* When is Climbing Considered Art?*

Discussion Topic

Return to Forum List

This thread has been locked

Messages 21 - 40 of total 94 in this topic

<< First | < Previous | Show All | Next > | Last >>

John Vawter

Social climber

San Diego

Aug 10, 2006 - 03:49pm PT

Really refreshing topic Roy. My dictionary defines art as "skill acquired experience, study, or observation; . . . the conscious use of skill and creative imagination, especially in the production of aesthetic objects." So art does not require an audience, and I don't agree that it has to be seen to be art. How many works of art that could be seen were never seen because the artist threw them away, or because they were otherwise destroyed before being seen by someone other than the artist? Are those not also works of art? Creating art is art.

Is a sublimely practiced tea ceremony not art if the ceremony is performed alone? In dance, the dancer choreographs then practices until it is perfected. Many early repititions are not art because there are errors and rough spots. Eventually the dancer turns choreography into art. This happens before the dance is performed in front of an audience, and does require public performance to be art.

For most of us, climbing is mostly craft. For a gifted few, their movements transcend craft almost every time they touch rock. But even for us duffers, there are experiences that transcend the mere practice of our craft. For me an onsight of a hard route sometimes approaches art. When my body knows what to do almost without thinking, when I am glued to the rock because every tiny hold is in the right place and feels good, and each movement naturally leads to the next, I transcend craft and become an artist for a few moments.

Tarbuster

climber

right here, right now

Topic Author's Reply - Aug 10, 2006 - 03:59pm PT

Couple of your points John can be exemplified by two things we've seen:

Performance art, as mentioned by Jay.

Those Tibetan votive sand paintings which are created and then wiped away (to among other things, such as make a consecrated effort at improving our karma, pay homage to the transitory nature of creation?)

rbolton

Social climber

The home for...

Aug 10, 2006 - 03:59pm PT

It sure ain't art when I'm doing it.
But it is fun.

Tahoe climber

climber

Texas to Tahoe

Aug 10, 2006 - 06:25pm PT

I have definitely watched some very smooth climbing in my day that inspired me enough to call it art.
For instance, seeing a much stronger climber smoothly negotiate a crux that I'd been unskillfully flailing on for a while is a beautiful experience.
Sometimes I feel like I'm climbing similarly - with an artful smoothness and mastery that reminds me of the feeling I get when staring at a beautiful painting or sculpture.

I guess in the end, for me, climbing is art when it gives that awed "aha!" feeling - regardless of who's doing the climbing.

-Aaron

goatboy smellz

climber

up a peak without a paddle

Aug 10, 2006 - 07:09pm PT

The Navajo and Apache were also involved with sand paintings... Interesting, similar ideas were happening on opposite sides of the globe at the same time.

goatboy smellz

climber

up a peak without a paddle

Aug 10, 2006 - 07:30pm PT

The Ute's believe that Pikes Peak arose to save them from a great flood. Wachagga tribe describe Mt Kilimanjaro grew to save them from a massive flood.

Jaybro

Social climber

The West

Aug 10, 2006 - 07:53pm PT

"I write for myself, and others," Gertrude Stein?

If a climber climbs alone in a forest is there art? Sure, like Dingus' footnote. If it is necesary to have an oberver to be art thats covered since there is always at least one.
BUT watching that climb by an outsider is a yet seperate experience.

It's Heisenberg meets Heraclitus.

"You could not step twice into the same river; for other waters are ever flowing on to you." -Heraclitus
+
"The more precisely
the POSITION is determined,
the less precisely
the MOMENTUM is known" Heisenberg (which I always loosely interpret as the act of observation affects what is seen, among other things, -go easy on me, Ed)

= Virtually all art and certainly climbing, imo, is unrepeatable and different to all observers/participants.

Just one of the reasons I keep coming back to some version of the same river.

Sand paintings by Tibetans, Navahoes, apaches =those wacky athabaskans are a lively bunch.

mark miller

Social climber

Reno

Aug 10, 2006 - 08:09pm PT

LEB if you ever get a chance to watch JB or WB move over stone it would make any ballet you've ever seen look clumsy and contrived. It is poetry in motion. Most of the rest of us huff and arghh are way up the stone, but there are some out there that are Artists.

Jaybro

Social climber

The West

Aug 10, 2006 - 08:11pm PT

yeah, many of us Are practioners of the 'baser arts'.

Maysho

climber

Truckee, CA

Aug 10, 2006 - 08:35pm PT

Being in the right place at the right time to contribute to three aesthetic aid climbs, ZM, Aurora, and the Big Chill, and with these specifically mentioned in the endless and exasperating WOS threads, I have to chime in on the wall route creation as an object d'art.

A first ascent experience is a one and only moment of vision, interpretation and necessity. The visionary who sees the line, and the climbers who put out the effort to unlock the moves to climb that section of stone are climbing artists. On the finer scale of the sharp end the leader is sculpting. The moment the hammer is swung all subsequent ascentionists are sculpting. The metric of artistry is a matter of skill and taste. The creators of the climb have to let go of the routes future, everyones experience will be different, and unless climbers are going hammerless, they are going as sculptors. Leave as little as possible trace has to be the ethic of admission to the challenging terrain we painted on.

By community consensus ZM Aurora, and the Big Chill were bold logical lines tastefully done, and remain classics. The experience of subsequent ascents is key, and a statement to the quality of the art. And after the 20year anniversary ascent of ZM, 99,9 percent with the hammer in the bottom of the bag, it did not feel like a pegboard of enhancement, and the rickety flakes are still rickety flakes. So people have not ruined the route.

WOS was a vision that was not understood at the time, just by virtue of the line chosen. Like art critics none of us understood the vision of aid climbing up that slab. Like an opera in Europe, outside the norm, tomatoes were thrown. (if only!) The hooligans responsible were not the moral representatives of the community of which I was a part back then.

Heres Sean Plunkett with a palette of steel, in action on the Big Chill

Griff

Social climber

Felton, PA

Aug 10, 2006 - 08:48pm PT

I think for climbing to be considered art you have to pull your pants down. All "good" art involves nudity.

scuffy b

climber

The town that Nature forgot to hate

Aug 10, 2006 - 08:57pm PT

See my work at the Starving Artists' Sale.
Really, there are times when I feel like an artist.
When I was undergoing serious dance instruction I was
astounded by the athleticism required, and at the
same time began appreciating the aesthetic of my
climbing in a new light. For a while they seemed
awfully similar.

dirtineye

Trad climber

the south

Aug 10, 2006 - 09:02pm PT

There is a HUGE difference between craft and art, and the artist knows that difference.

Ksolem

Trad climber

LA, Ca

Aug 10, 2006 - 09:09pm PT

From years of working as a mastering engineer in music, which is largely a craft and occasionally an art, I can say that the line between the two is not clear and often determined by the quality of the effort.

phoolish

Boulder climber

Athens, Ga.

Aug 10, 2006 - 09:14pm PT

Climbing can certainly be art. Watching a climber can be like watching a dancer, c.f. Bandaloop.

However, a climb itself? No. Art is something you must create. Climbs are already there. No one creates a route, he only climbs what nature has built.