A theory on interpretive problems with Modern Art

Cafe Society
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The responses in this thread discussing ways to get past High Art’s reputation lead me to posting this thread. The question has been asked and debated in several previous threads, but in skimming these threads I think the point of the problem has been missed, so at the risk of adding even more nonsense to the fray (a fear that doesn’t seem to stop many Dopers anyway :slight_smile: ), I thought I’d post my own ideas about the problem.

Let’s start by conceding that there is some “High Art”–a substantial portion of it, in fact–that can only be appreciated by a viewer who has some background or special knowledge about the history/technique/vocabulary/whatever which either influences the art or is ondisplay in it. A failure to appreciate this type of art may come from this lack of knowledge, but the point of this thread isn’t to debate whether or not this intellectual approach is really a fair way to judge the quality of art.

Rather, I think the problem some people have with modern art is as follows. Since the dawn of time, appreciation and criticism of particular artistic works have hovered aound the more general question “What is Art?” Until quite recently, every work of art produced included a partial response to that question; this is why we can identify things like art movements or the style of particular artists. Often, the answer to that question from a whole body of works reveal things like cultural norms, aesthetic philosophies, metaphysical theories–in short, the things that make art a tool for understanding both individuals and cultures at large. No one, for example, can look at the art produced by the Greeks and Romans and fail to come away with some general notions about the classical ideal (balance, order, etc.). Impressionism and Cubism are easily interpeted as movements designed around the notion that art should reveal certain metaphysical beliefs about the nature of reality and human perception.

But a thorough study of art shows just how arbitrary these underlying themes can be. We soon learn that individuals and cultures with wildly divergent values and beliefs can each produce great art. Thus, one begins to wonder if there really is an answer to the central question “What is art?”, or more correctly: If any old answer will do, why bother answering it at all? Postmodernism, then, has made the central question “What is Art?” particularly intractable.

So I believe the central reason why some people reject modern art as “pretentious” is that it fails to take a stand–any stand–in answering the fundamental question “What is Art?” It’s not hard to understand why: The history of art–littered as it is with abandoned theories that were at one time taken as gospel–might make a potential artist wonder if the question is even sound. But by failing to offer some opinion on the question, there really isn’t any criteria on which a work of art can be judged, so the attempts by critics to justify its status as art appear–to some observers–a doomed exercise in pretentious blather, a dress-up of seriousness whose ultimate purpose is to obscure the fact that there’s nothing there.

This, ultimately, is what turns some people off about some modern art: It is utterly inexplicable as a reaction to any clear idea about “art” itself. Some of this, no doubt, is due to a personal bias in the viewer about what art should be; it’s easy to reject a work of art that doesn’t fit one’s personal definition. But that problem can be overcome with education (yes, some will say you shouldn’t have to be overly-educated to understand art, but let’s set that aside for the moment), and even if some folks disagree about the success of the artist in meeting his presumed goals, at least an intelligent conversation can be held about the work. I wonder instead if the problem is more fundamentally a perceived lack of any and all interpretive criteria–whether set by the artist or the cognoscenti–for evaluating and understanding the artistic intention.

I’d really like to get some feedback on this. Do you believe either (1) yes, modern art is–at least in part–plagued by artists who take advantage of a system that discourages any assignment of criteria to art, or (2) no, I don’t agree that the issue exists, but I think it’s the reason a lot of armchair critics poo-poo modern art.

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I’ll recuse myself from this discussion–I’m probably not a good, uninvested and disinterested opinion and would just add noise (I am a card-carrying snob/cognoscenta)-- but I’ll watch with interest.

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  1. 90% of everything is crap. If the percentage of crap from the good old days seems lower, it’s because the crappiest stuff gets forgotten. I’m sure there are some artists today who are scamming their patrons (Thomas Kinkade comes to mind). But not many. Most artists don’t make money off the masses. They make money off the hardcore art aficionados – people who go to gallery shows and museums all the time and keep up with what’s going on in the current art scene. Most art fans I know are fairly open-minded – they’re willing to let a work speak for itself – but they also have the experience and training to recognize crap when they see it.

