I'll repost what I wrote on a previous discussion of this article on FB:
Most versions of this discussion lament the fact that students come into graduate programs with little idea of what the academic job market is like. One could respond - and many do - that it's a "free market," no one is forcing them to choose this profession over any other. However, this rational-actor reasoning can only be expected to work if effective channels were set up to inform students before they've sunk in too much time, and cost (both in terms of money and lost opportunities). Do such channels exist? While I agree that the responsibility largely lies with faculty, there are few incentives in the system for them to lower the number of PhDs. And any system that depends on the uprightness, or clarity of vision of individuals (even liberal humanities professors) is bound to be leaky at best.
While this essay puts some numbers to the problem - approximately 1 job for every 4 PhDs per year, for example - I think this is one domain where more data and analysis could serve as a wake-up call. Those 1 in 4 odds, I'm sure, are far from evenly distributed. They are heavily skewed towards a handful of elite institutions. Go to school elsewhere and the odds stack up much higher. Consider the applicants who graduated in previous years but have remained in the market and the odds are even more daunting, and made worse during job shortfalls like that after the '08 downturn.
If informing graduate students of the magnitude of the challenge they are taking on is the best approach to the problem, then the profession needs to do better than trust this to individuals and institutions who have no incentive to scare away a large portion of their students. Does a dataset exist that makes this information accessible? I'd expect some resistance from departments to share detailed information, but the MLA should have enough information from their member surveys. When grad students send in their first $23 check to the MLA, perhaps they should receive a dossier with employment data for the last 10 years and a few choice graphs to scare the living daylights out of them!
I find this to be fairly involved but a good follow-up to introductory texts. Casella, George, and Roger L. Berger. Statistical Inference. 2nd ed. Duxbury Advanced Series. Australia ; Pacific Grove, CA: Duxbury/Thomson Learning, 2002.
On medium format film - I can't tell if this is 120, 220, or 620, or something like 616 - many cameras can take pictures of varying width. For example, on a camera that makes 6x9, or 6x7 pics, you might be able to put in a masking attachment and make 6x6 pictures. If you forget to put the attachment, you might think you're shooting 6x6 shots and advance the film accordingly, but you'll actually make wider shots which overlap at the edges.
Thank you! After reading this same statement about toilets vs space missions dozens of times I could hardly muster anything more articulate than "aaargh!" Apparently the West had solved all of humanity's problems and ensured a reign of perfect equality and peace before embarking on trivial things like research!
This is pure ad hominem. "The West is dumb and mean" doesn't make anybody else's actions smart. You may as well criticize their odor for all the relevance it has to whether or not this is a sensible use of India's money.
For the record, I actually think it's probably a good use of money. I just think this breed of response — "Shut up, because the West sucks!" — is singularly toxic.
You misunderstand my argument if you read it as "the West is dumb and mean". What I meant to emphasize was that the West made the (IMHO right) decision, to spend on research etc while it was working on other social problems. It is never one or the other. But I would add the same model should be extended to other countries as well.
The article in question specifically criticizes the journalists. The author (in subsequent comments) even discourages others from blatantly generalizing countries' reaction in the same manner as some of the components of the media.
The OP doesn't really do that. The article linked by pushtheenvelope does, but that is what I was criticizing. It doesn't actually support India's program; it mostly just makes sarcastic and hostile comments about other countries. Regardless of your opinion of the West or of India, personally attacking critics (based on their ethnicity, no less) is not the same thing as supporting an idea.
My dad had a cerebral stroke a few years ago. As everyone else was trying to arrange an emergency ambulance, his doctor was on the phone with him asking him to stay awake. Apparently, he said "if you fall asleep, you'll die." Fighting to stay awake for those few hours was one of the hardest things he's ever had to do.
Not sure about strokes, but it used to be believed that a person with a concussion must be kept awake, but it turns out not to make a difference. It's still a fairly common trope in movies and on tv, though.
It's useful to detect problems not prevent them. One of the symptoms of interracial pressure, a significant risk with head injury, is drowsiness. But, other symptoms are also fairly easy to detect in a responsive patent. However, in cases of significant head injury this can be directly monitored allowing the patent to sleep.
PS: From you link "If the person who is injured is awake and holding a conversation, you can let him or her fall asleep as long as they are not developing any other symptoms such as dilated pupils or issues with walking. "
The most important thing about staying awake is that a more complete neurological exam can be performed. There's always ways to wake someone up, but the unfortunate part is that any treatment may alter the results of neuro tests
Would love to know this too. I have always thought it might have to do with being able to communicate with the medical staff to get a better assessment.
