Abstract expressionism : bop :: op art : minimalist composition

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If the first pair is about emotional release, and the second pair is about meditative transcendence, what's the third pair about? Does it ruin things that pop art is necessarily about critiquing pop as much as it is itself pop? (In other words, this pair can't merely be about entertainment.)

― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 21 November 2003 06:33 (twenty-two years ago)

pop is about critiquing pop as much as itself is pop too.

but also the abstract expressionists and minimalist composers actually shared a "scene" in NY to a certain degree -- feldman particularly as a nexus.

change pop art to concept art and throw in a graffiti art:rap thang and maybe there's something suggestive?

dunno tho.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Friday, 21 November 2003 06:49 (twenty-two years ago)

Bop was not about "emotional release". That's a total canard and an offensive, trivialising and borderline racist narrative.

― Broheems (diamond), Friday, 21 November 2003 07:05 (twenty-two years ago)

(btw- just to head this one off; i'm not accusing *you* of "racism" jaymc; just pointing out that that kind of romantic narrative of the bop musician "playing his heart out" continues to be out there and needs to be stamped out) (also see the references to preferences for "primitive" and "raw" blues music on that "contemporary blues" thread)

― Broheems (diamond), Friday, 21 November 2003 07:10 (twenty-two years ago)

also, Sterl's assertion that the "abstract expressionists and minimalist composers actually shared a 'scene' in NY to a certain degree" seems a bit faulty to me. But then again I don't really consider Feldman a minimalist.

― hstencil, Friday, 21 November 2003 07:13 (twenty-two years ago)

also, I don't know if I jibe with "pop is about critiquing pop as much as itself is pop too," either.

― hstencil, Friday, 21 November 2003 07:15 (twenty-two years ago)

Thanks for the clarification, Broheems. Well, this thread originated because I was listening to some 50's jazz in the car on the way home, and I was thinking of the way the saxophone line snaked around wild and all over the place, like paint streaked on a canvas (because I was also just writing about the concept of "collage" as it pertained to different art forms and so was already thinking about artistic-musical linkages). And to me, bop and ab ex both feel like "release" -- in the sense of energy, letting loose, coloring all over the paper. If you object to the idea of the musician "playing his heart out," would it help to remove the word "emotional"?

― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 21 November 2003 07:17 (twenty-two years ago)

(Because I only added that after the fact, maybe because "release" just sounded insufficient on its own.) (Also, is the word "about" contentious? I probably used that loosely, too. Because I wouldn't deign to say any of these art forms are "about" anything, really, except that some exhibit a certain tendency toward particular effects?)

― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 21 November 2003 07:20 (twenty-two years ago)

("Effect" being more of what I'm interested in than "intention.")

― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 21 November 2003 07:24 (twenty-two years ago)

do you think the effect of looking at a Rauschenberg painting is the same as listening to R. Kelly's "Ignition?"

― hstencil, Friday, 21 November 2003 07:40 (twenty-two years ago)

Not quite, but I guess I'm just trying to figure out if there's some kind of link. (Although to be fair, when I said "pop art" I guess I was thinking of Lichtenstein almost exclusively; I think Rauschenberg and other collage-oriented artists might be fruitfully compared with certain strains of electronic music, maybe?) (Or maybe this is just the kind of bullshit that crosses my mind when I'm slightly drunk.)

― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 21 November 2003 07:48 (twenty-two years ago)

the term "pop art" comes from a collage, jaymc!

― hstencil, Friday, 21 November 2003 07:50 (twenty-two years ago)

I mean, it's just ... you know Miles attended Julliard, right? I don't think his father worked hard as a dentist or whatever ( i forget exactly) to send his son off to Julliard to be able to learn "emotional release" through playing music.

Also, bop != "playing fast", and "playing fast" != "emotional release". Monk was one of the most emblematic musicians of the bop era, but his compositions were often about a kind of knotty, cerebral playfulness and his soloing full of considered, economical note placement and guileful rhythmic stabs.

Would it help to just strike the "emotional"? hmmm ... yeah, I think so! I mean you have to believe anyone doing what they love feels some kind of satisfaction. Perhaps - likely, in fact - for someone like Bud Powell playing music did represent a real kind of emotional release; maybe the only time he really felt at ease. But that's down to the horrific battles he fought off the bandstand. I just think it's unhelpful and sort of totalizing to reduce the varied and heroic musical output of a generation of performers to mere emotionalism.

