It's his money to waste, but if you want to see what Alan Gibbs has wasted his money on you can watch thirteen-and-a-half minutes of streaming TVNZ video showing much of what he calls 'art.' For a supposedly hard-nosed man, it's somewhat surprising to see what craftless tat some con artists have erected to persuade him to part with his cash.Pictured above by way of example is a chunk of rusting steel, an enormous wall of which by the same 'sculptor' has been erected at great expense in one of Gibbs's Kaipara paddocks.
"It's some of the very best art in the world," Gibbs says of it all. I think not. "Capitalism is the greatest natural gift to mankind." Now there's more hard sense.
LINKS: Sunday: Alan Gibbs - TVNZ (13:25)
RELATED: Art, New Zealand
33 comments:
There's no accounting for taste.
You show your real self in these posts - just like your criticism of Gareth Morgan for disposing of his money as he saw fit.
When YOU have achieved what Gibbs has YOU can spend your money on what you want. In the meantime those who earn say 50k pa if they're lucky can shut up about the decisions of us investment bankers who earn in excess of 500k and pay much more tax.
"Envy's Envoy" was a cover of the Free Radical once I recall.
Sorry, is your position that Gibbs's taste (or lack thereof) is immune from criticism because he earnes more than I do?
Is that really what you're saying?
And to point out he's been conned makes me envious? Really?
Sheesh. Methinks says more about you and Gibbs.
Tat is tat, whoever buys it.
Yes - I think it does make you envious. I know Gibbs - he chose to go down to the Coromandel and do his Eastern thing. It makes him happy. So who are you to criticize his choices in art or anything else.
I stand by my statement that when you have achieved what he has, you may criticize him. Otherwise shut up.
ahh, the old 'that's not art!' cry.
the true mark of the close-minded.
Yes Boss. And you're free to criticise me because...?
"ahh, the old 'that's not art!' cry. the true mark of the close-minded."
Or perhaps the mark of someone with a mind?
Or the mark of someone who knows what art looks like? Who values the distinction between real art and crap? Who knows why real art is important?
Or perhaps just the mark of someone who knows where to find capital letters on his keyboard. ;^)
"ahh, the old 'that's not art!' cry. the true mark of the close-minded."
Or perhaps the mark of someone with a mind?
Or the mark of someone who knows what art looks like? Who values the distinction between real art and crap? Who knows why real art is important?
Or perhaps just the mark of someone who knows where to find capital letters on his keyboard.
This thread on the other hand,is an example of supreme artistic insight. Like Jesus telling a parable, we are the peasants at your feet.
Well done that man, a truly great effort. We are not worthy.
"This thread on the other hand,is an example of supreme artistic insight. Like Jesus telling a parable, we are the peasants at your feet. Well done that man, a truly great effort. We are not worthy."
Now that's more like it: A proper awareness of the state of things.
Well done that woman.
How ironic! To be hit by a stone, wrapped in a piece of paper bearing a message that proclaims "it's a sin to throw stones at others."
And you're free to criticise me because...?
...you provide the comments box that allows me to do so.
Or perhaps just the mark of someone who knows where to find capital letters on his keyboard.
ahaha. taking digs at someone for their online comments writing style. classic. just about up there with criticising art you don't like as not actually being 'good' art.
surely art, and what makes it good or bad, is in the eye of the beholder?
"And you're free to criticise me because...?"
... Sorry Hemi, that was me unfairly, arrogantly, disdainfully and presumptuously criticising someone else, not you old chum.
"Surely art, and what makes it good or bad, is in the eye of the beholder? "
Nope. You've been sold a pup on that one. See what you think of this argument as a starter: 'Who Needs Great Art? You do. :-)
PC's right.He and others have the right to make observations on anyone for anything without needing "permission" from Ruth or any other Liberty police.PC never said Gibbs should be prevented from spending his money on what he values ....he just said it appeared to be crap and I agree with him!
Which part of freedom of expression don't you get Ruth?
The first time I check back on this site in ages, and this is what I see.
Far be it from me to engage in professional snobbery, PC, but for one who has erected such impregnable walls around their conception of 'art' and 'taste,' I'd be casting my eye a lot closer to home before rubbishing anyone else's aesthetic sensibilities.
