The LAF Games Workshop Discussion Thread

[Vermis]

you should hang around a fine art sculpture studio , assemblage of mass produced objects is the go to for most, including the tutors.....

Yup.

The fact alone we pretty much filled a page with discussion on the thing means he has probably succeeded from an art point of view

I know they say that there's no such thing as bad publicity, but there's something tragic when getting noticed at all or having people sneer at your work is considered 'success'.

I'm off now to read the Young British Artists strip in Private Eye, grumble grumble kids lawn grumble.

[nic-e]

Yup.

I know they say that there's no such thing as bad publicity, but there's something tragic when getting noticed at all or having people sneer at your work is considered 'success'.

I'm off now to read the Young British Artists strip in Private Eye, grumble grumble kids lawn grumble.

thay little strip hurt me, because of how true it is. I tried stone carving the other day, im actually In a top arts uni where I can do that, and I was sneered at because it was a bit old hat and told to look into duchamp. (I know duchamp extensively, so this pissed me off alot.people so desperate to look intellectual that they miss out on all of art history pre 1920 and ignore the 30's to the 90's)

Vent over.

[Vermis]

Well I guess I'm too late to edit that out of my post. I didn't mean to snap about the matter, and I'm not even that riled up about the sculpture that started this discussion, and I'm sorry for all that; but the art establishment and it's doublespeak drives me up the wall sometimes.

(I took school art classes up to about AS level. They were getting more conceptual and I didn't feel I was getting the kind of representational training or instruction I wanted. Heck, I wasn't even interested in sculpture or modelling until I learned about the 'green stuff' hanging from the rack in GW.)

(I'd like to try stone carving some day, especially after visits to the National Portrait Gallery and the British Museum during April's Salute trip. I'd like to try wood carving, even. I need some books...)

[Modhail]

people so desperate to look intellectual that they miss out on all of art history pre 1920 and ignore the 30's to the 90's)

There's a reason I feel absolutely no shame about being an art-school dropout... 
I went there out of a desire to become a craftsman, not a stand-up bullshitter.

[von Lucky]

Art School Confidential is what I imagine art school to be.

I remember seeing an exhibition which appropriated some 1/72 Airfix years ago. Was very effective (as this sculpture is).

[nic-e]

Art School Confidential is what I imagine art school to be.

I remember seeing an exhibition which appropriated some 1/72 Airfix years ago. Was very effective (as this sculpture is).

are you thinking of the chapman brothers hell series?

An example of reappropriated objects used skillfully is snow the work of kris kuksi, who's art looks like a john blanche fever dream.

[Modhail]

there are trade related art schools here. Really neat idea. All the art minus the bulldust.

They should have had those around here roughly 15-20 years ago. Would have worked out a lot better for me...
Back in the day I had the misfortune to get lumped in a class with a majority of excrement buffers (aka: throw something together quickly, invent a story around it afterwards and get a decent grade for one night's effort   ).
I happen to be working with a recent art school graduate at my current job, seems the pendulum has swung the other way since, a lot more emphasis on skills and design theory. Oh to be a 20-something again!

Edit: Yeah, Kuksi is nice. Obsessively intricate work, good creepout factor, just up my alley.

[Modhail]

Lucky sod...
I landed smack in the middle of the  "You gotta have a Concept!" craze, right up those types alley. I do miss the wild kids and the obsessive creators from time to time though. They're nice folk.

[nic-e]

Lucky sod...
I landed smack in the middle of the  "You gotta have a Concept!" craze, right up those types alley. I do miss the wild kids and the obsessive creators from time to time though. They're nice folk.

that's still very much the fashion at ual. I honestly belive that is because conceptual work fits better into an academic system, whilst bypassing that tricky little thing called subjectivity.

[FramFramson]

Art School Confidential is what I imagine art school to be.

As the shameful holder of a Studio Fine Arts degree, I can largely confirm this.

Academic art has essentially cut itself off from society and has become almost totally irrelevant outside of academia. If it weren't for a few magnificent rogues like Banksy, the average person wouldn't have any exposure to art other than popular art, commercial art, and cat photos, unless they really really sought it out voluntarily and put in the effort to do so.

I suspect that what happened is the fine arts crowd become a bit trapped by the hundred-year progression in towards ever greater abstraction, running from about the birth of photography to about the late 70's (the last phase that really had anything new to say was maybe the Op Art and Pop Art era, which both played with the medium and preconceptions about art itself).

