TRAC2014: "Faking it" - Keynote Speaker Roger Scruton

"Faking it" by Keynote Speaker Roger Scruton (philosopher)
TRAC 2014 was held at Crown Plaza hotel in Ventura, CA.
The main topics of discussion: Odd Nerdrum's Kitsch and Roger Scruton's Beauty.
Producers of The Representational Art Conference 2014 was Michael Pearce & Michael Lynn Adams.
www.trac2014.org/
nerdrummuseum.com
Recorded by Nerdrum Pictures.
nerdrumpictures.no/

[@mat3t1]

So refreshing listening to this man! RIP sir.

[@TheCrusaderRabbits]

JUst watched it again. I cannot get enough Scruton

[@TheCrusaderRabbits]

June 2021. Watched again

[@sosaysthecaptain5580]

This articulates so clearly so many things that I’ve somehow always known, tried to discuss, and repeatedly been told I’m a terrible person for thinking.

[@amdg2023]

All great art in the last hundred years is art that has been hyped regardless of quality or meaning, hype equals value.

[@MrRichiekaye]

A talk of great value, with many profound and useful observations for those of us involved in aesthetic work.

[@Bosshogg386]

It starts at 4:10 . You're welcome.

[@OdditiesandRarities]

Thank you!

[@pseudopetrus]

Tx!

[@cristinaegas]

A luxure have Sir. Scruton.. he nourish us with beauty, thank you❤

[@dannyteal1020]

The ceilings are much too low in a hotel conference room for this kind of intelligence

[@bzxshor67mpts]

listened to it for a second time .Love what you are saying Roger.

[@hairdie]

RIP 🌷🌹🌷

[@merlingeikie]

Thank you.

[@SmilingAzaleaFlower-uh9wi]

Magnetic presentation ❤

[@TheSvemirka]

Thank you for sharing:)

[@nacotete]

great talk and great delvery

[@Galop-rk3lc]

Love it.

[@brittanyscott2825]

Genius

[@RkristinaTay]

It's is only coincidental that the artists Scruton tends to despise have little skill. Tracy Emin is teaching drawing at the Royal Academy of Art and can't even draw a figure or a tree. I guess that's her construct. I feel sorry for the pupils in art schools these days who can't find anybody to guide them because the professors have little knowledge of the technical aspects of painting and sculpture and drawing. Well it's only fair that untalented and unskilled people receive their fair share, or so tends to be the general attitude. Sad and frustrating. Scruton helps the side who has been bullied for so long now by 'fake' artists and professors to stand up for themselves against this untalented mass of shysters and phonies.

[@HoppyBunny.]

The greatest preoccupation of contemporary art galleries, managers, curators, writers jurists, schools and dealers is to keep good art out of galleries and good artists from commercial exposure.

[@michelez3710]

The very same thing happened to operatic theatres.

[@kiracore84]

1:12:17 "useful, biodegradable things like drink"! Priceless.

[@gnupf]

"Art is the clothing of a revelation." -Joseph Campbell. I think Scruton would agree.

[@Shazzyshell]

I liked the idea that there is a Kisch of contemporary art.

[@EffySalcedo]

4:14 The audio was superb 🥇

[@70galaxie]

one million like button....

[@LS-td3no]

For those who love classical/representational art, and the skilled artists of today who study in the traditional methods, Art Renewal Center is the place to go. Great online gallery, winners of art contests, articles, etc., are showcased, and high quality prints available. They have been scowering the world to put thousands of paintings, and sculptures into the database, cataloguing the pieces, and the artists. It is quite a site. artrenewal.org

[@neoepicurean3772]

Reproducing originality. It is a race to the bottom. I'm 40 and stopped listening to modern pop music a good while back, but a friend of mine, who is a very talented guitarist, told me last week that I should listen to Kendrick Lamar. I gave it a go. Wow, if this is what passes for 'genius' in the modern music world then we've gone very far down the road that Roger is talking about here. I guess some one tried 'dumb style' trap hip-hop and people thought it was original, then people copied that originality and people copied the praise and somehow that spread to take in the whole world. I ain't drinking that Kool Aid.

