All value is subjective. No piece of art factually has value or lacks value. When I say something’s worthless, I’m obviously saying it from my perspective.
The difference between your friend and myself is that I understand completely that some people enjoy modern/abstract art. And I’ve gone so far in this thread as to say that I’m certain that some of it isn’t just random paint.
Super. But you’re missing my point. I’ve railed against those works of art that fall into my perceived definition of abstract -a technically incorrect definition. Perhaps there’s another word out there for it - and I’ve mentioned this in prior posts - but Starry Night and Dali’s stuff isn’t the sort of thing I’m ranting about.
Right – so you don’t know enough about the subject to discuss it intelligently (using, ya know, terms) but we’re the ones taken in by a “worthless fraud”. :rolleyes:
If you wanted to rail against a specific artist, or perhaps critique the Whitney Biennial, I’m sure many of us would find points of agreement. I still believe it’s important to try to understand the artist’s intention before ripping into the result, but I also dislike a lot of work that receives critical acclaim. However there is a whole world of difference between “geez, that show sucked” and “abstract art is a worthless fraud”.
I’m amazed that my sports analogy didn’t resonate with you — how do you learn to appreciate basketball, football, baseball? It takes knowledge, it takes experience, coaching. You don’t just wake up one morning with information in your head. If someone doesn’t know any better, then they might wonder what the point is and why people pay big bucks to the players. And there are various levels of play - there’s recreational play (and art) and there’s what the pros do. It’s the same fucking thing.
However, our inability to reach you isn’t surprising. You stated previously that you’ve never learned to like a movie or book more as a result of subsequent viewings. I find that astounding. I’ve reread quite a few books, picking up nuances I missed and interpreting them differently because I’ve changed. Apparently you make snap judgements and won’t reconsider. What an odd way to live.
Look, people, if he didn’t start out as a troll, he’s certainly become one.
There’s nothin to see here.
The sports analogy doesn’t resonate with me because sports don’t resonate with me. Baseball’s okay, I guess.
I’ve re-read or re-watched things and caught references the second time - but catching a new reference doesn’t change whether I liked or disliked the original.
Frex, occasionally I will rewatch an episode of Mystery Science Theater - where movie and TV and culture reference fly like crazy. And a comment they make that I previouslyt regarded as just a funny retort will be recognized for what it was - a funny, referential retort. Because I’ve seen the movie or whatever they’re referencing since the last time I watched the episode.
But it doesn’t make me suddenly dislike an episode I liked, or like an episode I disliked. (though to be honest, I’ve never seen a MST3K episode that I disliked.)
So, none of what I said about 2D art versus the concepts behind other media was anything but silly?
So not to toot my own horn or anything, but this seemed to me to be pretty worthy of response:
Baseball’s okay? Just OK???
Savage!
I thought what you wrote was fantastic, lissener. There were a lot of wonderful arguments and observations in this thread. I was going to post and just remark how much I enjoyed reading everyone’s remarks. They’ll come in handy the next time I run into a philistine (unless that one’s an idiot, too).
That’s an excellent analogy, and had it been used earlier in this thread, I likely wouldn’t have argued as long as I did. I’ve never cared for jazz, but neither have I ever thought of it as not being music.
So what? It’s the same dialogue, the same camera setups. Different actors, yes, but they’re saying exactly the same things and moving in exactly the same ways. So they should be equal, no? Why should it make a difference if van Sant used the original as a reference?
I think the problem, CandidGamera, is that you have no grasp of subtlety. You don’t seem to have any appreciation for subtleties of emotion or communication, which is evidenced by the fact that you take nothing from silent film dramas or abstract paintings or Joyce, appreciation of which typically involves navigating layers of meaning, which requires attentiveness and some degree of sophistication.
CandidGamera, you are, indeed, a modern artist. You are using this thread as your canvas and your uninformed and frankly biogted opinions as your paint, and you are creating a work of art that deconstructs its very essence. By negating your own premise (that the text of modern art is even worthy of being deconstructed), you create a tension: Why are you bothering doing that which you deride as bourgeoisie? Why do you continue the charade, now that you have argued it’s utterly commercial and banal?
You have a way with the essential circularities inherient in linear logic, the notion that going in a straight line with any argument will inevitably lead us all around in a tight loop of endlessly decaying references and value systems. This voyage into the non-Euclidian geometries of Cartesian logic has been fascinating and, dare I say it, obscene in its rejection of the traditional gender roles imposed upon most discourse: The very masculine straight-line of the phallic logical structure has been transformed into the vaginal circle of your dense spherical mind.
