Like all creative endeavors, like writing or movie making or making music, most art is bad. Sturgeon’s Law applies. But also, like all creative endeavors, appreciation is highly subjective. Given any piece of work, however good or bad it is, there will be some people who like it and some people who hate it. Personally, I find Roy Lichtenstein’s work pointless and derivative. Taking someone else’s work and repainting it at a larger scale doesn’t seem very creative to me, and the resulting works do not move me at all. Yet obviously my view is in the minority and some people like his work so much that they are willing to pay the cost of several dozen houses to own one.
I have never hunted down an artist to tell them directly that I don’t like their work. I don’t know what the point of that would be. But I’m not shy of telling friends what I think of an artwork. I don’t see the point of hiding my tastes from others. Perhaps it is a good thing if a talentless artist gets feedback early in his career that leads him to abandon art and take up another line of work that will be more productive and rewarding for him. But not always.
As someone mentioned above; it’s a choice of the artist to air their work. If they want to avoid criticism, the art can comfortably stay on the sketchpad. But since this thread is really about vile criticism of art by internet critics; pretty-much everything on the internet is open to vile comments by someone or other, so that most despicable lowest 10% needs ignoring (in all cases).
Art is a lot like conversation, in that your perception of it is highly contingent on context. Some art is perfectly good in one context, and not in another. Some is like a joke that is hilarious at first, and then is repeated to death. Sometimes it grows on you.
I’m personally of the opinion that the importance of art is in the making, and not the result. People who practice arts and crafts are exercising courage and faith in themselves, and our culture likes to diminish those things.
I think it was a past thread here where someone said that the only way those windows could look that bright was if the interior was on fire. Or something about aliens and radioactivity.
After reading that, I couldn’t unsee it. But until then, they looked cute.
“Bad Art” just feels like far too subjective of a judgement for me. I know many aesthetics disagree, but both the concepts of “beauty” and "good’ are not properties that adhere directly to things, so there is really no actual reference or instance of those concepts to refer to when judging something, apart from the impact a thing has on your own subjectivity. I have seen art that I don’t like, but I make a distinction between “I don’t like that” and “bad.” I really love some things that others have considered “bad” (i.e, the music of Captain Beefheart). Am I mistaken? There was an old joke along the lines of: A: “I really enjoyed your movie!” B: “Yes, but you were mistaken.” I think that sums it up.
True, but then it’s also best to ignore gushing praise that is unspecific and non-helpful and just for the sake of being nice. I guess you can tell I am most assuredly not a fan of “praise only” discussion boards/forums. It forces people to either not participate or misrepresent their opinions/beliefs much of the time.
Sometimes I have a really hard time understanding why some “art” fetches huge payments. I completely get it that different people have different tastes, and a piece that profoundly reaches one person might leave another one tilting their head. Art is subjective.
That said, I have never been able to understand what anyone sees in Joan Miro. I mean, check this out:
It looks like something a child drew on a wall. And it’s selling for $35,000.
If anyone here is a Miro fan, could they explain in small words what this artist’s appeal is?
Without debating the “My kid could do this!” bit, I think that part of the value/cost in a work like that is in owning an authentic “Joan Miro”, the same artist who did this:
I won’t try to convince you that you should like that work either but I’m sure you can at least agree that most six year olds wouldn’t scribble that onto a sheet of paper. You may not be able to own an original piece of their marquee work but you can still own something they created with their own hand.
I don’t know enough about abstract art to be able to explain its appeal, nor to judge between that which has genuine artistic merit and that which is just empty hype. I believe it has something to do with understanding the “language” in which it is “written.”
But one thing to keep in mind is that the price/value of a work may reflect other factors than just its inherent artistic merit. You’re going to pay a lot more for a signed first edition of a classic novel than for a cheap paperback copy, even though they have exactly the same literary value.
Art is a created thing which conveys emotion. Bad art, then, is art which does a really poor job of conveying emotion. There’s plenty of that.
