High Art & Low Art Hybrids

Lesson Objective

To comment on high and low art hybrids.

How are these postmodern and what do they say about contemporary culture?

The distinction

There are distinctions between art

High art tends to be that which is appreciated by more cultivated tastes like classical music, poetry and ballet

While low art is aimed at the masses, is accessible and is easily comprehended. Examples of low art would be cinema and comic books.

Something new

Cinema is largely considered as mass entertainment and low art, so juxtaposing it with "high" art is seen as a way of producing something new.

Postmodern text experiments with existing forms and conventions.

artistic and stylistic eclecticism (aesthetic post-modernism) hybridization of forms and genres, combining "high" and "low" cultural forms and sources, mixing styles of different cultures or time periods, dehistoricizing and re-contextualizing styles in architecture, visual arts, literature, film, photography

Black Swan(2010 dir. Darren Aronofsky)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jaI1XOB-bs

Romeo & Juliet (1996 dir. Baz Luhrmann)

http://www.netflix.com/WiPlayer?movieid=60022807&trkid=50361909&tctx=0,0,1e9710bc-6a9b-411d-a352-04b04ee30675#entityId=Romeo%20&%20Juliet

reworking the story by setting it in modern times

What are the advantages and disadvantages of high

and low art hybrids?