Now, of course, the next step is to complete the course, to consummate the relationship between the artist and the poseur. You must find a buyer for this piece, and you must find one who will pay an exorbitant price for it. After all, if you truly wish to deny the reality of your very overnarrative, you have to do that which it is symbolized by.
And if they won’t buy, you can get cross and call them all poopy-heads.
The college I go to puts a lot of emphisis on its art program, namely abstract sculpture. My campus is covered with random pointy objects and piles of rock. There are not one, not two, but three (so far as I’ve found) sculptures that are about 30 feet high of random chunks of cement trucks welded together and painted random colors. There’s another that is simply a bunch of maniquin parts painted sky blue and held together somehow. Others are seriously just large logs lashed together with metal cables (and by others I mean there are a few of these that look almost identical). Having a college with random sharp, low to the ground in many cases, and many involving rocks, metal, or logs there are many accidents where drunk students trip into them.
Its not art. I know the word “art” means roughly anything man made or designed… these are pushing it.
I read about the kid with the paint in the NYTimes (not sure if that is the article that the OP links to, my computer doesn’t seem to like the link), and I thought the same thing. They look kinda cool, probably better looking than most work by 4 year olds, but then again the other 4 year olds arn’t given a canvas, rather they have finger paints and a sheet of paper. Tell a 4 year old to cover something with paint and spray random colors over the background, yeah, they will. The article mentioned something about at the show the kid driving around on a trike laughing and having fun… honestly, a 4 year old has no idea about the whole thing. It gets her parents pretty rich, though, and I don’t doubt there is some extra encouragement on their part (the NYTimes article had a photo of her and her father aparently working on a painting together, or at least with him right there helping her out “switching paintbrushes”). I’m not saying her stuff is crap, it does look a lot better than some of the art here on campus.
Meh. If I must, I must.
I’d say it’s about what it does to your head, as most doesn’t seem to do anything to mine. I can think of dozens of “new ways to say something” - but unless other people accept and understand the vocabulary, it’s just gibberish… and even when they do, it’s just an arbitrarily created system.
1.) You say that it’s the easiest sort of art. 2.) A perceived lack of required thought is exactly why I’m railing against the margest part of modern/abstract art. 3.) I never said it was ‘invalid’. I’m not even certain what you mean by ‘valid’ in this context.
I think we’re seeing another problem with my use of the word abstract. In the (admittedly incorrect) way I use the word, written language is emphatically not abstract - it’s pretty much the opposite. Still waiting for someone to give me a better term.
And it’s Retarded Analogy Day again. Didn’t we just have one of those?
And I never said or thought that abstract art wasn’t art.
It’s hard to articulate. It’s like the difference from doing a pencil sketch of an elephant and coloring it in, and coloring in one found in a coloring book. Some of the choices - whether they’re difficult or not is a matter of opinion - have been made already. That’s why I suggested the alternative of something in the exact same style. Instead of coloring in the elephant in the coloring book, you draw a similar elephant in a different pose, and color that in.
I suppose, though, that if a work is of sufficient complexity, it might become challenging to reproduce it exactly even using it as a reference.
You’re entitled to that opinion. I would disagree on the point of communication, but you may well be correct on the point of emotion.
I stated my opinion. It caused an uproar. I attempt to explain. My opinion continues to be labelled ‘idiotic’. So I continue to explain, perhaps futilely, in the hope that some will acknowledge that, while they disagree, the opinion is a reasonable one.
And if you choose to see my ramblings as modern art - well, the definition of art is broad enough to allow you to do that. I do not. I’m just a poor debater with moderate articulative capabilities.
My esteemed opponents have initiated the namecalling in … every case, I think you’ll find.
You STILL don’t get it. Try to understand that in fact YOU introduced the insults to this discussion.
And yes, I say it’s the easiest kind of art to create, as a lifelong artist. Once you’ve chosen a subject (the only thought required in most representational art), the rest is just patience and industry and attention to detail. Representing emotion or thought is much, much more difficult than representing a bowl of fruit. (This is not an opinion open to debate, CG, it’s an indisputable fact.)
And it’s also indisputable that written language is completely abstract. It’s nothing but a learned convention that these words carry the meaning they carry. It’s just a system you have learned. To deny that there are other such systems is idiotic.
Rather than denying the meaning of the word, you should reconsider your understanding of why one abstract system is understandable to you while another is not.
The Icelandic analogy is actually extremely apt to communicate what I’m trying to communicate. Rather than saying the analogy doesn’t fit your current understanding, try to understand the sense of the analogy to perhaps ADD to your current understanding. THe purpose of my analogy is not to try to “match” your understanding of the subject, which seems to be the only criterion you’re applying, but to communicate a DIFFERENT understanding from the one you currently hold. I’m not trying to tell you what YOU mean, I’m trying to tell you what I mean.