a “factual distinction” that photography is not art due to the belief that a photographer does not have an “immense amount of control over things.” It’s only an erroneous opinion, not a fact. And I can’t speak for others, but I’m not the least bit “upset” about people who know little about photography claiming that it’s not an art form. My trying to educate them on the subject should not be taken as my being “upset,” and the same is probably true of others who voice their objections to people’s assertions that photography is not an art form.

Hsieh continued:
“So, anyway, I hope that’s helpful. I just don’t think… people do get really upset, like about if whether photography is art or not, and it’s just, like, I don’t think that it is, but don’t get your panties in a bundle about it.”

I’d ask, as politely as possible, who is getting their panties in a bundle, and why? I’m a professional photographer, so I think it’s understandable that I’d have some passionate, informed views on the subject. But why is the issue so important to people who have no actual interest in the subject? Why do people who have very little knowledge of photography insist on claiming that they are identifying “facts” about the medium which are not actually facts?

J

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Personally I see photography more as selective documentation then recreation.

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Personally I see photography more as selective documentation then recreation.

 

It would depend on how one uses the medium. If you and others use it for documentation, it doesn’t follow that it can only be used for documentation. The same is true of the other art forms. Literature, for example, is used much more frequently for documentation than it is for artistic expression, but it would be a non-sequitur to claim that literature is not a valid art form based on the argument that writing can be used to record reality rather than re-create it. Likewise, drawing and painting can be used to document reality, but it doesn’t follow that paintings cannot qualify as art just because some paintings are not art. Writing, painting and photographing can be used both for documenting reality and for re-creating it. When the same criteria are applied equally to writing, painting and photography, there are no rational grounds on which to assert that certain examples of writing, painting or photography can’t be art.

 

J

4

According to the “What Art Is” website, Harry Binswanger has said that the reason architecture does not appear in the Ayn Rand Lexicon is that when he showed AR the entries under A, she said it was best left out because she had decided it is primarily utilitarian.

Whatever one’s position on architecture as art, it’s important to remember that it is far more metaphysical in its realm of value-selection than most decorative arts.  One can understand Ayn Rand’s initial position if one keeps that in mind.

As to photography, the use of photographic processes in some controlled way with endless modification and selection in order to produce what were clearly works of art would not change the status of normal photography in which an image is reproduced of something which already for the most part existed in reality.  But at that point we would probably need a new concept to distinguish the two.

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According to the “What Art Is” website, Harry Binswanger has said that the reason architecture does not appear in the Ayn Rand Lexicon is that when he showed AR the entries under A, she said it was best left out because she had decided it is primarily utilitarian.

 

Right, but that’s still conjecture. It’s a rumor. Rand’s estate has not come out with a public statement on the issue, nor has it addressed any of the consequences of Rand’s having changed her mind on architecture (if she did indeed change her mind). The formal presentation of her philosophy has not been altered. As things stand, the closed-system Objectivist position is that architecture is a valid art form. If her estate ever does formally address the issue and announce a change to her philosophy, they will need to present evidence, and they will need to address potential consequences of the change.

In the initial post on this thread, I quoted Dr. Hsieh as saying, “But, don’t be upset about it. It’s alright. An object is not less important of less valuable just because it’s not art in the strict sense. Again, great pottery’s better than a crappy painting. So there’s not a kind of moral judgment here, there’s not just like denigration here…”

It may be true that Dr. Hsieh doesn’t wish to make any moral judgments of people based on their opinions on what qualifies as art, but the same was not true of Rand, and it is not true of Objectivism. Rand’s Objectivist position was to judge and to be prepared to be judged. Her position was to very strongly morally judge those who she felt were falsely claiming that something was a valid art form. She called them frauds and destroyers, she asserted that they hated reason and existence, and that they were psyhcopathic. She claimed that they were guilty of living with contradictions, and that they were attacking man’s proper method of cognition and promoting mental disintegration. And that’s just the beginning.

So, what judgments must be made about someone who spent decades promoting the idea that architecture is art while being aware that it contradicted her own definition and criteria, and who wrote the world’s most famous novel on the subject of architecture as an art form?

 

Whatever one’s position on architecture as art, it’s important to remember that it is far more metaphysical in its realm of value-selection than most decorative arts. One can understand Ayn Rand’s initial position if one keeps that in mind.