Objectivity does not exist in art. You are a poor arbiter of taste if said taste is to be measured against the art you post (as 'the only true art').
DenMT (*disappears in a puff of smoke again*)
"Objectivity does not exist in art."
Oh, but it does, dear Den!
(Nice to see you back, BTW, however briefly.)
Need it also be pointed out that Gibbs invites critical appraisals of his taste in Art by inviting journalists into his home to show it off...
... and by sponsoring much of the crap that infests Auckland's Art Gallery, and much of New Zealand's 'art' world.
I am incredulous that someone working in a field such as architecture would ever claim to be able to identify objective standards in art - to loftily pronounce that something 'is' or 'isn't' art based on what I see as fairly dubious credentials.
See PC, that's the point. 'I see' your credentials as dubious. You demonstrate few intersections with what I enjoy and find engaging and entertaining about the visual arts, but the difference is that I don't claim any kind of intellectual authority for my opinion.
To adopt the conception of 'objective' standards of artistic merit, you first have to position yourself as an able arbiter of those standards. This is an act of not inconsiderable arrogance in the first place - I'm glad you claim to know 'what art looks like' and to be able to discern 'the difference between real art and crap,' but for someone in the tenuous position of producing 'art' through architecture, you are in a very brittle glasshouse to be tossing out as many stones as you are.
You post a lot of the classics on your site as examples of good architecture, but very few modern, current architects or buildings. Either you don't have your finger on the pulse as it were, you don't believe any good architecture is currently being produced, or (my bet) you wouldn't know good architecture if it landed on you from 6000mm AFFL.
Again - 'good' is my subjective opinion, but at least I'm not implying that other people are fools for thinking differently.
DenMT
(Unrelatedly, why do you not register with the NZIA?)
I think Gibbs owns the 'private sculpture park' I mentioned last year in a brief paragraph on my website links page. He has the largest 2-coil tesla coil in the world; the pictures are freaky.
Good of you to respond, Den, but I fear we're going to disagree again here.
You say you're astonished - sorry "incredulous" -- that someone in an artistic field could make a claim for their being objective standards in art.
But I really do find it astonishing that anyone could claim their work in an artistic field could proceed without standards.
Are you really saying that there is no means by which you can judge good work or bad? No way of knowing good work from bad? Or bad architects from good? No way of telling whether doing this thing is objectively better than doing that thing -- or that you judge such things purely on whim, or your spur of the moment feelings, or the toss of a coin? (If no objective standards apply, then all means would be equally (in)valid, wouldn't they?)
Are you you saying that scope, depth and integration are not important in art works? Is proportion, scale, massing, texture, siting, colour of no consequence at all? Is there no means by which we can objectively judge the value of each of these? None at all?
No need (presumably) even to be trained then, since if objective standards don't exist there's no way that someone trained in architecture or art or literature could possibly be any better objectively than someone who isn't, no?
No?
Is that what you're really saying, Den? Because I just don't believe it. I don't really believe you don't apply standards in your own work -- objective standards -- and I don't believe any argument about 'taste' can exclude a discussion of such standards, even if it's only by implication.
And neither do I believe you don't apply standards in matters of judging others' tastes, even if only by implication. Your tastes and my tastes and Gibbs's tastes (or lack thereof) can be judged (as I did and you've done), and if we're shelling out for expensive artwork should be judged.
Our particular tastes are subjective, sure, but that doesn't mean judgement of those tastes isn't possible objectively, even if we don't like what that evaluation tells us.
And by your arguing here can I suggest you demonstrate that you know that.
If there were no objective standards used in judging art or in understanding and appraising artistic tastes then you could simply say, as you did, that I'm a fool and my stuff sucks, and I could say I disagree, but since there'd be no standards by which to evaluate our assertions there would be nothing more to say and we could both just pack our shit and be on our way.
So much for debates about aesthetics.
Or I could say I think Gibbs's stuff is worthless tat (just as I did), and you could say you disagree (although I don't think anyone has actually trodden that path yet) and once again there'd be nothing more to say to each other -- other than perhaps to say,"Oh, he likes that stuff. What a fool."
