Art

Is there any discussion about how art is highly individualistic with respect not to its content but the fact that most works of art, at least traditional art like painting, sculpture, etc., are created by single individuals, rather than groups? I've heard it said that Western art is highly individualistic while Eastern is not, and that this is a reflection of cultural differences; however, with respect to the artist as a single person, Eastern and Western art seem the same. Why is art such an individual creation? Perhaps one person has great vision and another great technique; why haven't there been numerous pairs like this throughout history who've worked together on creating paintings?

It's not clear to me that it is correct that Western art--even in media such as sculpture and painting--is indeed historically such an individual creation. In the Renaissance, there were workshops, with masters and apprentices; some contemporary artists, such as Andy Warhol and Jeff Koons, have had certain of their works fabricated by others; the sculptor Richard Serra has his large steel pieces cast by industrial foundries. This is not to deny that the idea of the artist as individual creator doesn't persist, and that it doesn't capture the practice of many artists: I do, however, think that this very idea has a history that might well merit investigation that could illuminate its origin and power.
Art

Often, it seems experts and critics are at odds with the general public as to what works of art are good; many well-received films have performed poorly at the box office despite marketing, for example, while many blockbusters have been derided by film critics. What is going on, in these cases? Is it just a difference of opinion, and if so, why is there such a role as a "film critic"? Or do critics detect quality that the average moviegoer can't, and do they see through the presumably shallow pleasures enjoyed by moviegoers? How is it even possible to tell the nature of the disagreement in these situations?

The question of the relation between the judgments of professional critics and those of 'people on the street', as it were, especially with respect to works of mass culture such as movies and--albeit, I think, to a much lesser extent--pop songs, television, and also literature (which I think, even in its 'literary' as opposed to 'pulp' or 'genre' incarnations, is now properly considered part of mass culture)--is a very interesting question, which raises general issues about the reception of art (including 'high' art such as photography, painting, sculpture, theater, etc.), as well as about the relation between art and commerce. It is true that many 'well-received' films have not performed 'well' at the box office--if by 'well' here one means something like making the list of top-ten grossing films now widely referred to by media outlets (a relatively new phenomenon, I might add)--despite receiving considerable critical acclaim. Olivier Assayas's five-hour film, Carlos , which, if I remember...
Art

Do artists have a responsibility to ensure that their art does not have a negative impact on society, i.e. that their art does not promote discrimination or violence?

The question of whether an artist has any moral responsibility whatsoever with regard to the content or the impact of her work is fascinating, and there are many historical examples relevant to it. (One case that leaps immediately to my mind is that of Leni Riefenstahl, treated at length by Susan Sontag in an amazing essay, "Fascinating Fascism," which I highly recommend.) Proponents of the autonomy of art--'art for art's sake'--might deny that the artist has any obligation whatsoever to anyone or anything besides her work. (The case of Gauguin, treated by the philosopher Bernard Williams in a his essay, "Moral Luck," is an instance of an artist who abjured any responsibility to anything besides his work.) On such a view, the artist should seek only to create the best art that she can, and damn the consequences of creating art with a particular content. Such a position might be buttressed by an extreme 'formalist' conception of art, according to which art consists only in the exploitation of the...
Art

Why do we consider songs by singers who use Auto-Tune (a program that corrects the pitch in their voice) for their music to be of lesser quality than songs by singers who merely use their natural voices? I can see why we might consider the artist to be less talented or worthy of admiration, but isn't a song a song, regardless of how it was made? What about visual artists who produce their art with computer graphics programs, rather than using pencils, pens or brushes? I've heard people say that some of the splendid images on sites like DeviantArt aren't art because the artists "cheated" (i.e. created the images digitally, rather than by hand). Again, what does it matter how the work was produced?

