So what

J

Joel Stewart

Joel Stewart
Not a huge thing, but a bit of a bone in my craw. I've seen arguments here saying that some people don't respect/enjoy a wine because they obviously don't appreciate the effort going into it. As an artist I sort of applaud the defense but on the other hand I really can't. I actually try to forget the effort, as long as the result satisfies. But I never qualify the result based on the effort. And I don't ask others to.

Sorry, sermon over.
 
Artwork executed by fabricators has transformed "effort" into a bit of a non-issue (not to mention readymades, appropriation, etc.); it's mostly the vision/concept that matters. Perhaps something similar should hold for wine (and everything else).
 
With regard to art, one can mount an argument that the manifestation of labor in the final product can be part of its aesthetic presentation. I suppose one could make that argument with regard to wine, though with considerable difficulty. But then since I don't think wine is art, and think the analogy is a bad one in so many ways, I really am the wrong one to talk about the propriety of it here.
 
Indeed, the manifestation of labor in the final artwork has traditionally been part of its aesthetic apprehension, and - for me - one of the "achievements" of contemporary art is an emancipation from that. I certainly am not saying that wine is art, nor had any intention of making an analogy between wine and art. Nor do I think that, even unintentionally, I made such an analogy. Pointing to an example to be followed is not an analogy, otherwise saying that we should all take some pointers from the Dalai Lama would be making an analogy between us and him.
 
Oswaldo,
In disputing the analogy, I was not aiming at you. The analogy is a fairly constant one, here and on other wine boards, and I was disputing it as "in the air" so to speak, and perhaps hovering behind this topic.

I think indeed contemporary art, particularly as in your first instancing of ready-mades and certain other ironic responses to the aestheticism of abstraction, indeed had, if not labor at least "finish" as one of the aims of its irony. But as Joel's example notes, that target isn't universal in contemporary art.
 
originally posted by Joel Stewart:
I've seen arguments here saying that some people don't respect/enjoy a wine because they obviously don't appreciate the effort going into it. As an artist I sort of applaud the defense but on the other hand I really can't. I actually try to forget the effort, as long as the result satisfies. But I never qualify the result based on the effort. And I don't ask others to.
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I applaud this. I think it can also aptly be applied to writing. It doesn't matter if someone was a Flaubert and wrote, scratched out, rewrote, reworked each sentence so that if the sentences were laid end to end, they would make 10x, 20x the book, or if the person had a facile yet brilliant plume, streaming prose that needed little retouching, à la Louis Aragon, one of the most unbridled of prose geniuses of the 20th century.

This is something I struggle with, though, to chime a personal bell. Is something that is more "effortful" more worthy? If it comes too readily, is it necessarily shoddy and cheap?

Again, this doesn't apply to wine. But there are so many layers to wine appreciation that create brickbats. Has the taster had enough of the (type) of wine to judge really? Etc.

I was thinking about a producer who makes good drink from shoddy terroir. I was thinking of a particular producer who's more like a tight-fisted, ever-correcting Flaubert. It takes all kinds, and of course there are some efforts we don't applaud (the arsenal of spoof).

Fast brilliant creation can exist. Balzac being a great one, and the excuse for me to prod everyone to read Le Chef d'oeuvre inconnu—a fantastical tale of an artist striving for perfection who creates... Oh, it's a short novella, read it.
 
originally posted by Sharon Bowman:
I applaud this. I think it can also aptly be applied to writing.
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This is something we constantly face in academia as well. Too many students tell me how much time they spent on their papers but I have to keep reminding them that I grade on results. That might be different in a 3rd grade class, but not in university.
 
This is hard with a single digit as in finger.....but reading your 2nd sentence Jonathan, I think perhaps you read too deeply. There are few, if any Christo's of wine (where process = product) but there are plenty of winemakers, of all realms and approaches, who pitch, or have pitched by others, their efforts. I take no issue with effort, process, or idea...only hate hearing someone telling me to love something because it took a lot of effort.
 
originally posted by Joel Stewart:
This is hard with a single digit as in finger.....but reading your 2nd sentence Jonathan, I think perhaps you read too deeply. There are few, if any Christo's of wine (where process = product) but there are plenty of winemakers, of all realms and approaches, who pitch, or have pitched by others, their efforts. I take no issue with effort, process, or idea...only hate hearing someone telling me to love something because it took a lot of effort.
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What I meant with my second sentence--if it's the one that says "one can make that argument with regard to wine"--refers to the argument that some artworks make the labor of their production part of their self-presentation and thus part of their aesthetic work. Think of Pollack and dripping. I don't think wine could easily do this because I don't think it has anything like an aesthetic self-presentation.