But in fact, even saying, "Oh, he likes that stuff" is a means
of making an objective judgement about art, isn't it? It says that "that stuff" makes some statement or expresses some thing in particular that we can discern, just as it does about the people who claim to like it.
So perhaps then your only problem is not that we can't actually discern and agree what's being said (or in the case of 'Emperor's New Clothes' art, not said) but that if we recognise that we are making objective judgements (even by implication) we actually express a judgement either about what's said by a piece of art, or about the means by which it's said, or about the people who claim to like what's being said.
Is it perhaps making such a judgement that you really object to? But you have no problem calling me a fool for saying you should.
In other words, to summarise however briefly, I say we can objectively assess the art that we and others like or dislike, and we can then assess what that tells us about ourselves and about others, and the basis for that objective assessment goes to the reasons that beings with our brains need art so profoundly, and that good art that affects us so deeply.
So I'd suggest that the disagreement here, then, is not really over whether objective standards are possible in art -- and if it is then I'd suggest following that link I left earlier to see why man's unique brain does need art, and it is this need that provides the objective basis on which to evaluate the art we see -- the argument here is really about which standards, or whose standards we apply.
The fact is we do get affected by art, often profoundly so -- just witness all the violent arguments people have these days over music, or films, especially when their taste is impugned. Such an effect cannot be causeless -- and you surely don't suggest it is? -- and if it has a cause, then it's something we can understand and measure and assess ands talk about objectively.
That people get so emotionally involved in arguments such as these we're having now suggests, doesn't it, that the question of why art affects us isn't just of academic importance, and neither is it one to airily dismiss -- is it really possible that something so profoundly important to each of us as the art and literature and music we feel so attached to, that the deep emotional attachment we feel to this art that we value so much and fight for so strongly has no identifiable cause at all?
Can that be possible? I don't think so. And I don't think you'd defend that either.
* * *
Anyway, you make a statement here which suggests you think you do have a handle on "the good," a handle that I don't have:
Now, you go on to say that "'good' is [your] subjective opinion," and you're "not implying that other people are fools for thinking differently" (thatnk goodness for that, eh?), but I think you're doing more than just implying it here, aren't you? By your own statement you're implying a certain set of standards by which I can be considered a fool, and by which you've judged me as one -- someone who doesn't now good archtitecture even when it falls from the sky - and your're more than willing to leap into print to state that judgement in defence of good architecture.
Just one question, Den: "good" by what standard?
You see, you do think you have a standard for judging the good, don't you, and this does matter to you, doesn't it.
Anyway, I could say that I don't post "classics" because I don't bloody like classical (and on top of that I think it's objectively lacking in merit :-> ), and that what I post here for the most part is what I see as art and architecture with profound scope, real depth and high-level integration -- all good objective standards by which to begin judging good art.
But since you've got your own handle on "the good" and your finger on the pulse, something I apparently haven't got, how about for "the good" of both of us (and also hopefully of interested readers) we each post our top five buildings, and with them perhaps an argument for why we claim each of them is good. (Except of course that you'd not be able to do the latter, not if you really believed there existed no conceivable standards by which to measure the good?)
How 'bout it? Your five favourites. My five favourites. You could just post your links here, below, or if you want them properly presented you could email me you pics and your write-up and I can post one each day as the daily art pic here at 'Not PC.' [Email me at 'organon at ihug dot co dot nz' if you'd like to do it that way.)
"(Unrelatedly, why do you not register with the NZIA?)"
We did discuss that here a while back (I can't find the links I'm afraid). The basic reason is that I dont lke being forced to join 'voluntary' organisations, although subsequently many more reasons presented themselves.
As you no doubt realise however, the new regulations might make it almost impossible not to join if one wants to continue practicing architecture, and if so I might need a sponsor. Fancy taking one on? ;^)
PC - this is going to be a long reply, so I'll preface it by saying that I accept your 'Five Buildings" challenge.
PC: "But I really do find it astonishing that anyone could claim their work in an artistic field could proceed without standards."
That's not in debate here, PC. Personal standards and values are essential for anyone involved in a creative or artistic discipline. Immutable objective principles are one thing, 'standards' are another. I am (obviously) arguing against the former.