  2. I also don’t think that’s why the armchair critics poo-poo contemporary art. It’s been my experience that most people don’t possess enough cultural context to engage with art beyond a simple gut “pretty/not pretty” response. They reject anything that doesn’t fit within their limited interpretive criteria and respond to any attempt to enlarge those criteria with complaints of elitism and pretense.

Now, personally I don’t give a crap if someone doesn’t like contemporary art. We don’t all need to have the same hobbies and enthusiasms. I approach football the way a lot of people approach art. Maybe once every couple of years I’ll see a bit of a game. My response invariably never gets beyond a simple appreciation of the raw physicality of it: “Wow, those guys are big! They sure can move fast though. Oh … that guy DOVE and caught the ball! Wow, that looked hard!”

I realize that football fans are watching an entirely different game than I am. They see the physical action like me, but they also see vast sweeps of additional information-- underlying strategies, team rivalries, personal interactions between players and coaches, comparisons with countless previous games. That’s all invisible to me. If I wanted to spend the time I could learn all that stuff and be a football fan too, but life is short and I have other interests.

The thing is … I don’t blame my ignorance of football on the football players. They’re not purposely keeping me in the dark. They’re not intentionally speaking in code to make me feel stupid. I acknowlege that the football experts really are able to see things happen on the field that are entirely invisible to me in my ignorance. I don’t think that football is a scam, or that football fans are all deluded poseurs.

That’s what the art scene is like. Most stuff is made for the fans – they’re the ones who pay the bills. Most artists aren’t purposely trying to exclude the masses. Frankly, they’re not thinking about the masses at all. They know their market and they know what they want to accomplish aesthetically and as long as they can make the rent payment who cares if some guy in Oklahoma doesn’t get it? He’s not writing the checks is he?

Not caring about art is not a moral failing. If it’s not your cup of tea, admit it. We art fans won’t think less of you. Just as I hope you won’t think less of me for being totally ignorant of football.

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All art from all ages suffers from following trends. And almost all the trends become stale.
Even those like Leonardo and Rembrandt will rise and fall every decade relative to the average auction price. And if history is any guide, they will eventually be as obscure as Etruscan tomb carvers.

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A fascinating thread, and I’m not sure that it shouldn’t be in Great Debates.

I think that my thoughts on this started to come together several years ago. I attended a showing of Mark Tansey’s work at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. One could not help but notice his mastery of a monochromatic medium. One painting in particular struck my eye. Having grown up with Sherlock Holmes stories, I immediately recognized the image of Holmes and Moriarty struggling above the Reichenbach Falls. Except that close inspection and some accompanying notes revealed that this was a painting of Derrida and de Man struggling on cliffs of deconstructed text. Viewing of other paintings tended to be along the same lines; works that were striking in their presentation, but later revealed themselves to have deeper meaning to those in the know.

And that was the problem, because I had no idea who Derrida or de Man were, or even what deconstruction was, for that matter. As Pochacco put it so well above, I didn’t consider that to be the artist’s shortcoming, but rather my own. Nevertheless, I was slowly realizing that many artists are gearing their works to other artists, rather than the general public.

Take the works of Hopper, for example. (Okay, another exhibit I saw recently, but at least he is fresh in my mind.) While it is easy to admire his technique and his composition, it is also easy to find interest in commonplace settings such as diners, motel rooms, office buildings. He was offering up everyday items, but through a fresh eye. In contrast, I find that many new (and critically acclaimed) artists have eschewed both the public and popular culture, thereby alienating potential patrons. It may not matter to them, but it is probably the reason that the public has turned its back on them in response.

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Like I mentioned in the other thread, I heard an interesting theory that modern art is a bunch of grown ups trying to rediscover their roots and indulge in the experimental scribbles they did as children. (Hence why a lot of people’s reaction to modern art is: “My five year old can do better!”)

