Walking around Nocturne last night, I witnessed a similarly disturbing phenomenon from both sides of the coin—intolerance. From uninitiated students and members of the general public, there were comments ranging from “Oh, i guess this is art?” to homophobic statements about performers, to actively ignoring the art in the vicinity. Then there were the members of the elite art-speak crowd who sat in small groups and actively sneered at the work that wasn’t “good enough” and avoided the “common people.” Can’t we all just try a little harder? General public: art is very, very good for you. You might just learn something about yourself or the world if you stop dismissing it. Intellectual elite: the only way to change this town is to try and share the art with not only your peers but the general public too. Let’s all try and get along. —Keeping the Peace
This article appears in Oct 20-26, 2016.
Uninitiated? Was I to be paddled somewhere along the route?
Bad art is bad art. I’d sneer at it too. It’s called ‘taste’ not intolerance.
Most modern art is shit, literally sometimes.
There is a big difference between people ‘getting along’ and everyone being told to be totally cookie cutter in their actions and thoughts. Especially when it comes to something as subjective as art. Personal taste and appreciation of anything, art or not, is a very personal thing and one has a right to like it or not. Otherwise we all would probably be wearing similar clothing in one or two colours, and living in similar housing with similar furniture etc.
And something as large as Nocturne tends to draw the alleged ‘art snoots’ and their scathing barbs along with the hoi polloi – all part of the show, nice or not. And sometimes their comments may be right on the money. Artists, like many others may need to have a thick skin at times to stay in the game. After all it seems that things may not have really changed over time as far as ‘critics’ go, according to this – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3H7IUbwFG4…
I went to Nocturne and was unimpressed; except for the fire people, but I was stoned when I was watching them.
Urinating on the commons is not art. Enough said.
I let a real bumshaker go at Nocturn and the people around me thought it was performance art. They should have see me eat too many D’Onairs the night before. Now that was performance art!
I heard it wasn’t so good. Glad I skipped it this year. Probably do the same next year.
Oh, i guess this is art? – That’s not an intolerant comment. That’s just someone commenting that they don’t consider whatever they saw to be art. To them it’s not. To the owner it is. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Someone doesn’t see it as beautiful as you do, that doesn’t make them intolerant!
I went to Nocturne twice and both times it was terrible. The best art I witnessed was the delusion!
There seems to be a fine line between some art & some egos today