I mean that was a revolutionary period, one where artists were freed to explore non-representational art is all sorts of wild new ways. That was an amazingly productive century! The problem is that once all the successive generations of rebellion and boundary-pushing were done, nothing was off limits, so the "next step" hasn't been obvious and I think as much as artists like to claim they're imaginative or creative, they're probably not THAT much more so than the average population (it's why we see "schools" of art, after all), so there's been some floundering around as fine artists in academic settings have struggled to figure out how to create new things which are relevant or which at least offer meaningful comment or thought.

I'm not saying it doesn't happen (seriously, thank god for Banksy... I'm not sure the average person would even remember fine art exists in today's world without him), but fine art is in rough shape right now.

[nic-e]

As the shameful holder of a Studio Fine Arts degree, I can largely confirm this.

Academic art has essentially cut itself off from society and has become almost totally irrelevant outside of academia. If it weren't for a few magnificent rogues like Banksy, the average person wouldn't have any exposure to art other than popular art, commercial art, and cat photos, unless they really really sought it out voluntarily and put in the effort to do so.

I suspect that what happened is the fine arts crowd become a bit trapped by the hundred-year progression in towards ever greater abstraction, running from about the birth of photography to about the late 70's (the last phase that really had anything new to say was maybe the Op Art and Pop Art era, which both played with the medium and preconceptions about art itself).

I mean that was a revolutionary period, one where artists were freed to explore non-representational art is all sorts of wild new ways. That was an amazingly productive century! The problem is that once all the successive generations of rebellion and boundary-pushing were done, nothing was off limits, so the "next step" hasn't been obvious and I think as much as artists like to claim they're imaginative or creative, they're probably not THAT much more so than the average population (it's why we see "schools" of art, after all), so there's been some floundering around as fine artists in academic settings have struggled to figure out how to create new things which are relevant or which at least offer meaningful comment or thought.

I'm not saying it doesn't happen (seriously, thank god for Banksy... I'm not sure the average person would even remember fine art exists in today's world without him), but fine art is in rough shape right now.

this.

also, to bring it back, are we saying gw and the art world match up as insular and out of touch with everyone except a rich elite?

[Vermis]

Must bite tongue about Banksy. Must bite tongue about Banksy. Ouch.

also, to bring it back, are we saying gw and the art world match up as insular and out of touch with everyone except a rich elite?

I've just come from another forum where I had the same thought about GW and superhero comics. Just substitute 'rich elite' for 'decreasing pool of fanboys willing to shell out'.

[FramFramson]

Don't like Banksy, eh? Ah well, not for everyone.

this.

also, to bring it back, are we saying gw and the art world match up as insular and out of touch with everyone except a rich elite?

Ha!

Though, I'm not even sure the rich elite have much to do with the current fine art world. It's one thing to buy a Kandinsky and still call that edgy or current. It's quite another to buy or sponsor someone who's started in the past twenty-five years.

... something something space marines.

[Modhail]

I have to agree on art having gone off on a tangent and losing much of it's relevance.
It seems the only things that keep art going at the scale it is now are government subsidies and the art markets who are only interested in value. Effectively works of art are large, elaborately crafted shares to them. 
Which in itself is a sad social commentary of sorts, I guess...

...mumble, mumble, too much skulls. 

[Tactalvanic]

I have to agree on art having gone off on a tangent and losing much of it's relevance.
It seems the only things that keep art going at the scale it is now are government subsidies and the art markets who are only interested in value. Effectively works of art are large, elaborately crafted shares to them. 
Which in itself is a sad social commentary of sorts, I guess...

...mumble, mumble, too much skulls. 

Not being one of the elite, or an artiste of any real calibre (hated art in school, and the teachers, no encouragement and you learned nothing - draw a picture of these twigs for 2 hours and f-off until next time style of artistic education).

I cannot much comment on the state of art today - I appreciate what I perceive as good art, that which I like whether classical, ancient, modern etc, don't care - if I like it I like it. Even down to and especially exponents of our hobby in its little miniature worlds - some of the stuff produced here and elsewhere is art in and off its own self, and bloody good to.

But. as wonderful as that all is, and its nearly Christmas, this is the GW thread. Within that context, you cannot have to many skulls within its