There’s always been an element of mysticism attached to the creative process; there’s even religions that believe certain shapes and symbols have power, and they’ve woven that into their rituals. And in the days before mass production, only the riches people could afford to have an artist paint–and the painters did so, in painstaking detail, because they were also acting as record keepers.

Note that the move towards Impressionism happened as the camera began to displace the painter in capturing moments with exact precision, and Cubism can be interpreted as the painter’s version of those over-exposed films where a person’s movements translates into this funky pattern.

And of course there’s that whole arena of pushing your artistic limits and being controversial for it’s own sake or to get attention.

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I’m not interested in evaluating the 90% crap; I’m talking about the 10% (1%?)generally hailed as great art by the cognoscenti

I obviously disagree with this rather snobbish assessment of those who criticize much of modern art. But let me make it clear from the outset that I do not dismiss all modern art out of hand, but I admit to growing somewhat baffled at some of it, and have outlined one plausible reason why this is the case.

Let me see if I can illustrate the problem by way of example. It’s a popular (though perhaps innacurate) conceit to ridicule modern art as some sort of emperor-has-no-clothes in-joke. But equally esoteric fields–particle physics leaps to mind–don’t seem to labor under this interpretation: Steven Hawking is recognized as a great living physicist even by “some guy in Oklahoma” who doesn’t get it. Why is this so? My theory is that it’s because people realize there is a meaning and sense to Hawking’s work even if they don’t understand it, and those few outsiders (for lack of a better term) who do take the time to understand it are capable of appreciating its genius.

I doubt they are reaching the same conclusion when they view, say, the ironical works of Piero Manzoni, and I submit this is because they expect the artist to fundamentally make an artistic statement rather than “play” with the idea of art.

What you describe here is still an appeciation of football, just one that’s limited of course by your own experience with the game. What I’m talking about is something different: A revulsion to some modern art by people who are capable of intellectually evaluating it. These are folks who are indeed capable of moving beyond their own “gut reaction”, but still don’t see anything there.

IMO art was not pigeonholed as a niche activity prior to recent times. Of course, there have likely always been communities of artists who informed each other and produced some works for a very small circle, but art has also been perceived as reflecting the culture of a group/society, and something that expresses ideas that could be universally moving.

I may be wrong on this, but I think art is more than just a pastime like football–or are perhaps sports in general stepping into the cultural void left by abandoning art to the artistes? If so, I guess they wouldn’t be the first to discard a core principle to make a buck, but I’d like to believe that’s not entirely true.

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But at least these works of art followed trends that are recognizable (with perhaps some help from history/philosophy/theology/whatever), and therefore they can be appreciated. Some modern art goes to such extremes of irony, for example, that the work can make no clear artistic statement at all.

I agree that lack-of-statement in itself is perhaps a statement, but it doen’t seem to me to be one that can lead anywhere.

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Observing that many critics of modern art are ignorant of it isn’t snobbishness. Many of those critics will readily acknowledge that “I don’t know much about art, but I know what I like.” The question is: Why we should take such uninformed opinions seriously? Would you call it “snobbishness” to dismiss the opinions of the uninformed if we were discussing world affairs or particle physics?

And those outsiders who take the time to understand contemporary art can perform a similar feat. (I’m from Oklahoma, BTW, which is why I picked it as an example. Tulsa has a couple of great art museums.) Why the difference in attitude? I suspect that a lot of the hostility toward “high art” is class-based. Science is class-neutral. Whereas “high art” has been seen as the playground of upper class patrons for centuries. So “appreciating” art feels like a bit of class betrayal for those of us in the middle. Hence the “snob” accusation.

What makes all this particularly ironic is that there’s a major movement going on in avante-garde circles these days to demolish the distinction between “high art” and the sort of mass-market culture that you find in advertising, greeting cards, and so on. Art is art … .

