record of a conversation about art

a series of emails between myself and a girl in LA who makes music
I'm not gonna start at the start of our correspondance so just, we were talking about noise music.
me:
the thing about noise is i feel, it tends to attract lots of smart cool dudes (not girls as much as a generalization) and even though its not very fruitful per se- well, it reminds me of something my friend said the other day,
'it's interesting with japanese films
they are so valuable, but only as catalysts for criticism
they present innumerable avenues to explore ideas
but as primary documents, they can suck my dick
name me a good japanese film
ii mean, you can
i just think that's interesting
a piece of art that's only valuable because it allows a discourse
like damien hirsts work, or jeff koons
not valuable within themselves, but they allow smart people to talk about them
and that recharges them with intellectual and fiscal value'

i feel thats what noise is, a form of art that not many actually enjoy but is a platform from which to discuss/experiment with other things.

(she responded saying she liked noise a lot, but that my friends framework seemed valid, that many artists seemed to be jst kinda dicking around- eg matthew barney, for example, but saying that some, for example damien hirst, escaped it)

well i wonder, i feel like artists used to feel so precocious about their work, like jean cocteau or something, so when we look back its almost like, unattractive how excited they are about it. but the inundation of information and knowledge we have now has made a field of art that nobody is passionate about at all. i feel the same way with noise, i actually DO enjoy it- i have a vivid visual memory of listening to masonna and shaking around

i guess ever since that whole skull thing i've kinda felt that hirst is a fool, i mean i get the point but i feel that art that can be concisely described in words, instead of seen (unless of course its literature) is pretty useless

a distinction i make a lot is between craftsmanship - the idea of making art thats beautiful - cartier bresson, for example,
and art thats a reflection of life- stephen shore, for example, to which beauty is incidental
maybe this is dramatized in photography, a medium i study a lot, but i think its valid elsewhere as well

like for example my ears, really like how cheesy house music sounds, a lot. but i wouldnt say thats the acme of musical art. instead i think a band like say suishou no fune could be because their jams actually begin a conversation, instead of just stating I AM BEAUTIFUL
ya know?

(she said)
I totally agree with all that-
I forgot about the skull, that was pretty dumb-
I think everyone is WAY to hyped up on themselves all the time now... It seems like to be an artist or a musician you get some inflated sense of the importance of what you're doing just by default... It's like on a reality show every single person thinks they are going to win, every a-hole in a band thinks it is the best band ever to exist... It's like a survival mechanism or something
It grosses me out though because I get scared that I haven't actually thought anything through as carefully as I meant to and I'm just dumb...
And that when I look at all these people and say summarily that they're a bunch of losers, that really they are all thinking the same thing, that they are the best one haha...

(and i said)
i think thats why i am often attracted to art that seems reflexive. there are some, relatively rare, cases where i am just blown away by an artist- stephen shore robert mapplethorpe donald judd uh tons of musicians lets just say basic channel, burial, suishou no fune cause i have listened to them in the last hour. but its so hard to make a judgment about what is really, questing towards the truth that sometimes i find myself immersed in work that does that unintentionally. possibly as a cause of my computer being broken for the past year and a half cd burner wise, probably about half of the music i listen to is individual house/rave/trance/techno etc tracks on youtube, that almost anonymously seek to manufacture beauty in a way. similarly i catalogue images that strike me, chinese landscape painting, found photographs, family photographs , images that seem that were taken for reasons that arent per se artistic and yet are communicative in the way that the second category of art can be, as well as beautiful in the way of the first. like if i was to take house music at face value itd be totally stupid, on some levels (though i am totally moved by the idea that, the response to being a gay black man with AIDS under reagan is, to dance and have a party, that is so constructive and optimistic and amazing) but if you take that stuff for what it actually seems to be, it seems that it is 1, totally musically weird if you think about it 2, a record of lives that were literally poured away in futile searching for happiness (i dunno AIDS is really symbolic for me, it is just so amazing, the idea of a plague that punishes transgressive love) (of course i'm romanticizing this stuff but whatever)

for example, an argument i often have is like, many people i know, will be like, man, daft punk or justice or something like that is so great, whereas you listen to this cheesy shit, why? and my response is something like, why is it better to have some stylish middle class dude from suburban paris than an anguished heroin addict with AIDS from chicago, be the guy you are relating to with art? also isnt it so that art is an accoutrement or decoration for the first, but the second instance almost seems to prove the idea that art is necessary for life, that even a trapped, dying human being will use art as a last resort of communication? i dont know if that makes sense, its all so unconnected except in my head. the point is that, educated white people (basically like you or I) are those I am most suspicious of, art wise, because I feel like for us art is just another aspect of a tailored and well groomed life that includes a copy of vice magazine on the table and and american apparel in the closet and a bag of yayo in the dresser,ya know? it just seems so much more dispensable for us as a class, than say, poor black dudes- like i'm always amazed at the true fact that many people weep when listening to 2pac cause it just shows me how out of touch from primal problems i am, cause my main reaction to his work is to be like, this is kinda goofy, kinda sexist, kinda naive and i kinda dont care. so when i listen to it i think i'm actually mostly listening to my perception of the response of other people, 2pac as some kind of equivalent reflection of american urban culture to those french cave paintings for cro magnons. its not the art's quality per se that's relevant, but the extent to which it reflects the context from which it emerges, which gives it quality- the judgment isn't, is it beautiful but is it true (and if you accept like i do that human life is, if not beautiful, at least moving, then truth becomes beauty in that way)
and it strikes me that this is basically the same logic i used to elevate shore relative to bresson- that is, this 2nd category can in some rare occasions come from highly reflective contexts, like our own, but i think more typically comes from a less thought out place. cause when you think things out they just feel like, not as totally necessary. i mean, i think about how much more emotions i felt for high school crushes i didnt even kiss compared to girlfriends who have wanted to marry me and been like, whoa. i've lost that, by the sheer amount of information i have at my disposal, my tastes have become much more discriminating. and i think that loses something.