Whether it’s OK to mock it depends on why it’s bad, and why it’s come to your awareness. If it’s bad because it was created by a child who hasn’t developed their artistic skills very much, then in that case, you shouldn’t mock it (and if it’s your child, you tell them it’s amazing and stick it on your refrigerator no matter how bad it is). If it’s bad because it was created by one of those pretentious anti-artists who claims that everything is art just because they say so, then it’s perfectly appropriate to mock the naked emperor.
Point taken - I don’t personally like that piece you posted, but I can definitely see its artistic merit. I guess I just don’t believe that any random scribbles created by a “famous artist” automatically constitute art just because they drew them. But again, that’s just my opinion, and I recognize that not everyone shares it.
We had a print of a Miro piece in my office a few years ago. I just looked through some images of his work on Google and I can’t remember anymore which one it was, but it was definitely closer to the “crayon scribbles” end of his spectrum than the one you posted. It used to annoy me whenever I walked past it (and I’m one of those who actually likes the corporate abstract aesthetic).
Definitely different squids for different kids, though, which is a good thing. I like a world that has all kinds of different things in it, so everybody can have something to enjoy.
Nothing in the description of the drawing you linked to claims it’s “art.” In fact, it seems to draw a distinction between something like this and “his art”:
I came to peace with modern art when I realized I just didn’t understand the context in which most of it was created. I’m just not a part of that world. When I look at Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Irony of the Negro Policeman, my first reaction was this is the work of a creative child. But apparently the top hat the cop is wearing has something to do with Baron Semedi and is related to the cop’s power over death. I’m not going to arguing the semiotics aren’t there, only that I’m not aware of it and that can’t help color my perception of a work of art.
I was thinking maybe I judge art on technical merits alone but that doesn’t make for good art either. I saw a painting at the Crystal Bridges Museum and it was essentially a big orange square. The artist didn’t use any orange paints, instead using multiple layers of various colors until he achieved a specific orange color. From a technical standpoint, kudos to the artist. Good? Bad? It’s just a big orange square.
The classic “my kid could do that,” or as Kurt Vonnegut articulated in Breakfast of Champions in response to a snooty stand-in for Barnett Newman’s Vir Heroicus Sublimis: a joke played by millionaires and intellectuals on the general public. The general public is keen to such slights, especially when it’s their tax dollars being spent. An example of this was the outrage in Australia when their National Gallery bought Jackson Pollack’s Blue Poles. Pollack never intended to offend anyone, but it’s a cinch that Jeff Koons, with his giant kiddie toys, or Paul McCarthy with his huge “Christmas Tree” (green butt plug), are indeed a thumb in the proles’ eyes. Probably the greatest social responsibility art critic of all time was Martin Luther after he’d seen how the Vatican was being magnificently updated after tramping through peasant Europe in his pilgrimage.
Then there’s stuff that’s just not to my taste, but I don’t care to get worked up about. If it really, objectively sucks, history will do that job for us. Abstract Expressionists Pollock and Rothko have stood the test of time, Clifford Still not so much. I can’t develop an appreciation for Cy Twombly, Italian Arte Provera, etc. etc. but I also can’t fix half the appliances in my home. Guess which frustrates me more?
Ignore the money and Damien Hirst doesn’t matter. Ignore the politics and Piss Christ is just a forgettable derivative of Marcel Duchamp. Ignore the fact that Helen Frankenthaller was married to Robert Motherwell and Lee Krasner to Pollack, and enjoy their works on their own merits, and not because I’m on a mission to overturn 1950’s art world misogyny.
Finally there’s “bad art” because it does bad things. Triumph of the Will, of course. But also public art that offends: cutesy multicolor pigs that entice shoppers back downtown, along with spikes on horizontal surfaces to prevent the homeless from lingering (I doubt I was supposed to see the juxtaposition, although it’s all done by the same creative council).
I like Andres Serrano. But then again, I like Duchamp also. I don’t think it makes sense to ignore the politics in either case, especially when comparing them – politics is why they have something in common.
This may make me sound like a low class snob, but: I find no artistic value in a bannana taped to a wall with duct tape. I will admit to not having investigated the, "meaning " of this
The fact is, I don’t care. It’s cheap, dumb, and pretentious.