[@michaelweber5702]

There is pop music and hip hop too which is another version of pop . But there is good modern rock that is in a whole different creative world from pop and hip hop . Listen to the Steepwater Band or the Rival Sons or the Alabama Shakes , just to name a few , and there are many many more great bands of today . I'll name just two more out of the many if you will just look around , well three more Kevin Morby , Ray Lamontagne and the great venerable rock band the Black Crowes - wow , seriously...

[@ethanwessel3911]

I was shaken with instantaneous regret after watching it.

[@LS-td3no]

@@ethanwessel3911 Why?

[@LS-td3no]

@@michaelweber5702 Thanks...I am not a biggie on music, except maybe classical these days. Although, I like all styles if it is good. I will check those out.

[@eduardos2920]

@@michaelweber5702 Rock and good are words that really don't have much in common.

[@sebastianmelmoth685]

I agree with Scruton, but he needs to address the opinions of the fake artists themselves, and carefully, clearly, and succinctly refute their arguments; otherwise it remains persuasive to old biddies like me, but it does not ring true to those who have been propagandised into slavishly following the fakes.

[@LS-td3no]

@Sebastian...Good point. I agree...This is reminding me of a documentary on art I saw several years back. I think it was on PBS. This guy went around, and interviewed some of those inane artists (one of them might have been Damian Hirsch), asked them questions about their art, and just let them talk. Oh, gadz, what they said was so full of bs., I was cracking up. I was very pleased that the interviewer was showing the bs for what it was. The only time I have seen something like that. Unfortunately, it didn't change the promotion of all that bs.

[@Shazzyshell]

The originality appears in The Cortisan of Castiglione too-Renaissance

[@jackmallory7996]

A lot of people have faith in fakes - and not just in art.

[@evdokiademetriades4975]

⭐️🙏⭐️🙏👌👍👍

[@nancymohass4891]

Brilliant ! His remark for the over reacting audience !

[@philipposey6297]

Fuck pretty sure Lacan was going on about the relation of a signifying chain to the point de caption fuck

[@MyDenis0]

maybe skill and craft should be formalities that someone should posses in order to discard them later without a doubt.

[@PauloConstantino167]

it seems you discarded the craft of thinking, without a doubt.

[@Shazzyshell]

He wasnt trying to be original, he was trying to spit in the rationallity that lead to people killing people... In that time originality wasnt a norm...And they had a very important message that was much more important than originality

[@Shazzyshell]

I liked Utrillo but i dont think he was expending more than 1,h to paint that...By the way the other paintings of him I have seen are much more complex

[@madisonthehammer2459]

While I agree everyone should strive for technical skills in art over bullshitting, I don't really understand what his point is. He's portraying it as black and white when it's just not. Cans of shit and dirty beds exist in art but there are SO many artists who can paint, draw, and sculpt like demons. I would even argue there's many more than ever now with the rise of the internet. What's more is now that artists are no longer constrained by churches they can put these skills toward highly rendered, beautiful, AND conceptual work. So...I get what he's saying but...it seems to me he's living in a fairytale where either your art looks like it was from the Renaissance or it's a can of shit. Just seems like a complete strawman he's built to tear down.

[@LS-td3no]

Actually, I approached art without focusing on the technical. I like all kinds of art. If I like it, I like it.

[@Shazzyshell]

That David inshaw explation was very "contemporary"

[@Shazzyshell]

Marcell Duchamp untallented??

[@winmine0327]

Shame about the queasy cam. Wouldn't be so bad if I could just tab out while it plays, but you need to see his slides

[@ppwalk05]

17:50 Gresham's Law occurs because good money is hoarded by market demand, not because of supply incentives. He is describing a race to the bottom.