You raise an interesting nest of issues here, regarding the use of technology to assist in the production of art. The starting point for the question is the judgment that (recordings of) songs that employ technology to correct the pitch in a singer's voice are of lesser quality than those that do not, and the similar judgment about visual artists who use technology to create images. Although I'm not aware of having encountered instances of visual art produced by graphics programs, and am far more familiar with music that has been modified by technology, if not by the use of Auto-Tune in particular, since it seems to me that most recorded music--unless it is the recording of a live performance--has been technologically enhanced in some way, I believe nevertheless that one can address the general issue without delving into the particulars of the technology. Perhaps one reason that it may be claimed that works created or enhanced through technology are not as good as those that have not been enhanced or...
Art

Many people think it's wrong to significantly alter a work of art, not just because the result is aesthetically inferior, but because doing so wrongs the artist or is otherwise offensive. It's easy to see why, say, defacing a painting might be offensive. It's less obvious, though, why altering a work of music of literature might be bad. After all, a painting is a concrete, singular object; but novels and poems and symphonies are not. I can't ruin "Robinson Crusoe" or Beethoven's 5th in the way that I can a Matisse or a Van Gogh. Why should it seem problematic, for instance, to perform a piece of music in a manner deemed inauthentic, given that there's a sense in which "altering" or otherwise degrading the piece in its original, authentic form is just impossible.

Your question seems to raise two distinct kinds of issues: first, and most generally, what, if anything, is wrong about altering a work of art; second, in what respect can different kinds of works of art--such as novels or lithographs, of which there are multiple instances or exemplars--or pieces of music or plays, that are meant to be interpreted in particular ways, be altered. You remark that what's wrong about altering a work--say, drawing a moustache on the original Mona Lisa hanging in the Louvre (as opposed to drawing a moustache on a reproduction of the Mona Lisa, as Duchamp did), or defacing Picasso's Guernica, as I believe happened when it was hanging in the Museum of Modern Art--is that "doing so wrongs the artist or is otherwise offensive." It's not clear to me that this is indeed the case. Suppose Duchamp had indeed drawn a moustache on the original Mona Lisa. Would Duchamp thereby have wronged Leonardo da Vinici? Perhaps, but only if it's possible to wrong someone who is dead. ...
Art

Roger Ebert said some time ago that there are no video games that can compare with the great works of art in other mediums, such as poetry or literature or film. What kind of comparison is he talking about? Looking at more established art forms, it seems clearly nonsense to compare something like Beethoven's Ninth to Shakespeare's Hamlet, being so radically different mediums - yet we don't say that no play has yet matched any of the great musical compositions of our culture, or that no poem can compare with the great sculptures of the past. On what level, then, are two works from different mediums (like the Ninth Symphony and Hamlet) comparable? Is it just in there overall quality, and if so, how does one judge the overall quality of a work of art, independent from those features that set it apart from other art forms? It doesn't seem fair to say that Hamlet has more psychological depth than the Ninth, or that the Ninth is more harmonious and evocative than Hamlet. Is it, rather, a question of...

It's not clear to me that when Ebert said that there are no video games that compare with great works of art in other media, he meant to imply that works in different media are comparable, as if there were some metric by which one could directly compare instances of different types of art. Ebert's point seems to be that although in media such as literature, music, film, etc., there are certain works that are recognized by all suitably placed judges as great--although of course the relative greatness of the works in any given art is a matter of considerable dispute--there are no video games that could be seen as great in the same way as works of music, film, literature, etc., are great. This may reflect a judgment on Ebert's part that video games are not a medium that can support work that could even conceivably qualify as great in the way that works of music, film, literature, etc., can; it may also reflect Ebert's judgment that no video game that has been created to date counts as a great piece...
Art

Beauty seems to be the main quality of concern in philosophy, when it comes to aesthetic judgements. But do philosophers also busy themselves with questions of the appreciation of the cute, the cool, or the funny? What about other qualities, ones that are also, in a sense, aesthetic?

Philosophers interested in judgments about works of art certainly do tend to focus on beauty, but other aesthetic categories have received philosophical attention. Ted Cohen has written a book on jokes and other work has been done on the philosophy of humor. The concept of ugliness has recently received some attention from philosophers interested in Kant's aesthetics. The concept of sentimentality has received intermittent sustained attention from philosophers. There has been some consideration of categories like 'camp' and 'kitsch'--if you haven't read Susan Sontag's "Notes on Camp," I highly recommend it; Milan Kundera's novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being contains provocative remarks about kitsch. To my knowledge, however, the concepts of the cute and the cool haven't received attention--and they should. Indeed, to my mind, at least, aesthetics is one area of philosophy that has especially suffered from what Wittgenstein would call "a one-sided diet," with too much attention...

What is the connection, if there is any, between enjoyment of art and the judgment of its aesthetic merit?

There is no connection between enjoying food and its being healthy, or good for one's body. Why should there be a connection between enjoying an artwork and judging it to be good?