Is "Trying Too Hard" In Art Really THAT Bad?

And I, for one, kinda hate it.

(I like this question. Might it a class thing? 'The Book Of The Courtier' is pretty down on the whole trying angle, and a lot of filtered-down posho attitudes stem from that/ the discourse it came outta)

however, I do think this neuroticism produces more interesting art, but I would never want to hang out with anyone who was affected by it. As a consequence, I have few friends.

I guess i understand (and sympathize) with the first response more than the second response.

Well, if everyone who wanted to try their hand at art of any kind decided they should keep their ego/talent/attempts to themselves, we'd be living in a pretty shitful world doncha think?

There is try, but I prefer to look at it as DO.

Some of those films/books/artworks always criticised might get up some peoples noses but like the Minor Threat lyric Scott quoted - WHAT THE FUCK HAVE YOU DONE.

Its people saying shit like this that put people like me off becoming the writer I wanted to be. I really want to write, but I dont want to fight the snoberati and have to prove I'm NOT TRYING just to get anywhere. Its like some twisted game of "are you being ironic?" "I dont even know anymore".

Sad sad sad.

No, too many people already share their useless "art" with the world. Do we really need 40,000-odd CDs released a year? No, we don't. It's a waste of time and resources.

Two non-trying too hard examples:
a BFA exhibition at TCU last year, and one student had a wall of medium-sized (maybe 11x14) color prints, from a trip to Paris she took. A dozen prints, and there was absolutely nothing interesting or commendable about them. There was no theme, no concept, no composition to speak of, the colors were unremarkable. They were like every bad tourist snapshot ever taken (and no, that wasn't the idea). But there they were put up in a gallery to showcase her work.

my CC had an Epson-sponsored exhibit of photographs from the UC-B0ulder grad program. Most were pretty bad, but one set that stood out were from a woman who took post-Renaissance paintings in Photoshop and inserted herself into them, acting out the roles of women. Badly Photoshopped, at that. I wouldn't have thought much of it - but she had $1000 price tags on each museum card thing. $1000 for crappy work from a grad student?

In less-noticeable or less-annoying ways, I see this constantly. 'Artists' who lack any ability to look at their work with an objective or critical eye, and almost uniformly produce crap.

Would we have understood Ray Davies half as well if he hadn't done the Preservation albums? Would we have known what Parkinson was all about had he stopped a year earlier than that Meg Ryan interview? Would we have seen Raymond E Feist's aspirations as completely if he gave up writing after that Magician book?

some could argue that your life is a waste of time and resources. who are you to make the above assessment?

xpost yeah that's kinda suspect coming from someone involved with Smog.

Who needs 40,000 CDs a year? Who needs 12 CDs a year? How many you need isn't the point, it's all about artistic expression.

My writing may never be successful, but I'm still giving it a red hot go. If it merely adds to the 40,000 works published in a year and makes no impact, so be it. I'm not going to stop just because some nutbag thinks I'm wasting resources.

Come to think of it, would there even *be* late night talk shows if it weren't for 'sweaty and desperate'?

I'm trying to think of the last thing I described as "trying too hard." I'm sure it was a film, but I don't know which or why.

anyway, my feelings are pretty close to milo's well-articulated statement. So I came off a little too Scrooge-y (surplus population! what about the poor houses? bah humbug!) - at least I didn't single anybody out on the thread, which would be pretty pointless.

"Well, this short story is a Foucaultian excercise in synergy set to the tone and palette of the late Industrial Revolution, informed equally by Chandler, Dostoyevsky and Shakespeare."

It's about the artist forcing a lot of ideas or forms into a work for reasons that aren't organic to the work itself.

Most of the world's resources are finite, at least most that I know of. Funny how we can all seemingly agree that people shouldn't drive SUVs and whatnot, but the minute I suggest that maybe the people of the world are over-producing and over-consuming, and that art is just as much a part of that as anything else, you and jim scream bloody ad-hominem.

also, according to the following chart, global music sales was around $52 BN last year, which is significantly more than "less than one cd per person" (though yeah it's not broken out):

some could argue that your life is a waste of time and resources. who are you to make the above assessment?

was bloody well bloody ad-hominem, mate. At least I read it as second person singular.

what is your argument? are you saying that all crap artists (as labelled by you, the supreme arbiter of taste) should stop what they're doing and, like, go clean up some oil spills or join Habitat For Humanity?

xpost damn you're sensitive. that's not an adhom.

"the conscious use of skill and creative imagination especially in the production of aesthetic objects"

well that's pretty much the majority of art, isn't it?

is there really that much art that isn't driven by the artist's ego?

Oops, I would be happy to refer you to my discography.

(I'm not familiar with it so I have no idea.)

-- hstencil

I was being facetious.Though, perhaps it's true. *starts to sweat*

is there really that much art that isn't driven by the artist's ego?

I don't like most art, honestly. And the art I find myself disliking the most is art that is virtually all ego. Likewise, the art I enjoy most often shows the least sign of ego. I like some art but I don't like most artists. If that's a contradiction, I'm okay with it.

This implies that you have been inundated with useless art. Surely you can give me one example of all this useless art that is so bothersome to you.

Also, most things, most objects in this world outlive their usefulness. That's why we have landfills.

This is why the good guys win in most movies, novels, and plays.

This quote, however, interests me:

And the art I find myself disliking the most is art that is virtually all ego. Likewise, the art I enjoy most often shows the least sign of ego.

I think you have mistaken "ego" for "personality". I live with a practising artist who rigorously enforces the deliberate removal of his own "Personality" from the art, to the point where he doesn't even allow his name to be used on the title cards! He deliberately avoids using his name, anything about his life, his personal life, his image. But does that mean that there is no EGO in the art? fuck no! In fact, it's perhaps even more ego, the biggest bang, the loudest, most extreme noise, the brightest of flashes, the most monolithic of structures. It's like a super-wang contest, "my ego is so huge and so overpoweringly that I don't *need* to put face or my name on things in order to express my ego."

There's something called "involuntary self expression" which means that your ego will seep through into your art, regardless of whether you try to erase your personality from or use your personality in the art.

I don't think I have. I have no problem with personality, and in fact find it to be almost a necessity in any art I like. You can have an interesting personality, yet not be full of ego. Note that I didn't say I prefer art where there is no ego, just that in which the ego doesn't overshadow all else.