Saturday, September 5, 2009

Give Peace a Chance


John Lennon is a British celebrity who was one of the founding members of The Beatles. He is a singer, songwriter, author and most importantly a peace activist. Yoko Ono is a Japanese-American avant-garde artist and musician who met Lennon on business occation and married him a few years later. They were both very anti-war and conducted a peace demonstrations. The first which was in a hotel on their honeymoon in 1969 and the second one a hotel room in Canada. It was to promote peace and protest against violence. He did so by saying people should stay in bed and grow their hair so they won't be doing violent things else where. He claims no one ever gave peace a complete chance and believed in using non-violent ways to achieve is since using violence only promotes more violence. They gained many supporters globally as the story had worldwide media coverage.
It is a demonstration of the importance of us to start taking action and move towards peace is like a peace of art not meant to be just read directly. However i still think about the fact of the lethargy of peace. Can people be peaceful if they are doing something, such as work or trying to get something for themselves like food and money.

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Valuable Art

I think there a few criteria that makes a piece of art valuable.
The most obvious is how aesthetic the piece of art work is. Such could be in the form of skill and technique in creating a lifelike realistic sculpture that of Mueck or like Pollock's abstract expressionist paintings. Their works are hard to replicate and their skills are easily appreciated.
Another thing that makes art valuable is the the message with which it is sending through the artwork. Powerful intentions and deep messages make an artwork a lot more meaningful as the content corresponds with the intended message. Such art will stimulate the audience to think beyond what is present in front of them, the usual things that are in your mind or present to you the obvious truth which is usually ignored. Such can be in a common form such as Hartini's effort to bring unity and less prejudice in her community. Or it could be as unconventional as Dadaism which even seeked to change the face of art as it was.
Of course once an artist's become famous, usually his artworks will valued. He or she would have achieved a level of respect for what he does which the general public can relate to. Often art which is original or has historical value will be valued very much. Another reason which may make a piece of art valuable is due to the cost which takes to make it. For instance, Hirst's diamond skull has a high value on its own before it was assembled. However, it is worth much much more afterwards.