PC: "Are you you saying that scope, depth and integration are not important in art works? Is proportion, scale, massing, texture, siting, colour of no consequence at all? Is there no means by which we can objectively judge the value of each of these? None at all?"
Obviously all of these factors (and many more besides) have a bearing on the creation and appreciation of art. There is no possible way that anyone could formulate a 'correct' way that art should be made. There is no 'objective' framework for evaluating success in artistic endeavour. To respond specifically, specific features of merit can be identified within art, but one paintings magnificent use of complementary colour will contrast with another's moody achromatic palette - lessening the merit of neither.
PC: "No need (presumably) even to be trained then, since if objective standards don't exist there's no way that someone trained in architecture or art or literature could possibly be any better objectively than someone who isn't, no?"
To take architecture, there is an obvious need for initial and continual professional training, given the high level of technical expertise required. In terms of the aesthetic side of architecture, I don't know about your education, but mine (at Vic) was all about being exposed to the rich history of architecture; learning, looking and writing, and then being challenged to break moulds and to invent new modes of creative thought.
PC: "I don't really believe you don't apply standards in your own work -- objective standards -- and I don't believe any argument about 'taste' can exclude a discussion of such standards, even if it's only by implication."
I don't know if I could quantify my aesthetic 'standards,' as every single precept I have will alter depending on the nature of the project I am working on.
PC: "Our particular tastes are subjective, sure, but that doesn't mean judgement of those tastes isn't possible objectively, even if we don't like what that evaluation tells us."
Of course it does. Remember where this whole argument has sprung from - you proclaiming that you had it within you to objectively proclaim art 'good' or 'bad'. I disagree, and say, at the end of the day, no one can. I think that where you are headed is the classical definition within the philosophy of aesthetics whereby 'art' intrinsically implies 'beauty'. So what you seek is an objective definition of beauty, which is much easier to do than an objective definition of 'art' - as the necessity for beauty within art is bitterly contested.
PC: "So perhaps then your only problem is not that we can't actually discern and agree what's being said (or in the case of 'Emperor's New Clothes' art, not said) but that if we recognise that we are making objective judgements (even by implication) we actually express a judgement either about what's said by a piece of art, or about the means by which it's said, or about the people who claim to like what's being said."
There is nothing objective about a personal judgement about art. One measures the art in question against a personal set of likes/dislikes/interests that one has built up over a lifetime, and that have been affected by upbringing, culture, and myriad other factors. One does not measure the art against a graven tablet with 'PRINCIPLES OF GOOD ART' at the top. The judgement of aesthetic value, at the end of the day, is entirely a personal one. I challenge you to find one philosopher of aesthetics who would posit a system of objective aesthetic principles.
PC: "In other words, to summarise however briefly, I say we can objectively assess the art that we and others like or dislike, and we can then assess what that tells us about ourselves and about others, and the basis for that objective assessment goes to the reasons that beings with our brains need art so profoundly, and that good art that affects us so deeply."
You're not talking about objective assessment, you're talking about personal assessment. I can almost guarantee that the number one of my top five buildings will not be branded as 'good art' by you. Maybe none of them will - remains to be seen.
PC: "The fact is we do get affected by art, often profoundly so -- just witness all the violent arguments people have these days over music, or films, especially when their taste is impugned. Such an effect cannot be causeless -- and you surely don't suggest it is? -- and if it has a cause, then it's something we can understand and measure and assess ands talk about objectively."
Certain colours clash wildly with others, yet complement further colours beautifully. We can identify the reason for this as their chroma, and objectively state that 'chroma' is the yardstick by which 'clashningness' can be assessed. What we CAN'T do is write an objective formula for the optimal relative chroma of two colours. This is what you are doing by saying you can objectively identify 'good' and 'bad' art.
And that is the crux. I think you should climb down from your high horse - your position is one of supreme arrogance, and it is a bad look for anyone wanting to have their opinion taken seriously.
DenMT
(On NZIA - It says a lot that you have voluntarily isolated yourself from the profession, I think.)
Den, I'll reply later in more detail to your substantive comments, but let me just make four or five quick comments now (comments which have got longer as I type!).
