Marginalized Art and Philosophy

There were three films viewed: The Lowdown on Lowbrow, Displaying modern art: the Tate approach, and An Acquiring Mind: Philippe de Montebello and The Metropolitan.

Of the three films, two had something in common. The film on Lowbrow and Displaying modern art had themes that involved people thinking about art within a social context. Lowbrow, being a response to artist rejected for no other reason than that they weren’t part of the “art circle” was striking. In Displaying Art, the theme was similar in that non-avante guard art was being displayed purposefully according to time and space in order to get viewers to think within a social context.

In this sense, these films helped me to chose which art I will include in my project, and how I will display them. As a sociologist, I am always interested in the “outliers;” those who are not mainstream in a society because of prejudice and discrimination regardless of the cause of such.

The third film was nothing more than a back-slapping session for the curator of the Met. In the interviews of de Montebello, he never once mentioned how specific pieces of art made him (or anyone else) think about the philosophy of anything. He simply declared various pieces of art “beautiful” with no elaboration as to why. The other people interviewed simply called him brilliant, with no elaboration as to why. This is not to say that the art that de Montebello procured was not beautiful, or that he was not brilliant. However, this is the problem the art world has faced for hundreds of years – where a small circle tells everyone else how they should think and feel. I would like to know why de Montebello views some art as beautiful, and others as ugly. I would like to know why he is considered brilliant other than for the commodification of art which has made a select few some money. It was a useless film in terms of philosophy.