The Art of Bonsai Project

Of course the value of bonsai goes well beyond money and is truly priceless. The best things in life can be free (or pretty darn cheap). The future if bonsai is of eminent importance to all of us.

While it may not be about the money, it's counterproductive to ignore the fact that the money and perceptions influence the 'future' and which direction or path it takes. For people with all the money in the world, it doesn't matter one bit, not much does. Collect, buy, vacation abroad, do whatever you like. That's part of the mystique of having all the money in the world. Money is a fascinating study of exchanging energies, all the more so in a depressed economy (I might not have even brought it up otherwise). Would anyone care about Picasso's "Boy With A Pipe" ("Garçon a la Pipe") if it hadn't been sold at Sotheby's in 2004 for $104.1 million dollars?

Emerging artists aren't always millionaires. Sometimes artists are young people who have this annoying little situation of needing to make a living. It may be easier to accomplish this in an Art community rather than a Hobby community. Emerging Hobbyist are usually well advised to secure a real job first. Bonsai may be better off in the future if artists are able to support themselves in the making of the art.

Michelle

Isn't there a difference between the price of a piece o work generations in the making, and the cost of practicing?

To me, the two seem very disconnected - most of the material for bonsai is right in the backyard after all. Free, or close. The rest is time, thought and sweat. And although I agree that pricing that labour to explain the price bonsai which happen to incorporate allot of it ought to fetch [see Walter Pall's recent post around here], I can't imagine this is as simple as that [for the similar reasons pricing any professional services is deeply fraught; and there should be some additional complications typical for art that I am less aware of].

Does this make any sense to anyone? At least, I can explain much of this to myself... but there are still more loose ends then meat on the bone, admittedly.

In a word, the story might be summed up as 'art has a market, but it is not market'. I happen to believe that bonsai - and the Japanese social arts, as they have been called at times [*] - make the point better then most. The serious question is how exactly... Something is telling me that the answer is around here, close - and it should only takes this little bit for the story to emerge!

Just a thought...


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* I somewhat dislike the term myself, but there really isn't another out there. There is a 'problem' with it - the art folk that invented it were not terribly interested in the practical things of art, and see no shades of gray between the 'white' of professional art [in which not only most of the good stuff is made by people who live out of it, but it goes without saying - for unknown reasons I would very much like to find a story for! - that it isn't worth doing it without pursuing the profession, which seems equivalent to accepting that price is almost perfect as a judge and implies that one must live with the pesky 'black box' independent critic] and 'black' [folklore, in which it is assumed that no one gets paid for creating]. Sure enough, things start smelling - got to love the formaldehyde example cited above on the thread [Hic!] - when one takes the silly art from its black box of accommodating critique. The problems inherent to the other end may have never been discussed, and that's enticing as anything!


[PS: it makes little sense to apologize for poor writing, but I have no choice this evening, with regret...]

To paraphrase an old saying:

ART IS IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER

With all due respects I can handel poor writing having at times engaged in the same; I at least make an attempt to make sense. I apologize for not understanding the point you are trying to make.

The best things in life are almost always free or very cheap, Like Bonsai?
I do agree wit you, Michelle, that money and perception influence the future of bonsai .
Paying top dollar for a true master piece is reasonable, paying more than $10.00 for a 4 year old procumbens in a pot is not.
The value of an art form is in the passion ,personal vision and technical skill with which it is created, not in the fact that it is "art".
People cared about Picasso's work because of the above qualities within his work, not because it sold for 104.1 million dollars. I don't think anybody would pay that kind of money for a "velvet Elvis" painting , though they are both art.
Having said all of the previous I would like to say that I have always seen bonsai as art. Not the sort of art you hang on the wall or display in a glass case. Bonsai are not static baubles to be dusted of from time to time. Rather ,I believe, bonsai Are performance art Involving the plant and the practitioner. Both Living, moving respirating sentient entities, interacting one with the other. There in lies the potential monetary value of a bonsai.
The aesthetic quality of this interaction, the record of the long dialogue between plant an person if done with passion skill and vision will, like a Picasso will be a masterpiece.
I don't believe the same is true for that little procumbens in a pot. Most of which are created to make money not to make art.This to me is where the issue of money and bonsai becomes a problem.
Not all bonsai reach the level of a Picasso, some are just Velvet Elvis paintings. How is a novice to know the difference.
This is my concern for bonsai in the future.

I am grateful for your trying!

Quite likely, things are not entirely clear to me... What I am trying to understand is how the practice of bonsai remains accessible, open and encouraging to amateurs in every sense of the word, while technical proficiency is not that easy and the threshold for achievement remains all too clear.

In this aspect, the art of bonsai seems different then just about any other, and for the better.

There seems to be many aspects involved: authorship, the constraints of practice and recognition of style. I am interested in what connects them.

Not so old.

As far as I understand, that wisedom justified letting interpretation displace much of the artist's work.

Is it OK for me to pick a twig and interpret it as bonsai? Hypothetically speaking...