As I said above … they are judging art by limited interpretive criteria. Expecting all art to “mean something” is a limitation.

In any case, most *contemporary * artists aren’t that interested in playing with the idea of art. It’s interesting that you picked as your example an artist who’s been dead for almost half a century. It isn’t the 1950’s.

Heh. Are you suggesting that I’m intellectually incapable of understanding football? :slight_smile:

I’m sure that most “critics” of modern art are capable of understanding it. They choose not to because they’re not drawn to it. So what? Must everbody enjoy exactly the same thing?

Most of the art that survives from the past was made for the private enjoyment of the superwealthy. You and I can travel to Rome and see Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel frescos, but when they were painted they were intended exclusively for the Pope and his buddies.

Contemporary art DOES reflect the cultures of different groups & societies. It doesn’t represent all of modern society in it’s totality, but given how varied and complex the modern world is it’s hard to see how it could without becoming totally bland and generic.

In fact, I suspect that most contemporary artists are speaking to a much LARGER audience than their classical counterparts. Pre-industrial Europe was small, and the number of people who had access to great artists was tiny. An artist like Cy Twombly probably reflects the values of a community several orders of magnitude larger than an artist like Titian

This particular attitude toward art is a 19th Century construction. It’s a direct response to the rising ability of the middle class to pay for and enjoy good art. The mystification of art was response of the upper class conoisseurs to the invasion of the hoi polloi: “Well, they might be able to buy it, but they’ll never be able to appreciate like we will.”

Can’t you see the contradiction inherant in your position? On the one hand you’re arguing that art should be something special and deep, but on the other you’re complaining that over-complicated art has put it beyond the reaches of the masses. Which do you want?

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I would like to respond to your genuinely interesting post in full, but for now wanted to highlight two important points:

I fear we have a fundamental difference of opinion here. I do expect to find meaning in a work of art, and when I don’t I start by assuming the problem is mine, and try to improve my own knowledge/understanding of the work (that sounds more clinical than it is, and I can’t say I take the time with everything I see, but I do try).

From this comment, I’m guessing that, in some cases at least, I’m wasting my time. This is exactly the point of my OP; even if an artist sees lack of meaning as a fundamental expression of art, such a position does not justify more than a passing nod; how can a fetish develop around items that have no meaning?

This is decidedly not my position. I have no problem with art that is complicated, and will not dismiss it out of hand simply for that reason. I do not believe art should be “dumbed down” for the masses. Rather, I think that postmodernism has presented the art world with a problem in assigning meaning to art, and this problem is, in part, responsible for certain attitudes among critics; they suspect that the art isn’t really that complicated, but rather the artist hasn’t a clue about what to say. I also dispute the idea that the importance/specialness of art–even modern art–is necessarily proportional to its interpretive complexity.

An apt analogy to what I’m saying comes from the use of language. When learning to read, children necessarily start with simpler texts because they are only learning to decode the information. But at some point, people stop learning to read, and instead read to learn. If, for example, they come across an unfamiliar word, they often learn its meaning from context rather than have to have it interpreted for them. Sure, they may come across an extremely complicated use of language that requires some additional guidance, but they never lose faith in the idea that the text itself is intelligible on some level.

But now suppose someone decides that language is not required to have meaning, that it is perfectly valid to use it in a meaningless way, because meaning is really an artifical construction. Who decided, for example, that “elephant” referred to a large grey mammal in Asia and Africa, and why couldn’t it just as well be “hegroteffel”? And there are, of course, plenty of cultures that don’t refer to the mammal by the word “elephant”. This is no doubt an interesting notion, and you may be able to explore it in a brief or cursory way, but at some point you’re going to start writing jibberish because you are attempting to write something without meaning. So when a critic declares that your latest sentence “bj23fh8asdv09xcv,m,d asdfjkwefuh90823 234i0~~” is meaningless, he’s dismissed as somebody who just “doesn’t get it”.

