No, it didn’t.
Why are all of your posts this stupid drive-by crap? If you don’t have anything to add to the conversation, try to restrain yourself next time. :wally
…and 95% of what is left is mediocre at best.
I couldn’t agree more - most of a given art form is crap. Listening to what music has endured over 10, 20 or 100 years is a very different experience vs. listening to what was popular at the time. Whenever I go over the BillBoard Top 20 from a decade or two ago, I am struck by the crap factor - huge.
Same with Modern Art. Most of it is as awful, impenetrable and unworthy of attention as most previous posters say. Done - end of story. I think many modern art collectors have been totally conned.
However, as with all art, some stuff works. I base my appreciation of art, as I think about it, on two key factors:
**1) Does it invoke an emotional response in me that the artist was shooting for? ** Just enraging me for feeling conned doesn’t count. But, say, with Roy Lichtenstein taking a comic book image and blowing it up to an iconic painting - I LOVE it - I see that he is trying to take a mundane, banal image and “dress it up” using the symbolism of painting - elevating the pop/common to something bigger. The conflicting symbolism and the desire to portray the popular as something worth given serious thought is what he targeted, I understand - and I appreciate it.
2) Do I understand what rule is being broken and why? Art becomes “Art” when a set of rules become explicit and certain craftsmen master those rules so much that their craft rises above to become art. Look at Mozart taking every rule of music to its nth degree and creating art in any number of musical genres of his day. So - if the rules are: paint within the lines, show a religious figure, make it look realistic, include perspective, etc., I want to understand what rules a master craftsman is breaking in order to make a statement.
With Duchamp’s urinal - it was “who says I can’t put this thing in a spot reserved for art - art is what a person says it is!” forcing a questioning of the rules. Cool - I get it. It seems to me that most of the normal rules of painting, say, have been broken so aggressively - I mean, jeez look at Pollack’s Abstract Expressionism paint drippings, or Lichtenstein’s comic-book Pop Art - that artists are looking for other rules to break. So the rules are more about social/cultural beliefs and taboos. That, to me, is why Tom Wolfe’s words ring true - if you don’t understand the cultural/societal rule the artist is trying to break, how can you understand the art - the art is no longer self-contained, if you will.
I personally am not willing to “stay current” on that non-self-contained art. Can’t and won’t invest the time, thankyouverymuch.
I do believe though that there still exists Modern Art that IS self-contained, that looks to move me emotionally in a specific way and looks to break specific rules with a purpose. I just think I come across that type of Modern Art extremely rarely.
My $.02
As an artist, I have to point out that not all “modern” art is the kind of crap that’s been described in this thread. “Modern” simply means contemporary (work that’s done now or in recent memory). What you’re describing is sometimes called “conceptual” art – a term that I thoroughly abhor, because if anything it’s anti-conceptual (anti-intellectual and anti-comprehensible).
It’s the emperor’s new clothes. **You’re not supposed to get it. **You’re only supposed to mindlessly pretend that you get it, and look down your nose at the ignorant masses (the rest of us) who are still looking for meaning in art.
My own work has been rejected by galleries and museums, because it’s “outside the current irony” and “interesting in its own terms, but not visceral” and “lacking cutting-edge sensibilities.”
But don’t give up on “modern” art. There really are some good artists out there; it’s a shame we have to wade through all the shit to get to it.
Ease up there, Sir.
The thing you have to understand is that since the invention of the camera, photorealistic painting just doesn’t have the effect that it once had. Yes, it takes great skill to faithfully copy something, but now that we have cameras, many artists just no longer see the point. BTW, I’m a biological illustration student, and I don’t really like abstract art, but I can see why they’re doing it.
But you can’t honestly believe (nor convince me) that three squiggles from a ballpoint pen on a blank piece of paper will ever speak to ANYONE. Especially not to say: “Pay $26400 for me, and I’m all yours”. Those pieces you linked to are “art”, but what was mentioned in that article is not and never will be, yet critics fawn all over that kind of stuff and “cognoscenti” pay a lot of money for it. If you ask me, they’re all “taking the piss” (as they would say in England) and secretly laughing their asses off.
How…ironic.
Link to your site? Mine’s dead, or I’d offer to share.
I hope you find a niche - I finally worked out one for myself, and while I don’t make a lot of money, it’s enough to keep me going.
Yeah, I know, but lately this is all I’ve been seeing from Bosda. It seems like he used to be a lot more “relevant” if I can use some “art speak”. I guess I just lost my patience.