[@Shazzyshell]

The urinal was exhibited in the Dada exhibition against the 1st world war

[@garypowell8638]

If it does not contain beauty craft or a message that at least a majority of the public can almost instantly understand, then it is not only bad art, it is dangerously destructive to just about everything and everybody, and no less do to the very idea of art itself. Fake art, is every bit as dangerous as fake news, possibly more so. the sad thing is that there are thousands of great artists, as there are even more wonderfully talented musicians, actors, architects, writers, you name it, thousands of them all over the World. Yet what we get is buildings that look like ice cream cones, pop music a one year old could produce better versions of tapping on the side of her cot, and Britain Has Talent TV shows. Our owners are taking the piss, and have been doing so for far longer than many would wish to believe. Real art is for the elites, that give the masses what they do, mainly because they positively despise the people they rule over.

[@bm4114]

Dangerous? Drama queen.

[@Shazzyshell]

Woow at least in Spain and Australia being a Humanities professor is not at all what he said

[@chrish12345]

It would be interesting to put Zizek and Scruton together for a discussion about Lacan. Zizek widely touted as the greatest living philosopher and Scruton here completely dismissing as garbage one of the, say, 3 main foundations of Zizek's thinking. I personally have found a lot of truth in Lacan's work, yes it is virtually impossible to read, but often offers simple yet important insights in the midst of all the complexity. I would disagree that jazz created 'the harmonic language which is now the language of popular music everywhere' - jazz is based firmly in Bachian harmony, which is embellished with novel 'voicings' of chords and many different scales, some traditional, some made-up. If anything popular music as we know it today has regressed back to Bach without the majority of these innovations, notwithstanding the occasional use of a few jazzy notes/harmonies.

[@pedrotherabbit2222]

mcoffely He is often portrayed that way...whether you personally think he is or not is besides the point

[@paulwillisorg]

Zizek a celebrity philosopher. Haha from his wikipedia "In 2012, Foreign Policy listed Žižek on its list of Top 100 Global Thinkers, calling him "a celebrity philosopher,"[12] while elsewhere he has been dubbed the "Elvis of cultural theory"[13] and "the most dangerous philosopher in the West",[

[@enioprenda8074]

but the fake deceive themselves

[@Shazzyshell]

Utrillo seems naif

[@krileayn]

Anybody can tell lies??? I go bright red

[@Shazzyshell]

Woow "the real emotions of simple people"... Well i think he is trying to say people with less art knowledge... You dont know if this woman is simple, maybe she is amuch more complex human being...

[@Shazzyshell]

Maybe she is more intelligent too...Intelligence and knowledge are two different things

[@TheCrusaderRabbits]

Simple isn't an insult

[@romanovrex]

A bit silly really - what he likes he refers to as 'great art' and what which he dislikes is denigrated as 'fake'. Basically it is the same process he is criticising.

[@dixonpinfold2582]

I don't remember him using the phrase 'great art'.

[@bighatfbw5302]

he had me up until comedy. it struck me suddenly that this guy might be extremely clever and insightful with regards to the arts & humanities but simultaneously, incredibly unfunny.

[@craigsmith1443]

+BigHat FBW I would recommend listening to him again. He is not a comedian, that is true, but ask yourself what he 'should' have been here, and then ask why you think he should have been that. He's quite funny---that's why his audience laughs from time to time---but there is humor in him that is simultaneously very English (thus understated) and very pointed. He has a serious point to make in this presentation, and everything in his talk is directed to its end. He jabs at pretentiousness here, which is ubiquitous in western culture thanks to commercialism and self-centered individualism (we even demand of our relationships and thus of the most important people in our lives that they make us 'happy' without ever wondering just what 'happy' really is or what is our responsibility to them to make them happy) When listening to him, I am sometimes reminded of a character of Ashkenazy music, the sweet-sad quality that comes from a history of being persecuted. Roger I would think has had some sadness in his life, caused by people, who are very important to him. What did Shakespeare's Romeo say, _He jests at scars that never felt a wound_?

