But Is It Art?

Part One: Ramblings

We have had two Tuesday class times in Artists Books where we get to examine artist books from the University of Utah Marriott Library's rare books and fine arts collections. The rare books selections are an interesting way to spend time, and I have examined a few book structures that I would like to try out on my own, I do wonder sometimes what makes these artist books art when I have done bindings with sewing and gluing just as good as these. Some of the texts in these books are not really that creative, just strange and often weird, and of course a few of the author "artists" have to throw in a filthy word or two to prove that it is relevant "art." But is it art?

The selections from the fine arts collection is even more questionable. They remind me of the photo and "art" books that I saw in the book store and library at Long Beach State College, now University of California at Long Beach, in the sixties when I was an art and theatre student there. There were also a lot of these books at the Free Press Book Store in L.A. where I occasionally browsed the shelves. While some of them were clever and eye catching, most of them were just vulgar exhibitionism. They justified it by calling it "art" or "avant-garde" or an expression of rebellion against the moral confines of the ESTABLISHMENT. I should have bought a few of those books back then. I would have quite the "fine art" book collection now, but I would be too embarrassed to show it off.

I did find a couple of the fine art selections to be fascinating in their presentation, Photogrids by Sol LeWitt and Babylonian Misapprehension by Gary Richman. I spent a lot of time examining those two books with a cursury flip-through of the rest of the books. Another book that was put out for us to examine was More Than Meat Joy : Complete Performance Works & Selected Writings by Carolee Schneemann and Bruce McPherson. This had a lot of blury photos of performance "art" with twenty somethings stripping off their clothes and dancing around or rolling on the floor, etc. Is that art, or just a bunch of perverted people calling what they do art in an attempt to justify their perverted view of the world and have the intelligencia heap extravigant praise upon  it as an artistic expression of the modern human condition. But is it art?

Part Two

Last Thursday we had book binding demonstrations by Chris McAfee, or the Amazing Christophoro. It was the same demo as last year, but it was good to have a review. He tells lots of stories about himself, which are very entertaining, while doing the demonstrations because he says book binding demonstrations are boring to watch.