Today, when a man screams on the street “- Searching an honest man!” probably some passerby will response and the rest would possible take this act as a performance or sickness of person. Diogenes searching for an "honest man" with his lantern meant to demonstrate with this act to people their misunderstanding of the essence of humanity. But I concern here more about the act itself but not an interpretation of it.
Diogenes Sitting in his Tub by Jean-Léon Gérôme (1860) Wikipedia [Online] Available from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diogenes#/media/File:Jean-L%C3%A9on_G%C3%A9r%C3%B4me_-_Diogenes_-_Walters_37131.jpg [Accessed 23/11/18]
Around 400 BC there was no term "a performance" as we know it today however people who have something to say to the society they were using approximately the same methods of self-expression. Here is a good question is rising – why today we would call the act of “-Searching an honest man!” as a performance or art piece? Will it be an art piece or an element of Visual Culture at large? Can it be that an Art remains independent of Visual Culture?
I had a big post about the gradation of Art and Visual Culture (see it here: https://www.marinawittemann.com/blog/prologue) where I conclude “We should leave the VISUAL CULTURE as the only possible discipline, a field of activity for high, purity, 0, everything and nothing in composition, colour, form, embodiment, conscious and unconscious, canvas and not canvas, black and white, sounds and silence, words and characters, shapes and space...” In other words, art for me transformed into something bigger. Today's and tomorrow’s art can replace philosophy and pretend to solve ethical, moral and other rhetorical questions.
Visual Culture “referent as the assemblage of visualities, images and ways of seeing in a given place and time is now commonplace in museums, universities, art galleries and even journalism.” (Mirzoeff, 2013, xxix). I can identify Visual culture for myself, as a form of human culture which is represented in images and includes theory about it. At the same time, Oxford Dictionary defines Art as “the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.” (Oxford dictionary, online). Yet the set of these two definitions - Visual Culture can be any TV program or photo on Instagram and at the same time, it can be created for appreciation of beauty or appreciation of their emotional power. If a photo of the plate with eggs with bread from the Facebook’s post and the still-life with the same objects depicted on the canvas in 1600, can be analyzed by the same criteria because it refers to visual culture what it would mean?
Picture 1. Amateur photo for Facebook. 2013 Germany
Picture 2. Georg Flegel, Still-life with Carnation and Eggs, 1600 [Online] Available from: https://theartstack.com/artist/georg-flegel/still-life-carnation-an [Accessed 27/11/18]
· If art will be as a species of visual culture then moral, social, political, cultural, religious aspects might be represented in any images we like and fulfil the purpose of creation. Nevertheless, advertisement and propaganda can be the main motivator for many visual images but art...?! If referring to the Soviet art, of course, it is a Kitsch in all its manifestations, and contemporary artists can think about “money first” and only at the end about an artistic idea, etc. hereof both, advertisement and propaganda, can coexist for all visual culture images including art.
The only aspect which might help to improve the quality on Visual Culture is that we can evaluate all pictures from the social media programs and paintings on the wall with the same criteria of composition, idea, movement of time in artwork, form, rhythm, colour contrasts, tone, the wholeness of work, artistic image... In other words, we will judge visual culture with rules for arts. In the above example, we could ask ourselves, for example, what is the idea of Picture 1? Probably answer would be “the idea is an atmosphere of a breakfast on the lake”. And for Picture 2 in 1600, Georg Flegel created this still life as one of the first of this style, so idea was to represent the beauty of tableware with a combination of that time dining tradition, the very image of household items is a new subject for fine arts. During this comparison “like peas in a pod” - it is obvious which one of the pictures endowed by aesthetic subtlety and beauty. When we apply the same criteria for images of visual culture in large and artworks, it can increase the awareness about the quality of what we see.
· If art will be a separate category it might limit the development of art. For example, some scientists believe that a “Canon” in Egypt did not contribute to the development of art. Ancient masters were obliged to follow the rules and canons in art-making thereby no creativity and no freedom allowed. What it would mean if Art will be the separate category? If an artist creates artwork which originally represented in Facebook – would it mean that it is a private area of Visual Culture and not art anymore? It is a collision in a definition and disciplines.
If art is separate from the rest of the image-making process and theory about it, it could be easier to identify with a simple declaration of the artist what is art. For example, I’m officially recognizing myself as an artist and I work every day for art, for the sake of art, I declare – I create art. So, you can judge if it is good or bad if you like it or not, but you cannot say that I’m a housewife.
WORK - Activity involving mental or physical effort done in order to achieve a purpose or result. (Oxford Dictionary)
Purpose of my work is art and the purpose of housewife’s work is the happiness of the family. The only question is what kind of obstacles can be on the way of “artistic declaration” in Visual Culture? Because artist himself can separate these two terms, so to say "now I'm making art, and tomorrow I will create a part of visual culture".
I use to say that art raises questions about a subject which is in a field of artistic interests. Here all aspects of life – moral, political, cultural, etc. can be discussed without unnecessary identification as an element of Art or as an element of Visual Culture. The final destination for both is the consciousness of the viewer. Hereby Diogenes can continue searching an honest man, as he did it before and his methods, ideas, intentions even can stay the same, the only difference will be the name of this act and theory about it.
Bibliography and references
1. Mirzoeff Nicholas, The Visual Culture ReaderThird edition published 2013 Routledge, Oxon
2. Wikipedia [Online] Available from: Available https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_culture [Accessed 27/11/18]
3. Oxford Dictionaries [Online] Available from: https:https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/art [Accessed 27/11/18]
4. Georg Flegel [Online] Available from: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Flegel [Accessed 27/11/18]
5. Oxford Dictionaries [Online] Available from: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/work [Accessed 27/11/18]
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