What is the difference between Low and High Art?

Hi there. I'm Kim Diaz Holm and this is Inkplot Alchemy where we use our creativity to make art from out of chaos. Now, what will we find in today's ink blot? I have no idea. But I think whatever we find, it will become art. What art will this be? I I don't know. I have no idea. What do you see? Let's just keep looking and seeing the possibility. And while we do that, allow me to explain briefly what inkplot alchemy is all about. Two times every week, I draw something from a random ink plot and release the full video of the entire process, unedited and unscripted, except for this tiny little intro script. The I may bring some ideas to the table. I sometimes do, but the ink always decides the direction. It might get dark, it might get silly, it might get personal, it might get political. If you want to skip the whole process, then you are free to do so. The final image will be marked in the video. But if you want to come along for the journey, then random ink drawings is more than just drawing. It's fun. It's play. It's magic. It's inkplot alchemy. Now, do you see anything in the ink plot? comment below and I will start talking about art and what art is while arting around with with this thing. And I think, you know, I've done this a ton of times before, but making some wings and feathers out of this type of ink blot. And I I I'm not I don't have anything planned now. I don't have anything that I see yet, but I can find something. A and while I find this winged thing, allow me to explain what I'm thinking about art because [snorts] I get a lot of comments about art. And it's I got this shitty comment the other day. I usually get I usually get um mostly nice comments, but you remember the shitty ones for some strange reason. And the shitty comment read something like uh [sighs] uh I I love art, but this ain't it or something like that. And that's okay. You're entitled to your opinion. But it reminded me of some nice comments I get that are shitty in the same sort of way. A and those nice comments are all the comments that says, "Oh, this is real art." Unlike that modern crap. Unlike those artists who are just randomly splashing paint around or or [clears throat] or literally sitting on a canvas or or taping bananas to to to walls or or anything like that. And it always bothers me when you have to uh put down other art in order to lift up what you like. because art is art. I I I don't like the exclusive definitions of art that people seem married to. And and one of those is very prevalent in the contemporary art, the high art, the fine art world. And that is those who think that there is this distinction between low art a and high art. And I'm here to tell you that there is no distinction between low art and high art. The only distinction is good art and bad art or art you like and art and you don't like. And when people try to define good art or bad art or high art or different classes of art, it always goes back to either racism or classism. So, so in the view of the fine art world, fine art is that art that has been plucked out from the plebs from the the the lower classes and put into these fine established institutions. So, so as an example, um, [snorts] uh, African folk art isn't fine art until it's displayed together with the Picasso rip ripoffs where Picasso stole a lot of things from African folk art and made it his own, appropriated it. And I'm not here to criticize um Picasso. I'm not necessarily a fan or not a fan or anything. I I have very few opinions on Picasso except that he, you know, It's strange that we put misogynists and abusers on pedestals like he was definitely an abuser of of women and probably of more. [snorts] But there isn't any real distinction between that art and uh and the African art he steals from. Both of them are reactions to impulses around them to tradition to c to culture through to new ways of seeing to old ways of seeing it's all the same. And when you try to classify one as real and the other as not real, you you can only do that through looking through lenses of classism. This is high art because it's cultured, it's schooled, it's uh um made by the right class of people or racism that that this is art coming from a good proper culture, a civilized culture and the other is not. And in the same way you can't really put that distinction the other way around and saying that oh [sighs] real art is only the art that's being made by the true people by by the working class by by the peasants, by the the the indigenous people, because that's another way of just locking it down and saying that one is real and the other is not. A and I I simply don't like it. Never have liked it. Both seem like art to me because both are humans trying to communicate in artistic ways with the tools that they have available to them. And uh sometimes those tools are coming from long uh um long traditions and from indigenous cultures or from um uh places in the world that that are uh exploited. Sometimes they come from uh the places of of the world that are exploiters. So a a and both being in this machine that exploits a and being the victim of the machine that exploits is they are both reflections of human experience. And [sighs] I I don't see it's not that I don't see the difference, but but but they can both tell communicate artistic things that are beyond what what we can say with mere words. A and even I I don't know enough about Picasso but you know one of the things that I find so fascinating about HP Lovecraft is that he as a writer he had some as a person he had some definitely awful views both for his day a and even worse how these views are looked at today. And one of the interesting things about Lovecraft as a writer is how these things find echo in his art. So, so you might have heard things like uh um there is a lot of racism in Lovecraft work and there is uh and there is a lot of fear of crossbreeding interbreeding of uh tainting the racial purity and that's uh that's um what's interesting with the story shadow over inmouth is that it's all about this uh evil city of [snorts] uh fish people that have crossbread with the deep ones and the they are evil and different and awful and people should stay away and all of that. [snorts] All of these basically thinly veiled racist tropes. And [snorts] I need to find another color. I think I want No, I know what I want to do. Let's really do this. Yeah. So, the interesting thing about uh Lovecraft's art is that even though Lovecraft was still a racist at when he died and he was still invested in his utterly unscientific awful racial views. there crept in interesting elements in his art and his art that's often based on dreams. And one of those interesting things is that while in his early stories, the horror of crossbreeding of different races, breeding was there might be some tainted blood in my family line. Oh god, what a nightmare. And then the story ends like um the story of the case of Arthur German. But in the shadow over inmouth there is a new tendency that happens in Lovecraft. That is that it turns out that the main character is of Fishman blood of Deep One blood. But instead of that being horrible, he ends up spoilers going to live with the fish people because by the end of uh Lovecraft's life in his literature, the human civilization and society was The evil was the bad, was the un evolved, the undeveloped. And