262. The How and Why of Art feat. Lance Esplund

What is art, and who gets to define it? Museums have long staked a claim on knowing what to show, but there has always been a wide range of how viewers engage with art. There is also a wide range of artists and what is considered art, from classical masters like Titian to modern conceptual artists like Marcel Duchamp.

Lance Esplund is an art critic, journalist, educator, and author. His book, titled The Art of Looking: How to Read Modern and Contemporary Art, is about telling the reader how to become a better viewer of art, what to look for, and how to engage with the works of more conceptual and modern artists.  

Lance and Greg discuss how people can think when they engage with works of art, and the intentions that can be known from the artists. They discuss art history courses and what they get right and wrong, how art is always changing and yet still the same as the cave paintings in Lascaux, France, and Lance’s tips for how to go through a museum.

*unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*

Episode Quotes:  

Art exists for art’s sake

43:30: Art exists for art's sake. Art is only art, and I don’t think it has any job to help with social justice, change the world, help with climate change, or assist with starving people. It has no other purpose other than to be art. And to be in dialogue with other arts. Now, certainly, art doesn't exist without the people who make it and experience of it. But it is there and meant to be in relationship to other art. 

47:48: The artwork doesn't care who made it or what the purpose was. Either it works, or it doesn't. And the only way to know if it works is for us to experience it on an aesthetic level and on personal, emotional, and intellectual levels.

Art is a universal experience

09:01: Great art gives you infinite ways to enter, and one was made just for you specifically. If it's great work, it can give you an entry point that works just for you. And that's one of the great things. It's a very personal but universal kind of experience.

Developing your aesthetic judgment by asking the right questions

27:07: We use our aesthetic judgment everywhere, whether we prefer this taste to that taste or this color to that color. And these are the things that you're doing with art too. It's just the human experience. That's all you're doing: bringing your human experience to it. It doesn't take any other skills than that, but it does require that you ask the right questions.

Show Links:Recommended Resources:

• Titian
• Paul Klee 
• Howling Dog by Paul Klee 
• Marcel Duchamp 
• Fountain by Marcel Duchamp
• Piet Mondrian
• Marina Abramović
• Henri Matisse
• Lascaux
• New Yorker Article about Picasso visiting Lascaux
• Ernst Gombrich

Guest Profile:

• Lance Esplund on LinkedIn

His Work:

• Lance Esplund’s Articles
• The Art of Looking: How to Read Modern and Contemporary Art