Just What is
Art These Days?
Corel Corp. recently hosted its annual Gala, the graphic equivalent of the Academy Awards. At this event, Corel hosts various receptions and public demonstrations of new technology, and it debuts the new version of DRAW. The two days are capped by a black-tie affair in which all of the monthly contest winners are voted on, eight finalists are chosen, and ultimately, one piece designated as Best of Show.
This year marks the first year, in my six-year tenure as an annual judge, in which the piece that I voted for actually won Best of Show. (I was not present last year, when John Corkery’s replication of film star Hedy Lamarr won; I surely would have voted for it, too.) Normally, I vote for entries that look like fine pieces of art, not necessarily computer-generated art. The pieces that typically win might be beautiful, but first, they must be impressive examples of high-technology graphics. Normally, the pieces I vote for don’t win.
This year [1998], Hans Joachim Kardinal, of Berlin, Germany, covered all the bases with his life-like and elaborate rendition of a small Italian village. It richly deserved Best of Show. I was relieved, because this year, there seemed to be more surreal and futuristic images (that could only be created on the computer) than in any previous year.
For instance, one of the pieces in the category entitled People, Plants, and Animals was a stunning close-up of a woman’s face, with close-cropped hair and chiseled features. Her left cheek bone glistens in reflected light and her right jowl is perfectly contoured. It is a wonderful rendition.
And in the background are a pair of eyes. Two large eyes staring at the back of her head. Why are they there? What does it mean? How does it contribute? Answers: They are there because it was possible, they mean to impress us, and they contribute absolutely nothing. I didn’t vote for this piece to make the final cut, on the basis of this. If there were a more realistic background, or even no background at all, I might have.
The antithesis of this piece was an advertisement for children’s sporting apparel. Its headline, Kid’s World, was set in a handwritten typeface, and images of a boy and a girl were rendered as barely more than stick figures. It was quite plain and it did not tax CorelDRAW’s capabilities at all (the .cdr file was only 70K).
And it was perfect. The artist resisted the temptation to show off CorelDRAW or his own prowess with it. He held true to his minimalist pursuits. I voted for it in its category, even though I knew that it could never win. “My little girl could draw that,” scowled one of the judges. Of all of the responses that I could have made (“But she didn’t”…“Then she’s more talented than you”…“Good, then she didn’t inherit your boorishness”…“There appears to be hope for your lineage after all”), I decided to say nothing, knowing full well the unspoken criterion of this contest: It must make you say Wow, and it must look good on a software box.
The most interesting point of controversy came from the dramatic victory in People, Plants, and Animals, in which two pieces ran neck-and-neck until the third tie-breaking vote. The winner was a charming collection of images of girls and women, with the central figure, a Dorothy-of-Oz-like girl, containing the words to a nursery rhyme etched subtly across her face. It was a very attractive and well-thought-out piece, which ironically, I didn’t vote for precisely because of the text across her face. That’s me and that old technology-for-its-own-sake thing, again, but that’s off the point.
Anyway, when this image won its category, one of the judges was beside herself. “It’s just a bunch of clip art,” she bemoaned. “It’s four pieces of clip art with some enveloped text! Next year, I’m going to enter—I’m going to take a bunch of clip art and slap it together and send it in.”
Well, this was just delicious. Setting aside the possibility of jealousy or resentment (the winning artist is known for his technical proficiency more than his artistic achievement), let’s assume that the unhappy judge was right about his using clip art. Let’s assume that the artist went to one of Corel’s PhotoCD collections, pulled out several images, and arranged them on the page. Let’s further assume that he used DRAW’s built-in texture fills to create the backgrounds, and the Transparency tool to overlay one image over another. And finally, it’s a pretty good bet that the artist did indeed use the Envelope tool to wrap the text around the contour of the girl’s face.
In other words, let’s assume that the artist did not actually create, with hand on mouse, any part of this drawing. He started with stock photos and then used the automatic tools for everything else. Does this disqualify him? Does this make him less deserving of honor?
Just what constitutes art these days??
It used to be easy: If you could draw or paint, you could be an artist. If you had the vision but not the physical skills, you pumped gas or cooked french fries. But today, it’s different, thanks in great part to programs like CorelDRAW, and you could argue (and so I will) that this piece of art symbolizes what CorelDRAW is all about. A man with a sense of the aesthetic uses the tools to do the dirty work. Perhaps because he couldn’t, or perhaps because he had better things to do with his time.
From one view, this artist might have performed no actual creation, and to some that could be thought of as tantamount to fraud. From another view, he became the quintessential CorelDRAW user for turning to the tools to allow his artistic vision to be realized.
As I have said a million times and counting, the tools can’t replace the vision; that has to come from within. But today, impressive use of the tools is often mistaken as art in and of itself, and beautiful artwork that doesn’t take advantage of DRAW’s more powerful features is often thought of as sub-standard.
Can’t it all just be art? Can’t we just like it if it looks good? You decide…just what is art these days?