Renaissance paintings weren’t photorealistic, though; they’re representational, but that’s a different thing. Truly photorealistic paintings only came about after the camera, when people started copying photographs.
I’ll let you two work it out beyond my initial comment - it’s certainly not my place.
Back on topic - Mycroft what do you think of my comments? I am specifically trying to move from the general “Modern Art sucks” type of dismissal to a “what works in Art?” exploration. From there, you (or anyone) can more directly comment on art in ANY genre and whether it works.
My point is: if you agree that making artistic statements often relies on breaking rules with a specific purpose in mind, how important is it that the rule be a commonly-known rule, and not one dependent on insider or current-culture knowledge? I would say for people not deeply involved in the art world, it is very important to break common rules. For art Insiders, they are interested in and open to making art by breaking other rules…and since we non-Insiders don’t know those rules, that art doesn’t speak to us…
Your thoughts?
PS: by the way, that still doesn’t excuse the vast majority of most art, which is, in fact, crap.
I can understand the OP. There are some modern art pieces that I don’t understand but I can see that the artist has invested a lot of intellectual and physical effort into creating them and I think, “I just don’t understand this.”
And there are other “modern art pieces” where I can see that no intellectual involvement is required and I could have thrown the whole thing together in 2 hours and I think, “This is bullshit. How could anyone pay money for this?”
My favourite examples:
In London someone won a competition with a pattern of housebricks, ten by twelve say. Two layers high with one corner brick missing from the top layer. I think I saw it at the Tate Gallery. Genius eh?
I took the guided tour through the Art Gallery of New South Wales and they had an award winning display. It consisted of a room with poorly daubed dark canvases with white crosses painted on them and bits of furniture with white crosses painted on them. The curator explained that they probably represented the artist’s feeling of being overwhelmed by his religous upbringing. I butted in to suggest that perhaps they meant nothing at all and were mearly designed to distract the viewer from the lack of graphic significance in the work. Although I had intended this as a smartarse joke the curator agreed and proffered it as an altenative “ironic” intention.
Much of the conceptualist stuff reminds me of Yes, We Have No Bananas artist Pavel Jerdanowitch. I’d almost rather hope that all the fecal tabboo or squiggle paintings were large scale hoaxes, but, I’m afraid they might not be. Alas…
don’t ask: “Although I had intended this as a smartarse joke the curator agreed and proffered it as an altenative “ironic” intention.”
That is hilarious and perhaps sums up everything in the whole thread.
Wasn’t there some “artist” who had his own sht canned, and labelled as such, with a price equivilent to gold?
That was true art-Imagine some moronic millionaire paying big bucks for…canned sht!
If relevance + Art is what you wish…here.
Official Moderator Note: Mycroft, personal comments are not permitted in this forum. You want to make snide remarks about someone, go to the forum called The Pit, and be my guest. But not here. You can insult modern artists all you want, you can insult art critics, but you may NOT insult any posters/members of this board … not outside the Pit.
Got it?
So was most art in human history, fessie.
I’m heavily critical of the type of “conceptual” crap described in the OP. But, as other people have pointed out, there’s a bunch of really great modern art out there that is not merely attention-whoring bullshit.
I really love the Hirshhorn in DC. Sure, it has a giant stick of butter, but there’s also some amazing stuff that is thought-provoking, stimulating, or just plain beautiful. The last time i went, they had an exhibition by sculptor Isamu Noguchi, and some of his works are just amazing.
And i want to get back down there this summer, because they’re a putting Ron Mueck’s sculpture Big Man back on display, and i think it’s just an amazing piece of work, like the rest of Mueck’s work (note: it’s also something you really can’t appreciate just from the picture; you really have to see it in person).
Gaaaah!
Now you’re depressing me. What, you think those guys (or gals) at Lascaux were doodling bison on the wall for the benefit of the caveman w/the most pelts?
It is true, though. I was going to direct Priceguy to this one particular artist I know, amazing watercolorist. He worked w/my father in the construction industry years ago, so I saw his work - I hate kitsch & Americana w/a passion, but he did a painting of an American flag draped across a rocking chair that was so simple, and so good, it made my knees buckle. I just about passed out. Strongest reaction I’ve ever had to a painting - and I’ve seen a fair number of them.
And of course, he’s not painting anymore - at least not professionally. Can’t google him. He had a family to feed, and he’s not “ironic”, so pfffffffft!
Wow!