But even if I'm wrong and it could do this, this form of making the labor part of the art has nothing to do with the claim that either wine, or art, or one's term paper, is good because one worked hard at it. I agree with Sharon, Rahsaan, Oswaldo and I think everyone else about the illogic of that claim which is not particularly aesthetic or vinuous but just w[h]iney.
 
originally posted by Joel Stewart:
...only hate hearing someone telling me to love something because it took a lot of effort.
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Agreed. Or saying that you're not allowed to say you don't like something because it took a lot of effort.
 
Actually, respect and making an attempt to understand before damning shouldn't need to be argued for on any grounds, it should be a given.

Unfortunately, in the online world it often isn't.
 
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
Indeed, the manifestation of labor in the final artwork has traditionally been part of its aesthetic apprehension, and - for me - one of the "achievements" of contemporary art is an emancipation from that.
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At the Guggenheim I once saw a wooden box. It was closed on all sides with nails. Inside it was a tape player, perpetually on, that played a tape that had captured the noises of the artist while making the box (e.g., sawing, sanding, hammering).

A curious thing, in an intellectual way, but I'm not sure it fulfills my naive definition of art.
 
I agree, clever, for the sake of clever, or "this is cool because it's never been done before" approaches have their limits too...just as much as leaning on technique or effort does (which, of course, are separate things).

Oswaldo, I think, was careful to label the term "achievements" in quotations, so I'm guessing he enjoys a bit of effort and technique thrown into a good idea like (I'm guessing) most people do.

And despite the online ease of dissing anything, at least in certain circles (here being one of them) there is enough thoughtfulness and intellect to allow for persuasion to a new idea. The distances between tasters and palates though does create dissonance, which just can't be helped. (And none of this may help change what one instinctively feels when absorbing either art or wine.)
 
I can respect a winemaker's effort yet still not enjoy a wine that he or she has made. I can hedonistically enjoy a wine and yet still not respect the effort put into making it.

I'd rather enjoy a wine and know everything I can about the effort, though, because it becomes a much more meaningful experience to me when I do.

Either way I feel that wine is much more a craft than an art, and as such I don't know that one can truly separate the effort and the final result.
 
originally posted by John Donaghue:
Either way I feel that wine is much more a craft than an art, and as such I don't know that one can truly separate the effort and the final result.
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Glad to read this.
Merci
 
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
Indeed, the manifestation of labor in the final artwork has traditionally been part of its aesthetic apprehension, and - for me - one of the "achievements" of contemporary art is an emancipation from that.
Click to expand...
At the Guggenheim I once saw a wooden box. It was closed on all sides with nails. Inside it was a tape player, perpetually on, that played a tape that had captured the noises of the artist while making the box (e.g., sawing, sanding, hammering).

A curious thing, in an intellectual way, but I'm not sure it fulfills my naive definition of art.
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I once saw a retrospective at PS1 of Italian artist Michelangelo Pistoletto (from the Arte Povera movement) and a work that really enchanted me was a wooden box, also. Non-descript on the outside, it was quite large, about 10 x 6 x 3, and was completely lined, on the inside, with mirrors (supposedly, since we couldn't see them). The idea being that these mirrors reflected each other, infinitely, in all directions. So, this was an artwork that moved me, even though I couldn't even see what it was "showing."

originally posted by Joel Stewart:
Oswaldo, I think, was careful to label the term "achievements" in quotations, so I'm guessing he enjoys a bit of effort and technique thrown into a good idea like (I'm guessing) most people do.
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It's funny, with the Pistoletto example above, and that of contemporary artists like Judd, Warhol and Beuys (to take three completely different approaches), I think effort and technique are basically irrelevant. However, with artists whose work touches on issues of pictorial virtuosity (essentially the canon up to Duchamp, and much of it since then), I do want to see some struggle, evident signs of effort, otherwise it appears facile, "culinary," and that is the kiss of death. Part of what makes artists like Cézanne and Van Gogh, or Pollock and DeKooning so interesting is how they always seems to be pushing beyond their comfort zones, a criterion that would be misplaced, I think, with three artists mentioned above. So, what am I saying? That it depends!
 
originally posted by John Donaghue:
I can respect a winemaker's effort yet still not enjoy a wine that he or she has made. I can hedonistically enjoy a wine and yet still not respect the effort put into making it.

I'd rather enjoy a wine and know everything I can about the effort, though, because it becomes a much more meaningful experience to me when I do.

Either way I feel that wine is much more a craft than an art, and as such I don't know that one can truly separate the effort and the final result.
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Well said.
Best, Jim
 
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