1) I think the whole way through here you're relying in implied standards, and you're assuming that I'm arguing for some rigid intrinsic standard. Neither is the case. On the first point: You begin here by agreeing that the need for standards is not in debate. Good. Then you agree that the factors I raise would be part of those standards. Also good. But where do those standards come from? Why those ones and not others? Is it really just a "technical" matter of flashings and window details? Or is there something in the nature is us as human beings and the buildings we build that implies some need for the aesthetic standards you're agreeing to, and you agree we need?
And I'd suggest you also implicitly accept objective standards when for example you say you use different standards from job to job: what you're doing here is simply reflecting that standards are contextually objective, which is exactly what I'm suggesting -- not that standards are rigidly intrinsic, carved in stone, but that they arise from and are applicable in a particular context. As I say, they are contextually objective.
2) As I say above, your personal tastes are naturally subjective, but that doesn't mean at all that those tastes and what they say about us can't be judged objectively once made. They can.
3) You say, "I think that where you are headed is the classical definition within the philosophy of aesthetics whereby 'art' intrinsically implies 'beauty'."
Let me just say: No, I'm not headed there. Not at all, and nor have I indicated I would be.
I'm headed towards art that has meaning for each of us; art that is a shortcut to our philosophy; art that tells us about our place in the world and the way we each see that; art that says to each of us "This is me!"
Art in other words that responds to our need to feed the conceptual faculty that is our human means of understanding the world, and that needs to be able to see, in a single perceptual concrete unit, the summation of our world-view.
Our fundamental need for art is not the same as a surmised need for beauty -- our need for art derives from the nature of our conceptual consciousness; it's a fundamental need, not just because we like to look at cool stuff.
Art that does do that -- that does respond to and feed our conceptual faculty with real meaning, with real perceptual concretes that have the scope, depth and integration to suggest real meaning and a succinct summation of a whole world-view -- is objectively superior to art that doesn't do that. I guess that's the whole case right there in a nutshell.
As Claude Megson used to say at the Auckland school (which I went to after I left Vic), if your art doesn't have meaning then you're just wanking. Or, as I might suggest as a corollary of that, art that doesn't have real meaning isn't art at all, it's just wanking.
Good art has real meaning by virtue of its scope, its depth, and its integration; by contrast, semen-stained blankets, getting naked with a pig; shoving hot dogs up your arse; and setting rusting walls of steel on your farmland -- all recent examples of so-called 'contemporary art' -- none of these are actually art at all, they're just so much wanking (literally in the case of the hot dogs). None of them have the scope, depth, integration or meaning sufficient to be called art.
So if you want to mention beauty here, then it's really in the sense that as John Keats says in his 'Ode to a Grecian Urn,' "Beauty is truth, truth beauty, -- That is all ye know on earth and all ye need to know."
4)PS: I haven't voluntarily isolated myself from the profession, Den, I've simply refused to join the Institute. There is a difference.
If you want to read more into that than what I've already said about it then that's your privilege. When turning a blind eye to plagiarism and protection of members isn't put above promoting good architecture -- when in other words it's more than just another boys' club with a legal monopoly -- then I'll be interested in joining voluntarily.
Oh, I should say too I look forward very much to the 'Five Building Challenge,' and I'm very pleased you've accepted.
Shall we say one building each on alternate days, starting on Monday next?
Can't wait. :-)
(I suppose it's too late to rule out anything from Gehry, Hadid, Liebeskind or Eisenman?)
PC, I totally agree with you about art and beauty. If art doesn't evoke something deeper inside, if it doesn't take you anywhere, if it's not beautiful in any way - then it's not art.
Somewhere along the way, a whole lot of wankers have destroyed art and confused several generations.
When I hear people talking about objective standards of art, my thoughts immediately rush back to Stalinism and Nazism with their 'objective' standards that suppressed the work of Prokofiev and Shostakovich, and Weil and Kandinsky, in favour of 'good' art like 'socialist realism' and the scenery from Parsifal. I'm amazed you are going down this track given the antecedents of this argument. Shouldn't the libertarian in you welcome freedom of expression lubricated by large dollops of cash, even if you don't like the way it is expressed. The fact Lucyana agrees with you should be a salutary warning of the slippery slope you are sliding down.