[@LiamPorterFilms]

He’s very witty

[@TheMushybees]

This one didn't show up well on this screen; there are two colours there, not one... *Big laugh* I was pissing myself

[@cosmasindico]

The whole problem is the word kitsch. All art is artifice. If we are arguing for authentic and original ideas, we aren't going to find any past the paleolithic. The only way to understand art is as information systems. If there was a shift in art in the 18th C. it's clear that the times wished to convey a new kind of information.

[@lysanderofsparta3708]

Reducing art to the level of a mere "information system" is banal and insipid.

[@cosmasindico]

Certainly no more than calling it "authentic" or "fake" which amount to nothing more than terms for "stuff I like" and "stuff I don't like."

[@lysanderofsparta3708]

Travis Clark No, you have completely missed the point here.

[@cosmasindico]

Your evidence being? Scruton is defending a narrow western point of view that only applied to a narrow field of art from about the 18th C. on. It's useless and says nothing about how people actually create their own visual culture.

[@lysanderofsparta3708]

Travis Clark It's only useless to you because you clearly haven't the faintest understanding of what Scruton is actually talking about.

[@celestialteapot3310]

Marx argued against alienation, and for the right of humans to a creative existence, Scruton fails to appreciate Marxs' contribution to acess to art for the masses and the self actualisation of the individual.

[@JonFrumTheFirst]

"Marx argued against alienation, and for the right of humans to a creative existence" And then his followers put humanity through a meat grinder.

[@christinejones9620]

Creative existence arises from the bedrock of comprehension of tradition and the necessary skill mastery in order to develop new techniques. Otherwise it is empty pretence and vacuous posing - which sums up the dominant popular wannabe culture.

[@cosmasindico]

Let me simplify and clarify my previous statement. Both the Bellini and the Murillo are fakes. They are flat two dimensional surfaces. The Bellini is no more authentic in any way than the Murillo. All art is fake. All Scruton has done here is argue that the Bellini is the kind of fake that he likes. Again, this is interesting but not truly informative. If we think of art as an information system, then we can start to ask, what information is being communicated? What did it say to the people of the time? Why was there a shift towards the expression of Murillo?

[@lysanderofsparta3708]

You don't understand what Scruton means by "fake".

[@cosmasindico]

Of course I do. He means that it lacks a quality that he terms as "authenticity" but is a fungible term that can't be narrowed down to more than cold naturalism. He objects to the sentimentality of Murillo. But why? Why is sentimentality any more "fake" than the Bellini? I understand his terms, I just challenge his premise. It's Scruton that is creating arbitrary terms. Let's look at the paintings in their contexts and try to understand the change, rather than throwing around disparaging terms.

[@cosmasindico]

Yes I do "get" it. By that definition, most of the artistic production of people outside a narrow subset of Western Civilization is "fake." If sentiment and obviousness is a disqualifying characteristic for art, then nearly all of the art of India, and much of the Middle Ages is likewise, "Kitsch" and so is much of Dutch Genre and all of American Folk Art, primitive arts of Oceania and Australia, it goes on and on and on. It's a meaningless and arbitrary distinction for art. What is wrong with getting an emotional response from people? Why is this "cheap and vulgar?" Emotion is the principle way we communicate. This is just snobbery.

[@cosmasindico]

I know that Scruton hasn't said it, but his definitions here lead to that inevitable conclusion. It's Eurocentric and just irrational on its own grounds. Again, I admired Scruton a lot until this performance. I thought his defense of traditional aesthetics to be based on reason and not this simple bias. I can't accept a defense made on these grounds. Not only are they spurious and arbitrary, they do too much damage to too much that I admire.

[@lysanderofsparta3708]

Travis Clark You've been brainwashed by the cult of political correctness and the fatuous notion that everything is "socially constructed".

[@bunnyspangle8859]

Poor Scruton - railing at what he doesn't understand.