 

That may be true of you, but it is not true of all people. Certain people respond on a “metaphysical level” much more stongly to what you’re calling “decorative arts” than they do to architecture, just as certain people respond more to opera or country music than they do to chamber music or rock. It’s a mistake to assume that one’s personal preferences are universally true of everyone, or that they should be. One should not attempt to make one’s tastes and preferences universal, or to imply that they are the objective standard that it to be used in judging what is or is not art.

 

As to photography, the use of photographic processes in some controlled way with endless modification and selection in order to produce what were clearly works of art would not change the status of normal photography in which an image is reproduced of something which already for the most part existed in reality. But at that point we would probably need a new concept to distinguish the two.

 

I don’t think that we need a new concept, just as we haven’t needed one when discussing literature or painting qualifying as art. A work of literature can be a work of art, and another work of literature can be non-art. Same with painting. When discussing literature and painting as art forms, we don’t feel the need to come up with new concepts, and we don’t feel the need to dismiss all literature or all painting as not qualifying as art just because some forms of literature (product owner’s manuals, for example) and some forms of painting (medical illustrations, for example) are not art, so the same should be true of photography. It’s not an all-or-nothing proposition: when we say that literature, painting and photography are art forms, it’s generally understood that we’re not claiming that all works of literature, painting and photography are art.

J

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Right, but that’s still conjecture. It’s a rumor. Rand’s estate has not come out with a public statement on the issue, nor has it addressed any of the consequences of Rand’s having changed her mind on architecture (if she did indeed change her mind). The formal presentation of her philosophy has not been altered. As things stand, the closed-system Objectivist position is that architecture is a valid art form.

It’s not “conjecture” or “rumor”, it’s Harry Binswanger’s word.

 

So, unless you’re calling him a liar, the closed-system Objectivist position is that architecture is not an art form.

 

I don’t believe Harry Binswanger is a liar. I consider his word solid proof that Ayn Rand changed her mind on the issue. Just as solid as if her statement to Harry would’ve been published in a book.

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In deciding whether or not a given piece is in fact art, does one include the intentions of the artist if those intentions are articulated? Where does the ‘onus’ fall in proclaiming art? On the producer of the piece or the viewer?

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It’s not “conjecture” or “rumor”, it’s Harry Binswanger’s word.

 

So, unless you’re calling him a liar, the closed-system Objectivist position is that architecture is not an art form.

 

I don’t believe Harry Binswanger is a liar. I consider his word solid proof that Ayn Rand changed her mind on the issue. Just as solid as if her statement to Harry would’ve been published in a book.

No, it’s a rumor. That is, unless you have a direct quote from Binswanger. Without such a direct quote, all that we have is a report from someone who claims to have heard from someone else that Binswanger claimed that Rand had changed her mind on the status of architecture right before she died. As I said in my last post, Rand’s estate has not come out with a public statement on the subject. In fact, the estate, the ARI, and those associated with them have continued to treat architecture as a valid art form.

Now, if you have information and direct quotes to the contrary, I’d be very interested in reading them. If you can get direct confirmation from Binswanger or anyone else who was closely associated with Rand, I will be more than happy to no longer classify it as a rumor.

Until you provide direct quotes, and hopefully written evidence from Rand herself, the closed-system Objectivist position remains that architecture is a valid art form. It takes much more than third-hand rumors to change a closed-system philosophy.

J

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No, it’s a rumor. That is, unless you have a direct quote from Binswanger.

My mistake.

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It is only rumor in the sense that it is unverified by going to ask Binswanger himself, but in that context one would have to hold to a contextually unreasonable standard of verification.  Given it is easy to check that Binswanger said that, and Binswanger is a very credible source, one should reasonably consider confirming that he said that reliable, assuming one also trusts the source which claims he said such a thing.

It would be unreasonable to classify it as a “rumor” until one went and asked Binswanger himself if he really said that. The only real question is is that source which claims Binswanger said that reliable.  The issue is not that we heard it from someone else that claims Binswanger said that.

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Even if she said that, she said “primarily” utilitarian, which still to me does not contradict (or necessarily changes) what she actually said before that architecture combines art with utilitarian purpose. She also said architecture is in a class by itself.

Maybe an example from The Foutainhead would be the boy contemplating the Monadnock Valley (hhich one might argue it as being an art value aspect) which combines with its utilitarian purpose.

Art with a utilitarian purpose, to me a great example would be high end sex dolls, like 4Woods (http://aidoll.4woods.jp/en/) Sinthetics, RealDoll, etc al. While I am a huge fan of doll photographer Stacy Leigh, I wouldn’t consider her work art. I think Sinthetics referred to theirs as “functional art” or something of the like was on their site, but I haven’t been on it in a while. http://sinthetics.com/

Art you can have sex with… One of them said it, it maybe RealDoll, can’t remember.

