Ahh, the argumentum ad populum. Nicely played, but despite the game attempt did not break my ironymeter despite its defense of a deeply unpopular genre with the general public.
Where did valleyofthedolls claim that modern art is good because it’s popular? She claimed that if it’s easy to imitate, you should be able to imitate it. That’s not an argumentum ad populum.
Also, what do you base your claim that modern art is “deeply unpopular” with the general public?
Yes, but your analogy is weak. In the case of the lottery, it is pure chance. I can’t increase or decrease my chances of winning because the odds of a random number being drawn are the same for all the participants.
In the case of investing in art, I use my knowledge and taste to predict what will become recognized as an important work by a representative artist. This prediction is not without risk - I could be totally wrong about how posterity will view a given artist and a specific work. However, a closer analogy would be the stock market - based on what I know about a company, its products and services and my predictions about what will be the next big thing in the market place, I can invest or not invest and only time will tell if my investment was sound.
Whoever bought Jackson Pollock’s ‘Blue Poles’ for 2 million in the mid-70’s made a very sound investment, just like the people who took shares in ‘Trivial Pursuit’ in lieu of getting paid for their work made a risky decision that has paid off very well.
That wasn’t addressed to me, but I don’t buy your argument.
Executing the actual art may be within the abilities of many precise craftsmen and art professionals, but doing the art is less than 10% of story.
The other 90% is wanting to do it (for reasons legitimate or fraudulent), and to be willing to promote it: to be willing to court the critics, wealthy patrons and gallery owners necessary for success in the field.
And even if you’re willing to work and schmooz, success can take decades and probably won’t come at all. The element of luck is huge.
In a similar vein, I view the output of televangelists and fortune tellers as worthless, and think I could possibly do as well if I invested huge amounts of time and effort. But I’m not going to do it, because I absolutely don’t want to be a hustler.
So taking the “put up or shut approach” isn’t a great argument.
I wouldn’t mind seeing the scoffers try their hand at abstract/conceptual art, just to see the results. It might make them realize that almost all types of “art” represent hard work and special skill, but it wouldn’t prove that the most highly acclaimed abstract/conceptual art is any better than that of thousands of less popular artists.
No.
Nope.
That’s an excellent analogy. Whether a roller coaster is a good ride or not is entirely subjective and opinions will vary from rider to rider. However, if you’d at least like to make some pretense of rating a roller coaster objectively, you would take things like height, speed, steepest drop, and acceleration and use those as a foundation for doing so.
No, it means you can use that criteria as a part of an objective judgment of art. Because it is an objective aspect.
Papers relating to the end of World War II have historical significance because… it’s World War 2. A bike some schmuck put in a museum has historical and cultural significance because… it was put in a museum by the schmuck who first thought to put a bike in a museum?
I don’t presume to speak for the others in the anti camp, but to me, a lot of these things’ justification of significance is tautological.
It’s not analogous to the stock market. With the stock market, you actually have data about the company to analyze. With art, assuming the artist isn’t dead, what’s he going to do that invalidates the perceived value of his previous work? Short of admitting to being a fraud, that is.
With the stock market, you’re extrapolating stock performance from statistics about the company’s current and past performance. With art, you’re trying to predict how the world will value a given work in ten years’ time. A company can change to meet changing market demands and tastes. A painting can’t.
A better analogy would be investing in collectibles, because that’s exactly what you’re doing. And let me tell you, I don’t collect comic books because I expect them to make me rich someday.
Not a great analogy. What’s the purpose of a roller coaster? I think most roller coaster aficionados would say roller coasters are supposed to be thrilling, in which case speed, height, etc. all become worthwhile metrics for judgment. What’s the purpose of art? You seem to think it’s mimesis, but multitudes of others would disagree. Subjectivity remains.
But different people find different things thrilling. Turns, dips, inversions. The experience can vary based on who’s with you, the weather, your mood…
Yup.
I think that what many people think of when they say “Modern art” is what I think of as “Design Art.”
There is a place in this world for paintings which bring a palette of colors together, or bring a brighter spot to an otherwise drab room, and happen to be the right length to go over this sofa. There is nothing “wrong” with purposefully producing works to be used in this way; and to the extent that they bring a new feeling to the space they are “real art” IMHO.
For “Modern Art” the sort of paintings which are analogous to “basic science” which are created without reference to anything other than the idea or feeling the artist is trying to convey - then “worth” is directly proportional to what the work evokes in each individual. What a Pollock is worth to me may be very high. I am astounded by the seeming randomness of his method (those in the know tell me it wasn’t random at all) but I cannot deny that his paintings make me stop, sit, feel. What a Rothko is worth to me? What I can sell it for. I have no interest whatsoever, and never did.
“Great” art is the sum of those pieces which evoke strong thoughts or feelings in many people. “Great” artists are those who succeed in creating such works multiple times.
I recall as a child walking through the Hirschorn Museum with my Aunt. I was disgusted by a sculpture of a hand; couldn’t for the life of me understand why such a simple thing was in a museum. We rounded the corner and a sculpture of a thumb came into view. It had a whorling fingerprint which seemed sad, somehow, and was tilted at a defeated angle, with lines around the knuckle and a callus which evoked a hard life of physical labor. I was captivated by that thumb. . .
Your interpretation of what I said is faulty, but I don’t see any benefit to clarifying it, as I expect the clarification will again be misinterpreted. You’re inferring something from what I said that I didn’t say or imply.
Hello Mr. Gamera. Apologies if this feel like a dog pile, but I’m still confused by your contentions about objective ways to evaluate art.
I understand that the degree of photo realism can be used as a criteria for judging art (and anything else.) But I don’t understand how that’s a more important criteria than other objective measurement such as:
–Size of the canvas.
–Antiquity.
–Price someone is willing to pay for it.
–Degree of non-representativeness (there are schools that believe that art should not evoke the natural world, direct or indirectly.)
Ah, the ol’ “you’re misrepresenting my argument so much I’m not going to reveal what I actually meant when you sallied forth with a reasonable interpretation of my words” technique.
Well, then, I don’t understand your post at all, because Ministre’s post seems a direct and obvious logical extrapolation of what you were saying. I’ve been trying to find a way to interpret your post so as to exclude that conclusion, and I just don’t see a way it could be done.
And yet just about everyone in this thread seems to be drawing similar inferences from your arguments, and finding similar faults with your logic. I agree with Miller that some of the response you’ve received are perfectly reasonable and logical responses to, and extrapolations of, your own argument.
I recognize that sometimes people misinterpret what we say, but when your words are being “misinterpreted” by everyone who reads them, maybe it’s time to ask whether it’s your communication skills or your argument, and not our reading skills, that are faulty here.
Okay, fair enough, collectibles, though I still feel the stock market is also a useful analogy. Interestingly, I’m in complete agreement with you here - I feel the collector is much better off to acquire pieces that appeal to him as works of art (or as issues of a comic, or as souvenirs of a particular athlete, etc.) than to think of collectibles as an investment.
(That being said, I’ve thought all season that Jose Bautista was a player worth following / collecting and guess what - my autographed home run ball of his just took a major jump in value!)
Anyway, my main disagreement with you is simply over the notion that there is an objective way to define what is great art. Subjective, absolutely - and there is much interesting discussion to be had from articulating why one work of art strikes a chord in an individual or even a group of people while another one doesn’t. But to state that modern art (or music, or poetry or literature, or, or, or) is a con because it is outside your aesthetic is tantamount to saying that my aesthetic is wrong while yours is right. I don’t buy it.
The only thing that’s wrong about your personal aesthetic is that you’re saying it is objective and I should agree with it.