Greetings:
I don't think it's worthwhile at all to attempt to distinguish between 'high' or 'low' art--any more than it's beneficial to draw lines between 'art' and 'illustration', 'art' and 'craft', or 'fine' art--
--and everything else.
I also don't think it's actually possible--if one is being honest. The categories themselves are almost completely arbitrary; there are no set criteria, no standards, and no agreed-upon guidelines--so an accurate, valid, objective distinction between 'high' and 'low' art cannot be made.
Good art (and bad art) can be created in any media, any style, using any subject, or no subject at all--not only those currently sanctioned by the 'gallery' scene, and its attendant critics.
If an art collector can't recognize good work, or doesn't realize what they do or do not like, without having to read a review, then something is seriously wrong. It should not matter whether a work is 'high' or 'low' art, or whether an artist is working in a current, offically 'recognized' style, or medium, genre--or city--or any other non-essential category.
Yet, it often seems that people who claim to enjoy art rely--often almost completely--on the reputation of a given gallery, or on the style or media in which a work was created, or on the opinions of critics--in order to be assured that a work of art is 'good' or not.
It should be the work itself that counts--period.
Labelling, compartmentalizing, and categorizing works of art gives critics and academics something to do, but I have to wonder when artists, and especially, collectors worry--or claim to care--about such things.
Keith Russell
Synthetic Sky Studios
Science Fiction Fine Art
artkc.com/russelk.htm
|
|