Like all analogies, this one is no doubt flawed, and I suspect plenty of folks will come along to point out those flaws. I welcome that; I’m not trying to be pigheaded here, but I do wonder if this idea presents an interpretive problem for modern art, one that leads inevitably to the routing ridicule it receives.

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I like your central thesis, that if there’s no such thing as “not-Art” (or failed art), how can there be “Art.”

But I think there’s still a certain quality people are looking for, even in the most obscure corner. There IS an “it”, it’s just beyond words.

There was an artist in ArtNews (or somesuch) doing a piece that involved envelopes and mailing things, I forget exactly what it was he did, but when I read the whole description this ~ptwang~ went off in my head, I thought “holy shit! That is awesome.” He did “it” and somehow it happened in the postal system. Strangest thing.

People so often think (and I’m not accusing YOU of this) that the point of art was, is, or should be a representation of reality. That’s not it at all.

Well, OK, if you’re doing someone’s portrait and they want it to resemble them, yes, you’d best be putting eyes where eyes are typically found.

But the truth is that in drawing and painting realistically (and I’m a representational artist, not an “abstract” one) reality is merely a vehicle. The “it” we’re aiming for is just beyond appearances. Not the appearances themselves.

Read Robert Henri’s The Art Spirit.

I really appreciate your frustration on this. The constant justification and rejustification for art-making turns me off, too. Art school is (at least sometimes) about “making your mark”, writing the next page in the art history books, reinventing something. And that can’t really BE taught. Either you have it or you don’t. So I think you definitely get some posers out there who’re trying their damn best to be Significant, when really they’ve got nothing Significant to say.

OTOH, though, truly, there ARE outstanding contemporary artists who ARE providing new answers to “What is Art?” They WILL tell you what they’re about, if you ask.

Sometimes the answers have a lot to do with art history or politics or philosophy and you might need to do some research to understand - but that’s no different than reading a dense GD thread here, right? Don’t we all run into knowledge gaps now and then? I don’t think that’s meant to be exclusionary.

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This is a fair criticism. It’s difficult to single out particular artists because I fear most of them are obscure outside of the art world. Mapplethorpe’s homoerotic/sadomasichistic photos and Andres Serrano’s Piss Christ are perhaps the most well-known examples. Certainly they’re often criticized for the confrontational nature of their photos/sculpture, but some folks may also, legitimately, question the artistic impulse behind these works. Let me be very clear up front that I have no desire whatsoever to censor artists or criticize their works merely because some may think they’re obscene or sacriligous. However, stripped away of their controversy, one has to wonder what’s so artistic about these particular works?

Other contemporary examples would include the surreal photography/films of Alice Anderson, Eric Cameron’s “Thick Paintings”, and the poured-out paint of Jonathan Kearney. IMO their works are hampered by an obvious attempt to eschew artistic meaning, a postmodern conceit. I’m not saying they (or Mapplethorpe or Serrano) are necessarily bad, unartistic, or unimportant, but I wonder on what basis these were/are chosen to be part of the club?

I realize this topic has devolved into near-flame wars in the past, so let me reiterate that I am genuinely interested in the question; this is not an ambush of contemporary art, just a topic for discussion.

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One more example (video), probably more of a joke than a real attempt at art; I included it because the video greeted me upon logging in to Yahoo!, and it seemed all too relevant to this thread.

I have no idea who this is, or if he’s at all part of the contemporary art scene, so it may not be fair to say he’s representative. Nevertheless…

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Huh - I think that’s kind of fun. The work didn’t look all that strong as presented on TV, it seems like just a novelty. I don’t think he has a spectacular sense of color and his rendering skills were fairly average. But maybe he didn’t display his best results?

It is an intriguing idea, painting via something that’s alive.

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If you’re looking for some outstanding contemporary artists to make this about, the Whitney Biennial might be a good place to start.

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This guy might have an idea or two about that.