I hate it when you read that kind of thing about Coltrane, too; his "spiritual quest", his yearning, reaching performances, etc .. I mean, yeah - spirituality was a huge presence in his life, but speaking of his music in those terms really strips away the countless hours he spent studying harmony, practicing scales, etc. In fact, those are the things some often criticize him for. I guess it's another variation on the tired trope of authenticity; a suspicion of intellectualism.

― Broheems (diamond), Friday, 21 November 2003 07:53 (twenty-two years ago)

― hstencil, Friday, 21 November 2003 07:58 (twenty-two years ago)

Great points; yeah, I'm with you 100%, Broheems. Forgive my lazy choice of words, then!

― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 21 November 2003 08:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Wait, Hstencil, is that where the term "pop art" came from? I've always loved that work. Hamilton, yeah?

― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 21 November 2003 08:02 (twenty-two years ago)

(For a year or two after college, I had fantasies of going to grad school and writing a dissertation on discourses of "whiteness" in popular culture, and I wanted to use that piece as the cover of my book.)

― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 21 November 2003 08:03 (twenty-two years ago)

yep, that's it.

Also, many other art forms/movements have an analog with minimalism in terms of effect, intention, hell sometimes even the same participants, that I think limiting it to only have one analog solely with op art is misleading. I can think of a few things off the top of my head -- Fluxus, land/earth art, process art, minimalism, arte povera, etc. -- that have overlap/affinity/whatchamacallit with minimalism.

― hstencil, Friday, 21 November 2003 08:05 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh yeah, good points, too.

― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 21 November 2003 08:10 (twenty-two years ago)

if you ever get the chance, check out a book by Ed Strickland titled Minimalism: Origins.

― hstencil, Friday, 21 November 2003 08:17 (twenty-two years ago)

Haha, I just Googled that and found only one site: yours. Thanks for the tip, though.

― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 21 November 2003 08:19 (twenty-two years ago)

(I mean, I'll see if I can track it down off-line!)

― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 21 November 2003 08:19 (twenty-two years ago)

I got 6 pages of references.

― hstencil, Friday, 21 November 2003 08:21 (twenty-two years ago)

Amazon's got it, used copies even.

― hstencil, Friday, 21 November 2003 08:27 (twenty-two years ago)

Nice. Need I say that the interdisciplinary focus is right up my alley?

― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 21 November 2003 08:32 (twenty-two years ago)

hey, why do you think I studied it?

― hstencil, Friday, 21 November 2003 08:34 (twenty-two years ago)

that Strickland book is fantastic.

― (Jon L), Friday, 21 November 2003 20:25 (twenty-two years ago)

Pop artist most like pop music = Keith Haring?

― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 21 November 2003 20:39 (twenty-two years ago)

when i get back from lunch i'm going to post about op-art.

― vahid (vahid), Friday, 21 November 2003 20:44 (twenty-two years ago)

(I guess I'm thinking about the commercialization of Haring.)

― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 21 November 2003 20:50 (twenty-two years ago)

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00000112O.01._PE_SCMZZZZZZZ_.jpg

― Phil Freeman (Phil Freeman), Friday, 21 November 2003 21:12 (twenty-two years ago)

Merzbow, right?

― Broheems (diamond), Friday, 21 November 2003 21:13 (twenty-two years ago)

The effect of minimalist music on me is opposite of the effect of minimalist art (generally, whether it's op art or not). I love Donald Judd and Frank Stella and Walter de Maria, it's moving stuff, conceptually but more importantly, visually. But the music of the Theatre of Eternal Music, say, the effect of the work on me is the opposite, it's constricting, it's stubborn, it has no loft. The space involved in minimalist sculpture or painting gives it loads of tension and release, minimalism in music is all tension, at least to these ears. I'd be willing to be proved wrong, though.

― scott m (mcd), Friday, 21 November 2003 21:20 (twenty-two years ago)

seven years pass...

I couldn't find a better thread for this and didn't want to start a new one. I remember seeing a pop art version of The Great Wave of Kanagawa w/ a Hello Kitty figure standing on one of the boats but I can't remember who did it, and can't find it by googling. Did I just dream this up?

― Mordy, Saturday, 8 October 2011 19:22 (fourteen years ago)

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Abstract expressionism : bop :: op art : minimalist composition :: pop art : pop?