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so the reputation that things have in
society often change the way that we
perceive them and the art world is no
different in the art world if something
is considered high art versus low art it
will often change the way that we
perceive that piece hi my name is
Alexander your sake and today I’ll be
discussing this division between high
and low art the validity to this line
that separates them and finally the
damage that this line can create so yeah
high versus low art I thought I’d keep
my title nice and simple but if it’s not
like a paragraph it’s not with a title
so yeah art I didn’t really start doing
art until the 8th grade don’t get me
wrong
our was a class you know I’d go in there
draw Pokemon but then 45 minutes later
I’d leave and outside of that 45 minutes
I didn’t spend any time really thinking
about art I was in doing art I didn’t
look at art I didn’t really even doodle
however this all changed in like the
second half of eighth grade and it had
to do actually with a girl I like this
girl except the problem was that she
didn’t like me back she liked this other
guy but you know he’s a cool guy like I
can’t really blame her but then he
didn’t like her back he actually liked
this other girl yeah it was crazy I
didn’t like this girl though but it was
even more complicated because she was
like best friends with the girl they
liked so it’s confusing but anyway long
story short I needed a way to impress
this girl that I liked so I thought
what’s something I haven’t tried let’s
try art so so yes that’s what I did so I
did I started doing this is the first
actually work of art that I did that was
like kind of outside of this class
something I was interested in and I did
art that I thought was cool because then
maybe she thinks that it was cool too so
fast forward a couple of years never got
the girl so
ladies I’m available but I did get I did
get pretty good at art I started doing
things like this and like this which is
actually about eight feet tall and it
was the backdrop for a play and I did it
with spray paint and as I got better at
doing art people started calling me an
artist and with that comes a whole bunch
of questions from family and friends but
also from myself questions for my
parents like this art thing we keep
doing it which is not always the best
response you want when you tell someone
your passion but or other questions like
questions from my grandma for concern
for my mental health and how is going to
make money doing art which I had to
respond to you by saying grandma I’m not
crazy
and I have like 42 bucks you know how
you talk to your grandma but I actually
look this up and I found there’s three
stages of reaction it starts in denial a
concern and I instigate through the
whole class but the final stage I think
is depression so wish me luck eventually
I’ll get everybody there and then like I
said before there’s also questions I for
myself
because as you start looking at art and
going to galleries it’s kind of
confusing sometimes and so when I would
go to galleries I could say I like this
painting this painting is good I like
the color in it but as soon as people
start throwing around words like
courageous
I felt like intimidated I felt that what
they were seeing they were smarter than
me and what they were observing in this
art was over my head however with this
feeling of intimidation also came a
question for myself how come people in a
gallery will spend millions of dollars
on art on a piece of art however the
street art done outside on the parking
garage is being washed off the wall by
some dude named Doug don’t don’t get me
wrong
Doug’s a great guy civil servant he’s
great with kids he jogs but nonetheless
it’s illegal it’s a
it’s worthless right it’s low art and I
didn’t realize at the time that this was
my question of low versus high art high
art being the gallery art low art being
the street art and even then it was like
a constant it was not it it wasn’t
something I questioned it was just
that’s the way it is
however this all changed went up it
started affecting me and started
affecting my work and changed when I
started doing public murals and public
murals are scary for two reasons one
everybody sees it in – everyone has an
opinion and you can no longer to offend
your work and so it’s really hard to
initially hear when just because I did a
street art style people would say who
vandalized that wall or when are they
gonna wash it off I couldn’t help but
think to myself if I had done this with
a paintbrush instead of a can of spray
paint would I get the respect of it
being real art and so then I really
started to question this division and I
wanted you to know if you worked in a
lower medium did you have any chance of
getting the respect of high art so I
wanted to find artists who worked in a
lower medium like street art or anything
like that but still had the respect of
the higher art world so the first person
I found was a guy named Banksy if you’ve
seen this kind of style this two-tone
stencil style it was actually created by
a guy named Black the rat out of France
but it’s popularized by Banksy this guy
and Banksy is different than most street
artists because unlike other street
artists who get their work washed off
the wall you know some some Doug level
stuff people actually spend millions of
dollars to cut the wall out of the
building to preserve his work and you
can even hear people’s respect for him
because celebrities will mention his
work all the time and initially that
used to bother me like how come this guy
gets special tree
but then I realized that there’s more
value in seeing what enables him to get
this respect and when I came to realize
is that he’s a master communicator he’s
great at a simple image as simple in a
simple or like in this example where he
crosses out the IMG and adds an image of
a girl swinging and suddenly anyone who
walks by understands what this mean he’s
great at communicating and meeting to
the public and so and that’s what I
realized is that his art is so good
because he’s so good at communicating so
knowing this I moved on to the next guy
this is Bill Watterson Oh Bill Watterson
if you don’t know writes and illustrates
the comic book Calvin and Hobbes and
growing I grew up on Calvin Hobbes
Calvin Hobbes is a story of a second
grader and his imaginary stuffed tiger
however Watterson looks at comics
differently than almost every other
comic book artist to most people
comics are almost formulaic you have
three boxes that are set up and then a
fourth that’s a punch line
however Watterson doesn’t let this
formula define what he can address in
his comic strips
Watterson looks at it differently
Watterson and his comic strips will
address complex issues like religion and
education and Watterson even has a quote
that says there’s no such thing as high
and low art simply art that conveys a
meaning that artists is not so I
realized that between the two what makes
art good is their ability to communicate
a meaning and that this line between
high and low art really doesn’t mean
anything but even then I had to take it
one step further
so in this text the next step is I will
I’m starting to question we’re starting
to question has the higher art world
gone too far has the business our world
gone too far and trying to justify this
answer to how come I should spend a
million dollars on this work of art in
trying to answer this question
they’ve inflated the
artists they’ve said you should pay this
much money for this piece of work
because this artist is a genius they’re
not some normal person and that anyone
who is unable to understand
their work also has to be a genius it
creates this hierarchy and this was seen
in the book that I read Bluebeard by
Kurt Vonnegut which is a mock
autobiography of a retired artist as he
goes and reflects through the obstacles
that the art world has put in his place
and he has a quote in the end that says
in a world of Champions the mediocre
often discourage to try and that’s what
this hierarchy does this hierarchy of
elitism causes the average Joe the
regular person to not even try to engage
in art if they because they feel
intimidated like I did when I went to
the gallery and what this allows them to
do is it allows them to tell us what is
and what isn’t art and in order to fight
this what we need to do is change our
thinking so imagine a bowl beautiful
ceramic bowl right and then drop it on
the ground and it shatters everywhere
it’s it’s worthless right it’s trash
it’s lower than low art however what the
Japanese do is something different
they’ll take a broken ceramic bowl or
ceramic cup and they’ll mend it back
together with gold putty because their
idea is it’s the flaws it’s the cracks
that make something beautiful and this
is how we need to go about thinking
about art art doesn’t need to be perfect
art doesn’t need to be something that
only geniuses can do art can be
something that anyone does because it’s
the imperfections it’s the the cracks
that make art express a meaning it gives
it character and this is so important
because art is important because art is
the gold putty that mends the broken
world back together thank you
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[Applause] you