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This is a subject that I feel strongly about but I wont be debating in great depth because its a subject that requires thousands of words and frankly I need time off to earn a living ,eat ,go to the toilet etc.
I will be very brief in my points.

Firstly there used to be no such thing as “Art” it just used to be "furniture"or “decoration”.

People of a certain mind set have tried to make “art” into some kind of religion ie. its indefinable ,you either understand it or you dont etc. etc.

If you believe this yourself you are very much self deluding and whatever your erudition ,whatever your qualifications you do not actually understand art.
I’m not being arrogant here ,I am merely stating a fact.

As an analogy,you can study humour,the roots of humour,regional variations of humour and so on and so on …
But if you need to have jokes explained to you then you do not have a sense of humour .
Art should speak directly to you on a subliminal level but no matter how talented the artist in whatever medium no art will communicate to everyone irregardless of their culture (whether geographical or temporal based) or their individual psychology.

Any art that spontaneously produces an emotional reaction in the viewer is indeed art,but ,and its a big but !instilling disgust or shock is easy art ,true genius evokes the more subtle emotions something that seems to be very scarce in contemporary art.

There are creations that only the artist themself understand and I admire that,its when poseurs who discuss the creation without being honest enough to admit that they "dont get it " and waffle on and on to try and protect their egos that I get annoyed.

The "Art establishment "has for many years included far too many people who rely on “The Emperors New Clothes Ethos” that is they do not really understand the subject themselves
and so go along with any B.S. put to them to save face and when asked about individual pieces fob off the uninformed enquirer with “Oh you wouldnt understand defence”(something that incidentally doesn’t work with me not now ,not ever)

Art is not and has NEVER EVER been a mystery and if you genuinlly love art you 'll try to make as many other people who are yet to discover its rewards aware of what they can get out of it just as you would try to share your enjoyment of sailing or horseriding with as many people as you can.
Referring to a previous thread ,I do believe in the study of art history ,there are many misconceptions about historic art but we are talking Dog and Tail here .
The tail does not wag the dog.

Finally just as Cicero ended all his speeches with “Carthage must be destroyed” I end all of my art related posts with" Picasso was a talentless posturing ,contemptible fraud . "

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It was Cato the Elder who ended his speeches that way (trust me; I know a little something about the ancient world :slight_smile: ). And unfortunately, this is exactly the kind of response I was hoping to avoid in this thread.

With all due respect, this assessment of Picasso is profoundly uninformed. I admit, when I was younger, I could not understand what was so great about Picasso, but after a little reflection and discussion, began to see what he was after and found his artwork illuminating and genuinely interesting. I have been expecting the same thing to eventually happen with contemporary artists generally recognized as “great” (based on the fact that they a featured at showings in major museums). Instead, I quite frequently am baffled at the artistic qualities of some contemporary art, and in discussing it with others who claim to recognize its artistry, have often not found their reasons satisfying or even (at times) comprehensible.

What, for example, makes Serrano’s Piss Christ a work of art? I don’t particularly mind that it’s shocking, but if the point of the piece is solely to provoke shock and outrage, I’m not quite sure what’s artistic about that. Once again, I am not suggesting it should be banned/censored, but on the other hand I have to wonder why someone thought it was worth placing in an art museum. It is this fact–the apparent lack of an artistic agenda in some contemporary art–that I submit is a fault of postmodern influences in art, and I think its one that dooms some contemporary art to ridicule as the emperor with no clothes.

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I think that Modern art is simply too personal in nature-I have no idea what most of it is supposed to portray. Take Jackson Pollock-his paint drips are technically interesting, but i cannot judge the worth of his works, because i don’ know what he was trying to convey…maybe…paint drips? Likewise with “artists” like Willem DeKooning-I simply have no reference to judge him. Modern sculpture is equally non-representative-I once saw a bunch of welded metal scrap that was outside; it looked like a pile of scrap to me.

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You might try looking here for an answer.