This was the blog post that first got me wondering if the “high/folk/pop” division is actually correct. Here’s the specific quote:
This can be anything from Du Bois’s “”Thus all art is propaganda and ever must be, despite the wailing of the purists …” to the Frankfurt school’s contrasting of “mass culture” with “high culture” and “folk culture.” (The short version of which is “pop” then “art” then “craft” as judgmental terms meant to divide power along class lines – the rich and powerful decide what is art, pop is given to the mass of the middle class, and the things pursued by those without the cultural capital to enforce their taste on a large or marketable segment of society are relegated to the place of “folk crafts.”)
Want to really help me out? Critique this argument for me. In particular, provide me with ways of objectively identifying “high” art, over against “folk” and “pop” art. Then, explain to me how “high” art is better than “folk” or “pop” art.
This is a serious request. I’ve already read All God’s Children and Blue Suede Shoes, by the way.
Entries (RSS)
All high art deals with timeless subjects, such as death, faith, sacrifice, love, and so on, and deals with it in an original way. Each piece of high art has a specific message to convey.
Folk art, or craft, can be beutiful, but aims to be no more than that. Either beautiful, intircate, cultural, or reflective of plain reality.
The significance is vast. It’s why a complex song about pain is so much more significant than the latest popular song about rhyming words (night/light, heart/part, together/forever) with a nice melody.
Yehuda
BTW, the linked post was really making the distinction between “good” art and “bad” art, insofar as highbrown people will call art that they don’t like to be pop or folk art. But that is a different kettle.
If a guy sticks his tongue out and calls it art, it is art. It may not be worthy of attention, but it is not folk or craft. However, if ten more people do it, it is craft, unless there is a significance to their doing it other than imitative.
In the context of games, it depends on the significance of the game. First of all, you have to decide if you are talking about the game epxression, the rules, the design, components, the programming, the artwork, the themes, or the mechanics; or if you can lump them all together into its own category. Then, you have to apply the criteria used for all art: is it working with a timeless theme in a unique way, or is it just trying to be pretty/popular/acceptable.
Yehuda
[...] I’ve mentioned elsewhere, I’ve become increasingly skeptical of the high/folk/pop distinction in art. This quote is [...]