The dolls can be art (think poseable sculpture that sort of thing), for many though primarily for sex, etc. So a combination.

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Given it is easy to check that Binswanger said that, and Binswanger is a very credible source, one should reasonably consider confirming that he said that reliable, assuming one also trusts the source which claims he said such a thing.

It is not easy to get Binswanger, or anyone else associated with Rand’s estate and the ARI, to confirm that Rand changed her mind on architecture qualifying as art. Many people have tried and failed to get them to make a public statement on the issue. If you can get them to do so, please let us know and provide a link to their comments. I and many others would be most appreciative if you were to do so.

J

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Even if she said that, she said “primarily” utilitarian, which still to me does not contradict (or necessarily changes) what she actually said before that architecture combines art with utilitarian purpose.

It contradicts her statement that art cannot serve a utilitarian purpose. The Objectivist position is that art can’t be combined with a utilitarian purpose – it can serve no function other than metaphysical-value expression/contemplation.

She also said architecture is in a class by itself.

Creating a “class by itself” for architecture doesn’t solve anything. It is nothing but a class of objects which one wants to classify as art despite the fact that they contradict one’s definition and criteria. To put it in Aristotelian terms, a non-A doesn’t become an A by putting the non-A in a “special class by itself.”

J

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I don’t think that we need a new concept, just as we haven’t needed one when discussing literature or painting qualifying as art. A work of literature can be a work of art, and another work of literature can be non-art. Same with painting. When discussing literature and painting as art forms, we don’t feel the need to come up with new concepts, and we don’t feel the need to dismiss all literature or all painting as not qualifying as art just because some forms of literature (product owner’s manuals, for example) and some forms of painting (medical illustrations, for example) are not art, so the same should be true of photography. It’s not an all-or-nothing proposition: when we say that literature, painting and photography are art forms, it’s generally understood that we’re not claiming that all works of literature, painting and photography are art.

J

 

But we do have a concept to delineate literature which records reality vs. recreating reality, do we not?  Fiction vs. nonfiction.

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Yes, we do have a concept to separate literature which re-creates reality from that which records it. But the point is that when discussing art and categorizing its major forms, we don’t need that concept, since it is already implied in the subject being discussed. Notice that Rand used the term “literature” when classifying the art forms, and not “fiction.” The same should be true of photography. When referring to fictional or symbolic photography that is art, we don’t need a new concept. “Photography” works just fine, just as “literature” works for pieces of literature that are art.

 

J

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It is not easy to get Binswanger, or anyone else associated with Rand’s estate and the ARI, to confirm that Rand changed her mind on architecture qualifying as art. Many people have tried and failed to get them to make a public statement on the issue. If you can get them to do so, please let us know and provide a link to their comments. I and many others would be most appreciative if you were to do so.

J

That is part of my point.  It is not very easy to do that, although if you are on the Harry Binswanger List, that might be a little more easy.  The issue is that since it is not trivial to do this, it is unreasonable to assert that it is rumor until someone does this, and if we have reason to trust the other sources. 

17

A rumor is a story or statement in general circulation without confirmation or certainty as to facts. It is an unverified account or explanation of events. It is a kind of a statement whose veracity is not confirmed. Therefore it is perfectly reasonable to identify as a rumor the report that Binswanger stated that Rand had changed her mind on the issue of architecture qualifying as art. It’s an unverified account. It’s veracity has not been confirmed. It is, by definition, a rumor.

 

J

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It contradicts her statement that art cannot serve a utilitarian purpose. The Objectivist position is that art can’t be combined with a utilitarian purpose – it can serve no function other than metaphysical-value expression/contemplation.

It does not say it cannot be combined. Art, as such, is only purpose is contemplation. Architecture combines art with a utilitarian purpose, that does not make the art aspect of it utilitarian. I don’t see a contradiction there. It doesn’t say art, as such can be utilitarian or art, as such is utilitarian. However it doesn’t say art can’t be combined with a utilitarian purpose, as you claim. I have seen the quote some are trying to use as contradicting her, and do not see a contradiction with that quote, and the other one, or the Binswanger alleged one. The boy in TF evidences this. Also Toohey wrote that architecture is a great art, as its beauty (art) and utility. Both can be combined in architecture without contradiction. The high end sex dolls I would evidence as being that as well. The art aspect of them, their beauty, them being sculptures of silicone and steel, and can be used for sex, if one wants to, which would be combining art with a utilitarian purpose, and that would not contradict the purpose of art, as such, or that aspect of them, to me at least.

