Tolv

When reflecting of Kristian Berg Nielsen's "Applied Art between nostalgia and innovation" I can't help but feel that applied art, as its own entity within the art system, is essentially design. His article, while aimed to discuss the differences between fine arts and applied arts, encompasses the debate over whether designed objects can considerably art on their own. Form separately considered from that of function.

Nielsen suggests it paradoxical that "applied art" still exists within our industrial society and further notes that applied art has taken the position between art and industry. By taking this place applied art is thought to lose the beauty and quality of craftsman created pieces of "fine art." If a design is massed produced and accessible to the multitudes it disconnects with the intention and beauty of the materialization and form of the artist or designers original intent. To possess something original and hand-crafted creates a feeling of connectivity with the designer and the intimacy of craft. When possessing something bound by machinery and industrialization one loses the intimacy of the latter. Nielsen suggests that applied arts have fallen to industrialization and therefore no longer posses the quality established through fine arts.

Nielsen further suggests that the ideals of perfectionism, often obtained by those acting in the arts and crafts movements, is lost when products are mass produced. He always notes that much of the beauty in hand-crafted work is that while it may function perfectly, nothing created by the hands of man is perfect. And in that there's a profound beauty, it is essential to all we know in life "The sign of life in a moral body" (36). When we lose this disconnect much of what makes art important to the human sole, is lost. Neilsen notes that this disconnect came in timely fashion with the twentieth centuries Futuristic ideas "The dizzying gospel of speed" (38). As we have moved further and further into the technological age, we are closer and closer to not needing the creativity and craftsmanship of the human hand. As a result the industrial products we now chose to use are things chosen solely for function, not for soul.

Writer Octavio Paz once claimed "We have a functional relationship with the industrial object and a religious one with the art object" (41) denying the industrial product any concrete sensual beauty. While industrial objects are objectively right or wrong, like that of mathematics the express"The truth of formula. It is designed for a function. It works or it does not work" (41). The most clear disparity between applied arts and fine arts is the connection between the viewer and the original idea of the creator, all interpretative areas are lost with industrial production. Applied arts are meaningless.

Nielsen argues that applied arts have detached  from the demands of utility and applicability, and the less direct competition from industrial design, therefore giving the applied arts freedom to to rethink the relationship among materials and form. As previously discussed in class there is a space between what is art and what is design. From what Nielsen writes, one could almost say that space has been taken by the applied arts. Pieces neither considered fine arts and or design, that however serve a critical role in fulfilling the mass demand for things in our society. At the pace in which our society is increasingly demanding more and developing in size we need more things. As this continues into the future we will certainly have to rethink the way we make things and perhaps start reshaping material choice and selection towards more ecologically friendly production processes. Nielsen suggests that this process could be a very welcoming opportunity for the applied arts to reestablish themselves as not only important but as a creative member of the arts family.