Most contemporary art needs to be illuminated by some mumbo-jumbo narrative about what it "means" before one can appreciate it. I get the fact that one of the things that makes art great is that it pushes the envelope on accepted norms - stretches the bounds of tradition. To have mere skill and craftsmanship and no individual vision does not make great art. But for me, the reverse should also hold - you can't have a total lack of coherence or skill and just get by on a pretension of "edginess." Unfortunately that is all that seems to matter in contemporary institutionalized art.
I am repeatedly surprised by how contemporary early modern art (a.k.a. renaissance art) -- both literature and the visual arts -- seem to me at time and how they can combine truly radical innovations with an unwavering commitment to basic skills. Write that searing tragedy about the frailty and absurdity of the human condition ... but make sure you absolutely master your iambic pentameter first!
I'm surprised by this repeated statement that modern art doesn't hold skill. Most of the artists I know have enjoyed a very good education in the underlying skills, but then chose to break the rules.
Is there a lot of pretense trying to sell art? Yes, absolutely - but it never lasts. Good contemporary art is exactly what you ask for. A solid foundation of skills used to completely abandon any conventional display of these skills.
Let's get concrete; do you have examples? Particularly painting. I went to the Pinakothek der Moderne a few months ago and was really struck that, whereas in most "modern art" galleries I can find paintings I like, in one that restricts itself to post-1920 there was really nothing thought-provoking, nothing beautiful, nothing that even seemed like an expression of skill. There were interesting works in other media, but it really seems like painting has fallen by the wayside.
If you're seriously judging all post-1920s art, or painting ... take a step back. There's plenty of art out there, more everyday. A short search on Google helped me discover this one, for instance: http://fineartamerica.com/featured/arc-de-triomphe-leonid-af... Not to mention all the examples presented in this huffington article. There's plenty of skill in painting, the question perhaps remains, and has for some time -- if you have new tools, like computers, photoshop and photography, does that change the skill or quality of a painting or other artwork? Does it devalue it? Place greater emphasis on it? Perhaps what's sad is that universities are required to produce fine art in the first place, now that we've so many new models to follow for education...
I'm judging the paintings in that particular gallery, and more widely the academic and gallery culture - of course there are beautiful paintings being made every day, by people with or without artistic education.
If you can recommend a gallery of pictures like that I'll add it to my visit list. It looks like Afremov went to a technical university, which is in line with the sibling thread where te_chris is arguing that (grossly oversimplifying) polytechnics give a better-rounded art education than academic universities.
Sadly, I don't know art galleries. That was Google, after all. All I can say is, every visit to the Art Gallery of Ontario, near my place, nets me 95% "not my thing" to 5% "wow". All it takes is one "wow" each trip and it's worthwhile. The same is probably true of many art galleries, hence why people then try to collect the art they like, forming their own gallery. I wonder how the concept of galleries will change as VR technology takes off? Right now reproductions are two dimensional and cannot be interacted with in their original space. But what happens if we "fix that"? ;-)
I've had a similar 95/5 (I'd like to say more like 80/20) reaction to a lot of galleries, but most modern galleries I've been to (the Tate, or the one in the Centre Pompidou) include some late-19th at least early-20th century stuff. And until recently I'd have been a big defender of the value of these over older collections.
I was struck because the Pinakothek is the first I've been to that makes a three-way-split - the Alte Pinakothek for pre-19th century stuff, the Neue Pinakothek for, I don't know the terminology, but the time in the middle, and then the really contemporary works in the Pinakothek der Moderne. And I absolutely loved the Neue Pinakothek - loads of really beautiful paintings, with a variety of styles but almost all of them being the kind of representational/skilled work the article's talking about (or your link). Really recommend it if you're ever in Munich. And then I walked across the road to the Pinakothek der Moderne, looking forward to a real treat, and I was just really struck by how bad it all seemed, how much worse every painting was than any of the ones I'd just been looking at.
I'll definitely have to see these. I'd perhaps point out that there was a lot of older, bad art. It just didn't survive. ;-) And that a lot of post-modern art really does require ... either reading the labels or finding other ways to understand the art conceptually as well as from a technical perspective. Consider the entertainment value of critically acclaimed Hollywood blockbuster versus a new, experimental film: The older works tend to work better because they fit into patterns. "They are what they seem." The new ones take some getting used to: what you see isn't always what you're supposed to get. Neither has anything to do with fine art markets. Frankly, most fine art valuation seems to be like any other resource -- priced for its scarcity. Sometimes, an artists' works, and I really should look it up to see if this is true, an artist's works will increase in value when it's clear there will be no new works forthcoming. Which makes no sense if you consider that famous artists had other artists working for them, and if Apple can continue to produce great works after Steve Jobs, why can't we have a Picasso Inc. doing the same? But that's a different point entirely.