19

It does not say it cannot be combined.

 

Yes it does say that art cannot be combined with utility. In The Psycho-Epistemology of Art, Rand stated that art “serves no practical, material end, but is an end in itself; it serves no purpose other than contemplation.” She also stated that “utilitarian objects cannot be classified as works of art.” A work of architecture is a utilitarian object, and it therefore cannot be classified as a work of art according to Objectivism.

 

Art, as such, is only purpose is contemplation. Architecture combines art with a utilitarian purpose, that does not make the art aspect of it utilitarian. I don’t see a contradiction there. It doesn’t say art, as such can be utilitarian or art, as such is utilitarian. However it doesn’t say art can’t be combined with a utilitarian purpose, as you claim.

No. Rand’s position was that "the same artistic element (purposeful selectivity) is present in many utilitarian products: in the better kinds of furniture, dress design, automobiles, packaging, etc. The commercial art work in ads (or posters or postage stamps) is frequently done by real artists and has greater esthetic value than many paintings, but utilitarian objects cannot be classified as works of art.”

Furniture design, dress design and automotive design also combine artistry and utility, just as architecture does, but Rand’s position was that they could not be art because they served purposes in addition to contemplation. Her position was that the object as a whole can serve no purpose other than contemplation. Combining art and utility in the same object is by definition the serving of a purpose in addition to contemplation. If she had held the position that you’re taking (that the art in an object is separate from the utility in the same object) she would have no grounds on which to say that furniture, dresses and cars cannot be art.

Additionally, the Objectivist Esthetics defines art as a “selective re-creation of reality according to an artist’s metaphysical value-judgments.” But Rand clearly states that architecture “does not re-create reality.” Therefore it does not meet her definition of art (that which “does not re-create reality” cannot be categorized as that which is a “re-creation of reality”), and therefore architecture cannot logically be said to combine art and utility if the part of it that is being called “art” doesn’t qualify as art by her definition and criteria in the first place. One cannot combine that which “does not re-create reality” with utility and end up with something which combines that which does re-create reality with utility.

 

I have seen the quote some are trying to use as contradicting her, and do not see a contradiction with that quote, and the other one, or the Binswanger alleged one.

Well, if the rumor of the statement about Rand’s changing her mind on the status of architecture turns out to be true, then Rand must have seen the contradiction, even if you can’t.

 

The boy in TF evidences this. Also Toohey wrote that architecture is a great art, as its beauty (art) and utility. Both can be combined in architecture without contradiction. The high end sex dolls I would evidence as being that as well. The art aspect of them, their beauty, them being sculptures of silicone and steel, and can be used for sex, if one wants to, which would be combining art with a utilitarian purpose, and that would not contradict the purpose of art, as such, or that aspect of them, to me at least.

Personally, I agree with you that art can be combined with utility. The point is that Objectivism does not agree. I’ve been discussing the Objectivist position, not your position or mine.

J

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Personally, I agree with you that art can be combined with utility. The point is that Objectivism does not agree. I’ve been discussing the Objectivist position, not your position or mine.

"[T]here are only three kinds of fine art: the art of speech, formative art, and the art of the play of sensations (as external sense impressions).

…

The formative arts, or those for the expression of ideas in sensuous intuition (not by means of representations of mere imagination that are excited by words) are arts either of sensuous truth or of sensuous semblance. The first is called plastic art, the second painting.

…

To plastic art, as the first kind of formative fine art, belong sculpture and architecture. The first is that which presents concepts of things corporeally, as they might exist in nature (though as fine art it directs its attention to aesthetic finality). The second is the art of presenting concepts of things which are possible only through art, and the determining ground of whose form is not nature but an arbitrary end−and of presenting them both with a view to this purpose and yet, at the same time, with aesthetic finality. In architecture the chief point is a certain use of the artistic object to which, as the condition, the aesthetic ideas are limited. In sculpture the mere expression of aesthetic ideas is the main intention. Thus statues of men, gods, animals, etc., belong to sculpture; but temples, splendid buildings for public concourse, or even dwelling−houses, triumphal arches, columns, mausoleums, etc., erected as monuments, belong to architecture, and in fact all household furniture (the work of cabinetmakers, and so forth−things meant to be used) may be added to the list, on the ground that adaptation of the product to a particular use is the essential element in a work of architecture."

Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgement, SS 51

You Kantian dog!