I agree that artists (including “bad” artists) should have absolute free speech rights which encroach upon those of viewers. Opinions of art should only come from a perspective of encouragement and dissenting views should not be voiced at all anywhere, ever, because there is an unacknowledged social imperative that demands artists not grow discouraged and quit art completely. It’s hard to believe - and so unfair! - society at large doesn’t even recognize, let alone reorder itself, around this fundamental truth.
That aside, what if an artist was encouraged to produce more “bad” (or worse) art? Might that not discourage some people from wanting to see art completely? Consequently, it makes sense to discourage some artists because Art and the whole art world will suffer if there is too much “bad” art around. One person’s opinion – ideally expressed within earshot of an artist – could make a critical difference as to whether Art will continue to exist as viable field of endeavor in the future.
I liked the restoration better, but I am known – among those who know me well - for certain avant-garde tastes.
I had a nearly identical misfortune at the Guggenheim, except it was a Kandinsky show. I was very young at the time, but I loathed every painting and seeing so many of them at the same time permanently soured me on Mr. K’s work. Glancing at some of his paintings now, decades later…I would say some of them are definitely better than Rothko or Mondrian, though less suitable as wallpaper.
Oh, wow. That’s an intense reaction. Maybe I’m just overly literally minded and spoken, but it would take something causing actual suffering for me to feel that level of hate. I’m perfectly fine with having other people over there enjoying something I don’t, talking about it.
I do wonder how much the reaction to abstract art fuels it, though. There is often a certain pretentious air to the way it is appreciated.
For me, art that is at this level of abstraction results in an inability to judge. I can kinda look at the colors Rothko chose, but that’s about it. It doesn’t register on the same good/bad scale on even lower level abstractions, which at least have shapes that can aesthetically appeal.
I do tend to agree that low effort art tends to seem more objectively bad to me. I can look at art that doesn’t fit my aesthetic, which looks lower skilled, and think it’s not objectively bad. It can work for me in a way that low effort doesn’t.
The art world is one of the most pretentious things going. Don’t let that keep you from liking or disliking whatever you want, though – no one cares about the pretentious wankery except the pretentious wankers.
I’m one of the weirdos that loves a lot of abstract, avant-garde, or concept art, but I have no interest in shaming anyone who doesn’t. It would be an incredible waste of time I could spend on fun things, like looking at weird art.
ETA: I decided this post would be better if I linked to some weird art, so please enjoy these okra smugglers (or don’t! Either way is good!)
I did a thing, for a few months, where I was using letters, numbers and symbols in my art works.
That evolved into nonsensical sentances. Then poem parts(my own).
I decided I was trying to say too much and the actual art suffered.
So I stopped.
It was like I had words to say, or something. Lots of words.
I’ve always journaled, but I increased my writing and saved my art, for Arts sake.
I think I get the banana. It is art IMO because it is obscene, shows a nasty slice of the world, and gets away with it. It makes angry, sad and laugh at the same time. It is illustrating art.
Not the kind I would like to posses, but I like to know about it.
I don’t need Duschamp’s urinal either, but I am glad I know about it.
Pretentious? Yes, in a stick the middle finger kind of way. Cheap? The banana is cheaper than the urinal, no contest. But that is probably not the point. Dumb? I am not sure who is the dumb one. The buyer, perhaps.
My girls had to color a flower at school. The instructions said to ask your parent to spray perfume on it, at home. And smell it everyday.
I have a wooden post in an odd place in my kitchen. I tacked them at eye level to the kids. They could reach and sniff every day, til they got bored.
My Son sprayed Axe spray on them. So they lasted 2 days. Girls could not tolerate the odor.
They are still tacked on the post.
You would not believe the folks that notice them and asks questions.
Of course they’ve been there a few years. Faded, curled and one is missing a petal. Funny they still smell like Axe body spray.
That stuff never goes away.
To be clear, my definition of what makes something art (and hence, what makes art good art) is not the same thing as what I like. The example I always use: In the Cleveland Museum of Art, there is an abstract wall-hanging. It’s made of black leather, wrought iron, and probably some other materials I’m not sure of. When I was a kid doing day camps at the museum, the volunteers told us that if we touched any of the exhibits, that thing would eat us. And we believed it, because it absolutely looked like the sort of thing that would eat children.
I do not like that piece. All of the emotions that piece evokes are very negative. But it very, very effectively evokes those negative emotions. And it is, therefore, very good art.
It was about writing not visual art, but I recall the author Mercedes Lackey saying that an author needs to develop “rhino-hide” because people are going to criticize your brainchild no matter how good you are.
In many cases it’s just status games. It’s about people in the subculture flexing over who is more enlightened, perceptive, has better taste or whatever.
I think it was back in the 1980s I read an article about an artist who was at the time popular with the wealthy crowd and selling his work for high prices. All the while admitting publicly and shamelessly that he was just playing on their urge to show off that they were buying the latest “in” things, and that he wasn’t even doing the art himself anymore, just having poorly paid subordinate artists do the actual work.
I tend to regard a lot of the more “abstract” art as simply a scam that works because a lot of the art world is full of people who are looking for any excuse to sneer at the alleged lack of taste and perceptiveness of the common rabble. It’s art in a sense, and in a way not even “bad” art in a technical sense since it works for its purpose - but its purpose is to manipulate art critics and fans into praising it and spending money on it to bolster their egos, not send any sort of “message”.
I’ve always thought that, instead of a soldier with a bomb, I’d be a better person to send back in time to stop Hitler.
I think a private art teacher is what the Schicklgruber family needed.
Now, as an art teacher, I had to evaluate a lot of student work, as well as answer questions like “Is Kinkade Bad Art?”
I always fell back on "Does it accomplish what it sets out to do? AND is that a worthy goal?"
(Van Gogh? YES and YES. Ross? YES and YES. Kinkade: YES, but its goal is to make a cynical hack a ton of money.)
Do you think every piece of art ever created is a once-in-a-generation masterpiece? Or that no artists are poorly trained? Just statistically, there is a whole lot of bad art out there.
Seems to me that a goodly chunk of modern paintings/sculpture is designed as “troll art”. A strongly negative reaction from the general public reassures the “art world” that it still has what it takes to provoke the Philistines, and is far better than being ignored while people buy up paintings by Thomas Kinkade, Bob Ross and velvet Elvis collectors’ items.
I’m long past being influenced by attempts at outrage farming over art.* You want to go to galleries and museums to see ludicrous dreck, invest in it and cluck in disapproval at criticism of your fave artists? Have at it.
*I’m still capable of eye-rolling over garden designers who think their art training gives them extra-special talent to arrange plantings (heavily influenced by “color theory” and the avoidance of plebeian horticulture).
I don’t know who you are asking – I’m going to assume everyone in the thread. In which case, I believe very much in bad art. There’s a ton of it. It’s just not a problem for me. I have no desire to be the taste police.
I maintain that Bob Ross is a truly great artist. Not for his paintings themselves: Those are fine, I wouldn’t mind having one hanging in my living room, but they don’t really stand out above other landscapes. But the videos of him painting do a better job of conveying the emotions of calm, peace, chillness, etc. than any other art I know of.