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Reader comments
JoshSep 08, 2004 at 3:22PM
Pretty interesting article. I guess I disagree, though -- it all seems backwards to me.
First, what the article didn't seem to cover was Pop Art and its surrounds. Duchamp, Lichtenstein, Warhol, et. al. laid the groundwork for the idea that 'fine art' would be subsumed by everyday life and pop culture. There's a famous art-history book (maybe someone else will remember the title) that argues that, after Pop, paiting has nowhere else to go and will never return. Whether it will 'never return' is obviously up in the air, but after Cubism, Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art, it seemed like purely visual art wasn't as interesting anymore. (It wasn't just because painters all of a sudden decided painting was boring -- it was part of an evolution in painting.) And this article argues that, after purely visual art became boring . . . "design" is now art because it's purely visual?
I guess what I don't get is: if painters and artists felt in droves that fine art painting wasn't so cool anymore, what makes design so cool now? A lot of a design is only cool by association (with New Order, with Underworld, with technology, with skateboarding culture); what of it isn't 'associated' with some other cultural trend or art form is basically still the same old Pop Art Kruschev could've seen (ironic t-shirts, cool posters, etc.). Sure, the design value of everyday life has gone up, and that's great, but fine typography and good industrial design and good human interfaces are not identical, as the article tries to say, with 'design for design's sake,' which seems to be treading the same water that Warhol stirred up more than 40 years ago.
I'm no curator, so maybe I'm missing something. I just don't see much that's new going on here.
JoshSep 08, 2004 at 3:32PM
In other words: what's so 21st century about something that was ground-breaking in 1967?
PatrikSep 08, 2004 at 4:41PM
Up until less then two hundred years ago, art was practically something that was always commissioned. Any artwork that was produced then said more about the person/group that paid for it then the artist that actually created it. Art was a vessel for communicating some form of message, usually a religious one since in the west; it was usually the church that did the commissioning. Art was nothing more then a craft.
And then something strange happened. Less then two hundred years ago, art took a sharply different turn. The artist took full control and art became a very personal venture. The moment the artist refused to have the message of his work be dictated from the outside, it became less a craft and more of an expedition to find out what the boundaries where of this new form. ("What is art"). While the search continues, it has naturally become more conceptual and left aesthetics behind. This change in direction, this new distinction is probably why many people who have been raised with the traditional idea of art are lost on contemporary art.
Design on the other hand continues with the centuries old premise of how art was created. It is still commissioned and he who pays has the final word. The designers role is simply translating that message into an appealing aesthetic. The only thing that has really changed is the buyer. It's no longer the church but the corporate world that rules our world and is willing to invest in design for its own gain.
The customer has changed and so have the tools, but in essence, design is the exact same craft traditional art was.
Robin FiorSep 21, 2004 at 6:38AM
> Over simple (-minded). God, or a Critical Conscience, is still in the details, and the detailing. And this covert content, is no less content than the client's brief (which may, or may not, specify Craftsmanship (Craftspersonship, yes too). The difference between Fine Art and Informed Graphic Utterance, is the degree of open-endedness, and because frontiers are more porous and fluid, decorum doesn't always stop IGUers (graphic designers) crossing the line.
> The ethical duty of - designers - is to assure Access (the First Thing First), and Signposting (enabling Wayfinding) remains a/the priority on both sides of the frontier, given the exponential explosion of free floating visual signifiers and, as in the 60s, but inspired by Carpaccio, we must hunt them down on the Lagoon (Getty it) while the ladies wait for us on the balcony.
This thread is closed to new comments. Thanks to everyone who responded.