Ahhh... Performance art - that starts to get tricky, as does Conceptual art, Earth art, and other heavily theorized versions of art in which actual objects that hang on a wall fail to exist, or exist only as ideas, thoughts, documentation of events, or fossil evidence to corroborate that it ever did, or someday might exist. Can you really call the practice of bonsai art? Doctors are practicing medicine, is this performance art? Are their products (us) their works of art? (I think) I may understand the point Ana made that asks can you call the products of the practice phase 'art'. (How long does the practice phase last?) Is the process of learning how to create bonsai the 'art' - since this is a life-long endeavor. Lest we are tempted to get too carried away in the intellectual game of art theory, which is just literature anyway, we should note it caused a complete implosion of the art world in the 70's, leaving the artists, galleries, museums, and collectors scratching their heads to try and figure out how one really goes about capitalizing on ideas and concepts, that may or may not exist.* In today’s art culture anything goes, with enough marketing behind it, no matter how pretty, ugly, indulgent, outlandish, shocking, bland, crazy big, minutely small, absolutely anything and nothing at all can be defined as art.

The more I really mull this over I wonder if the art world and the bonsai world are perhaps two parallel universes with no real use for each other. I once thought it would be of pivotal significance to see a masterpiece bonsai come up to the auction block at Sotheby's and sell for some astronomical price, to cement its place amongst great art and propel bonsai into mainstream public awareness and appreciation. I can be so naive.

The 'art world' is a small, incestuous little bunch of big thinkers, and even fewer big spenders, who have given the impression of being a much bigger group and wield a strong impression of influence over how this country views itself, which is why it's such a cool club to belong to. Besides the artists themselves, most participants are not the least bit interested in taking a hands-on approach, or heaven forbid get paint under their fingernails. If everyone who purchased a painting or sculpture was required to know how to create it and invest the years necessary to master the techniques, ‘art’ would come to a grinding halt. Yet a masterpiece bonsai can only be sold to or placed under the care of a master.

Bonsai is a cool club too. But totally different. The art world thrives on the tortured contradiction of the artist who is so misunderstood by society that he must reject it to survive, yet if anointed rock star status and his genius properly recognized will all too eagerly play that part instead. Art thrives on striving and recognition, investment potential, success and failure. Bonsai attempts to disregard most of that. Bonsai delves into the mysteries of life devoid of the human ego, attempting to illustrate the connectivity and interchangeability of all living and non-living things, employing subtlety and simplicity to make the invisible visible. The art world is very much about money. The artist buys his medium, the gallery sells the result, the agents broker, the auction house sells, everyone wants a piece of the action. Bonsai may be intended more as a thinking system, as an exchange of mental currency greased only enough to keep the wheels turning. The medium is free, the work is exhibited for all to enjoy for free... the format more closely resembles religion. (My grandmother always told me a lady does not discuss money or religion, but I've gone too far to turn back now.)

"Bonsai has a fourth dimension... time"**. We westerners are searching for answers and maybe eastern religion and thought can shed some light on things, seemingly having had more time to think it all over, collectively. It is almost expected that bonsai artists/practitioners/supporters be gurus or spiritual leaders of some sort. The best job opportunity seems to be as a teacher. The whole bonsai system runs on similar fuel to evangelical preaching. The clubs operate suspiciously like congregations that rely on donations and heavily recruit new members. Is bonsai selling art or dogma? In which case one can't sell God, but only the external paraphernalia, while enjoying the comradery and the snacks in the meantime. Bonsai is challenged to be neither art nor religion. To neither strive to succeed, nor piously demur. To be a microcosm of everything all at once, and really, nothing much at all. At the risk of sounding grandiose, perhaps bonsai simply 'is' and 'is not' and truly goes beyond what art can define, or religion can connect us to, concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe.

*Really fun books to read on this topic: The Painted Word by Tom Wolfe, and Seven Days in the Art World by Sarah Thornton
** American Bonsai Society 2004 brochure excerpt
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Michelle

Your deserve a better answer than I gave you last time. Of all the arts there is something primal about bonsai and it is in this primal presence that bonsai seems to find it's appeal. No matter how long bonsai is practiced, no matter what culture seems to take it up, no matter how creative the artist and diverse the material used bonsai seems always to retain it's essential identity as a tree. There have been efforts to make artistic statements with bonsai that go way beyond what most interested in the art would recognize as bonsai. Most, if not all, have failed to be accepted as bonsai or recognized as bonsai. Bonsai always seem to reside in this nether world where the power of a tree is beyond the power of an artist to redefine what it is.

Vance ~ thank you for your words. Simple truth, well said. I have printed this paragraph to refer to often. It is healthy and humbling, and somewhat of a relief, to recognize our limitations.

Ready to bet that this is what has kept it going in time and all over the map too. [the 'why' follows, although not in the best form, I am afraid...]


If only by contrast with the other kinds of art that make a point of defining themselves to a fault, letting everyone know what is right and wrong to say about them in the process. They corral good will, but not for long... Don't expect the technical description to matter very much, except for some obscure theory ['self-defeating insidership and the memory of the media' would probably make a nice conference paper! - another laugh, another day].

Apologies again for the convoluted stuff - I've got my fill too, with this occassion. At least until some opportunity arrives to make use of it [they usually do].

See this: http://walter-pall-bonsai.blogspot.com/2010/03/bmw-saga-nr-3.html

The car maufacturer BMW has a huge center in Munich, Germany where art exhibts are held around the year. Some time ago there was the biggest exhibit with sculptures by Giacometti.
Well, now for the next three months there will be an ongoing exhibt with tree sculptures. They asked me to avoid the word bonsai.
The whole thing is organized by the BMW art department.

I would be curious as to their definition of a tree sculpture?

Just read the blog! What to say.... this could be 'news' in any way, most good.

'Tree sculpture' sounds as culturally-neutral as 'tree in a pot'. 'Bet the tress do not disagree.