the strange aliens were the symbols of civilization, of intellectual effort, of good in some way. Okay. So, so, so that and I don't think Lovecraft even thought about it this way. Maybe it did, but in his reflections on on his own fears and on his own nightmares and on his own intellect, which was what he was doing with this art all his life. He comes to a surprising conclusion that maybe he didn't even realize himself. He told things he communicated things with his stories that are in opposition to where he was intellectually at the time when he died that was had further evolved as thoughts. Okay. So that that's one of the aspects that makes me think that that that this distinction between fine art and low art is bogus. Is you find these things that communicate more than what anyone intended to put into it. And you find these in all sorts of art. You don't always find it, but you find it in all sorts of art if you look. So that's one of the things that I think is interesting is looking at not what class of art is it, not what uh what level of culture or class or refinement or anything like that. I it's about looking at what is what is this art saying and is it saying something interesting and something more and something [snorts] worth thinking about whether or not the author were [snorts] aware of everything they put in their work. I find that really interesting. The other thing is that there is this tendency when people comment my work on my work and say, "Oh, this is real art, not like those taping a banana to uh wall." There is this tendency to look a and see [snorts] the the contemporary art world as somehow lesser than the more classical or illustratorly or storytelling art because uh the commercial contemporary art world is all about money and they're just u money laundering a and all of that which is true. The contemporary art world is the top of it is a money laundering scheme. There's very little doubt about that. But that money laundering scheme, paying millions for bananas or for other art just for the the brand of that art. That's not the fault of the artist. That's the fault of the system of capitalism. And most artists who work within contemporary art never see any of that money. They are people who dedicate their lives to doing something very weird and nerdy a and [snorts] maybe it's art that maybe no one will understand it. or maybe just five people or or they're doing performance art in for audience of 20 or 100 or if they're successful a couple of hundred. A and the thing that makes the artist want to make the art is almost always this need to try to communicate something. And then in the contemporary art world, a very tiny percentage of those who dedicate their life to their weird nerdy circumstances, to their art projects. get they they get uh rewarded by insane amounts of money. That is a tiny tiny tiny tiny. It's not even a percentage. It's the very very few. Most contemporary artists just make art because they want try to communicate something in the way that they can and that they want and that that that their life has led them to. And I guess just to try to sum up all these rambling thoughts because the drawing is going way quicker than I I I thought when I I started and not knowing what it was going to be and now I know what it is. And some of you may may not know what it is. So I have to explain it to you as well. Now [snorts] the the the thing is with these types of comments saying that no this isn't art this is art or uh this is real art but that isn't art. I it's like saying no no no no you're not doing sport. Only people playing chess against Magnus Carlson is uh uh doing sport. And then then someone else say, "No, no, no, no, no. People playing chess on TV, that's not sport. Real sport is uh the little leaguers. Uh the the the kids playing soccer at school." No, no, no. That's not real sport. Real sport is mountain climbing. And it's No, no. All of those things are sports. It's just different ways to do it at different levels for different people. And the story that I'm trying to illustrate here is the story of Sutung Mur, the me of Sutung, where um I've drawn this story before, but perhaps not quite as beautifully as here. Udin uh goes to this is from Norse mythology. Udin goes to uh Utenheim to the land of the Utans, the giants or whatever you want to call them to get back the me of poetry which is the blood of a wise being called. And it's a very long story. So I should probably set out do a story time for that story on its own. And [snorts] and uh in the end Odin manages Odin manages to get the me of poetry, the the drink that can make you a good poet by drinking it all and then transforming in the shape of a hawk And then the utin that uh owns the meid discovers him and sets after him in the shape of an eagle. And then when they are flying above Valhalla and Midgard above the home of humans and of the home of the gods. [sighs] Uh Odin disposes of the mead by starting to puke it out. And the gods on the ground, they they they start carrying uh they start collecting the mead in buckets as he's puking it out. But in order to get away from the uh the giant from Sutung the eagle, Odin lets out a [ __ ] in the face of the eagle that's after him. So he poops the mead of poetry into the face of uh the eagle that's chasing him. And the punchline of the story because a lot of Norse stories have punchlines. The punchline of the story is that uh only only artists, poets are the ones who have drunk the me of suting, the me of poetry. So if someone is has the artistic spirit in them, it's because they have had some drops from the me of poetry. But when Udin shot in the face of his pursuer, some of those drops also fell down on the earth. And those artists who drink of that, that that's the that's the me of shitty poetry. And I think that's I think I I really think that's all you need. There's no high art, no low art. There's no real art and unreal art. [ __ ] a art by by the way for other reasons. There is only good art and shitty art. And who decides? That's you based on your taste. Let's see if the gods allow this art or if it's shitty art. The gods have accepted [snorts] my offering. So that means this work is finished. Woohoo. And I even remembered to press record on the video, so that's a plus. And we'll call it [sighs] the me of shitty poets. the me of shitty poetry. And that is inkplot alchemy number 25. We sign it and that means the me of shitty poetry is done. Inkplot alchemy number 25. And if you like this art, if you think that this art is not shitty art but good art, then that might be some art you want to support. And you can support it by going to denongadhome.com where this original will be for sale. It will also be for sale as print. And if you're saying, "Oh no, the prices are way too high." Then maybe they are for you. That's why I release all my art for free use under a creative common attribution license. So you can use it for free. You can print it. You can uh change it. You can even sell it as long as you attribute me. Because art like speech should be free. And if you want to support that, buy something from denong home.com. If you think it's good, if you think it's shitty, then go make some good art yourself and have fun and uh take care. And uh I'm very happy with [snorts] this one. And I need to tell the story of Sutungard, the me of bad poetry someday. See you in a few days.