Trying (and failing) to get back on topic, 95/5 was probably unfair of me. Part of why I skewed to 95 was that I've seen most of the permanent collection at the AGO enough to discount it for that overfamiliarity alone. I mean, I'm still struck by minimal, early Canadian works by the Group of Seven, yet since that part of the gallery never rotates, it becomes part of the 95% eventually.
Pinakothek der Moderne is a lot of post-moderism, which is... mixed. There's a lot of conceptual art there which is brilliant, but in a cerebral sense, not visceral. It's not representational, though - that's the point of a lot of post-modernism, to rebel against established art ideas.[1]
They still do have stuff that might appeal to you, IIRC - August Macke, Franz Marc, Miro, Emil Nolde come to mind.
[1] That doesn't mean it's unskilled. But the skill is hidden in the breaking of all rules of skill, and it's occasionally hard to tell if it's incompetence or deliberate, unless you spent a lot of time on art history.
Van Gogh did pretty decent :) Assuming you meant 20th century modern art, here's a short list.
Skill: Dali. In terms of being "thought-provoking", I consider much of his stuff tripe, made to pander to mass tastes, but he most certainly had skills.
Skill & thought-provoking: Picasso. I don't - again, personal taste - find beauty in his works, but they sure make you think.
Skill & beautiful: Kandinsky, and Miro. It's too abstract for me to really consider it thought-provoking, but the pure beauty of it, to me, is almost mathematical in nature.
All three: I'd probably go with Magritte. YMMV.
If you want to go postmodern, it's getting difficult - not because it doesn't exist, but because I'm not that well-versed. Marcel Duchamp's painting are certainly there. "Nude Descending a Staircase" is, to me, an amazing painting.
Based on your preferences, I'd suspect classical realism would appeal more to you - try Parrish, or Jacob Collins. (I find them boring, but as always, the eye of the beholder is what counts)
I visited the David Hockney gallery in Salts Mill recently, and came away a big fan. His works done in Yorkshire are beautiful (to my eye) even from a superficial level. I'd say there is skill in each of his paintings, but to clear any doubt, his Bigger Trees Near Warter (http://britishartresearch.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/bigger...), which is 12 x 4 meters large and painted en-plein-air, are undisputedly the product of real talent and technique.
Some examples of Hockney's Yorkshire work that appeal to me:
I could be off base here, but perhaps Hockney is the exception that proves the rule. I've been led to understand that his position is currently pretty unpopular in contemporary art discourse, and that he is viewed as a bit of a reactionary.
I however find him and his work really inteesting in the context of this discussion though. Particularly for his detective work and reverse engineering of the use of optics by the old masters.
Most versions of this discussion lament the fact that students come into graduate programs with little idea of what the academic job market is like. One could respond - and many do - that it's a "free market," no one is forcing them to choose this profession over any other. However, this rational-actor reasoning can only be expected to work if effective channels were set up to inform students before they've sunk in too much time, and cost (both in terms of money and lost opportunities). Do such channels exist? While I agree that the responsibility largely lies with faculty, there are few incentives in the system for them to lower the number of PhDs. And any system that depends on the uprightness, or clarity of vision of individuals (even liberal humanities professors) is bound to be leaky at best.
While this essay puts some numbers to the problem - approximately 1 job for every 4 PhDs per year, for example - I think this is one domain where more data and analysis could serve as a wake-up call. Those 1 in 4 odds, I'm sure, are far from evenly distributed. They are heavily skewed towards a handful of elite institutions. Go to school elsewhere and the odds stack up much higher. Consider the applicants who graduated in previous years but have remained in the market and the odds are even more daunting, and made worse during job shortfalls like that after the '08 downturn.
If informing graduate students of the magnitude of the challenge they are taking on is the best approach to the problem, then the profession needs to do better than trust this to individuals and institutions who have no incentive to scare away a large portion of their students. Does a dataset exist that makes this information accessible? I'd expect some resistance from departments to share detailed information, but the MLA should have enough information from their member surveys. When grad students send in their first $23 check to the MLA, perhaps they should receive a dossier with employment data for the last 10 years and a few choice graphs to scare the living daylights out of them!