Can there be standards, well I suppose you can look at technique, but how does the technique of van Gough compare with that of Rembrandt? Which is the greater artist? What about the 'anti technique' of Pollock? I'm sure Speer's architecture was full of depth and harmony but was it art? You can have your colour theory but isn't art also what challenges the theory and goes beyond it and creates a new perspective?
And as for Ruth, well if you believe you have to have a certain wad in your bank to be able to express an opinion or have a view on the relative merits of something of someone with a similarly sized or larger wad, then I just pity you. Is that what you are teaching your kids? I have a lot less than Philip Field, judging by the number of houses he seems to own, are you saying that excludes me from making value judgements about his behaviour because I might be envious? I suspect it is not quite what you meant (given the context of ongoing sniping with PC) but….
Insider
Thanks for your comment, Insider, but can I suggest that everywhere your thoughts rush is not necessarily somewhere in which knowledge can be found.
I think here you're confusing intrinsic standards -ie., stern rules written down on tablets of stone by people so lofty they shit marble -- with what I'm calling objective standards -- ie., principles based on the nature of reality and of human consciousness that allow a piece of art to act as a 'mental unit' objectifying our world-view.
That might be a mouthful, but can I suggest you reflect on the difference.
For just one thing, it implies nothing at all dictatorial about one's choices about what to hang on your walls, simply an evaluation (if you like) of what you do choose, and (perhaps) a guide to what you might choose to hang, or choose to paint.
"Can there be standards?"
Well, I did suggest a few, none of them requiring conformity to a dry, classical standard.
I came across a list a while back on the 42 goals to enact a communist takeover of the US. Two of the goals pertain to art:
22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."
23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."
Insider, you mention Stalinism and Nazism and their 'objective' standards that suppressed the work of Prokofiev and Shostakovich, and Weil and Kandinsky, in favour of 'good' art like 'socialist realism' and the scenery from Parsifal.
Ah, yeah... Stalinism - communist in the extreme, and Nazism - National Socialists. Something about those socialists/communists and their need to redefine art.
Hey Peter,
I laughed in sympathy and enjoyed my visit to this thread.
While taking a shower yesterday I was thinking about the quest of many art students, which is to become artists. I mean that in the glowing, passionate sense of loving creation and having a genuine sense that they are on the right track. It’s an incredible experience, it feels like making passionate love with someone you love. There are also many people that don’t know that experience as well as many artists that never exalt in their work.
Anyway, I came up with a brief comment that best expresses my view of art mentorship, which I am now using on my sight. It also is relevant to this thread: Art is about so much more than technique; yet technique gives you freedom.
Michael
Hey Michael,
Great to see you here again. (For interested readers, it is Michael's criteria of scope, depth and integration that I was using above to discuss the minimum necessary for something to be considered art -- and you may well remember his name from the many examples of his work I've posted here, and from the links to his wonderfully enlightening 'Newberry Workshops.')
You say: "Art is about so much more than technique; yet technique gives you freedom."
That's it. Watching those artists (those few) that do have something to say and who do have a burning passion to say it, but who have either never learned or been taught the technique to say it, or never discovered the means of expression sufficient to express anything ... well, it's heart-breaking.
It's like watching an obviously talented child whose teachers have never given him the means to get what's inside him out into the light of day -- except that in the case of so many of today's 'tortured artists,' they've accepted and imposed their own ball and chain on their soul, whatever 'success' that ball and chain has brought them in the wider world.
But why would you do that to yourself?
Cheers,
PC
IT SUCKS ASS. No matter how much money the dipshit has.
The end.
Love,
Mark
I also know Gibbs personally. He is certainly no fine arbitrator of taste. The notion that just someone criticising Alan's taste must be jealous, as Ruth staes, is just plain silly. Alan Gibbs is a deplorable person. He exorts his collegues to "think like Rush Limbaugh."And states that there should be no Libertarians on the radio. Alan Gibbs is blindly groping about in the dark hoping to make a correct choice about art in order to appear cultured. Irrespective of his bank balance, he is nothing more than a petty bourgeois, and is taste in art is accordingly bourgeois.
To be fair, I think Ruth confused Gibbs with David Phillips here, and it became clear on another thread that it was Tony rather than Alan Gibbs that she was talking about.
But she may still wish to berate me for having an opinion, who knows? :-)
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