# Like stupid and pompous idiots, who try to define and limit what art is. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [November 5, 2011, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/like-stupid-and-pompous-idiots-who-try-to-define-and-limit-what-art-is/602008 "2011-11-05T23:33:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Steophan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steophan/32/9595_2.png) [@Steophan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steophan)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2011, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/like-stupid-and-pompous-idiots-who-try-to-define-and-limit-what-art-is/602008/21 "2011-11-06T00:45:40Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > And in my opinion, that attitude is the _real_ point of a lot of so-called “modern art”. It’s deliberately made unappealing and meaningless, so the self-appointed artistic elite can pat themselves on the back for their imaginary superior taste and perception. If you don’t know ahead of time what it’s supposed to be about you won’t get it, and in the process reveal that you aren’t part of the club. It’s not so much art as it is a secret decoder ring. > > It’s an attitude that has made modern art and architecture in general trend more and more towards ugliness and inhumanity, since anything that actually appeals to people isn’t “real art”. This is certainly true of some of it, but I don’t agree that it’s true of all of it. There’s a _vast_ space between something so simple that anyone can understand all of it at a single glance - which would be the end result of your anti-elitist approach - and something so difficult\* that only those with insider knowledge can have any hope of understanding it. Any work of art can only be understood in context. The Last Supper can’t be fully appreciated without at least a working knowledge of christianity. \*For want of a better word, and I’m sure there is one. ---
**Author:** ![armedmonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@armedmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/armedmonkey)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2011, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/like-stupid-and-pompous-idiots-who-try-to-define-and-limit-what-art-is/602008/22 "2011-11-06T00:45:46Z")
> [@brittekland](#): > > My two credo: > > 1. Never be judgmental against any art. > 2. I know when I see a bad art. Those are mine as well. It annoys me a bit when people defend bad art just because it’s “art”. I’m not going to attempt to define what art is, except for this: Art is a human endeavor. And like all human endeavors, some is good, some is great, some is bad, and some is very, very bad. I know it’s subjective, but too many artistic types will defend something by forgetting this basic principle. Some art, really truly, _is_ bad. ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2011, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/like-stupid-and-pompous-idiots-who-try-to-define-and-limit-what-art-is/602008/23 "2011-11-06T00:47:32Z")
Jeezum crow, you guys. Seriously sh1bu1 and trihs, show me on the doll where the bad art touched you. ---
**Author:** ![fumster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9c0ed/32.png) [@fumster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fumster)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2011, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/like-stupid-and-pompous-idiots-who-try-to-define-and-limit-what-art-is/602008/24 "2011-11-06T00:47:45Z")
> [@The\_Hamster\_King](#): > > You’re right. The entire art scene is a conspiracy to make you feel inadequate. :rolleyes: You are missing his point, it’s a conspiracy to mistakenly make some people think they are adequate. ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2011, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/like-stupid-and-pompous-idiots-who-try-to-define-and-limit-what-art-is/602008/25 "2011-11-06T00:50:03Z")
You certainly seem very invested in what other people do with their time and money. ---
**Author:** ![Weston](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8797f3/32.png) [@Weston](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weston)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2011, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/like-stupid-and-pompous-idiots-who-try-to-define-and-limit-what-art-is/602008/26 "2011-11-06T00:54:44Z")
> [@The Hamster King](#): > > Why make such an arbitrary distinction? When you single out an object and put it in a frame, when you construct a particular context for it to be encountered, you’re shaping the viewer’s experience in potentially interesting ways. But in that instance it’s the _gallery_ that’s really doing the work. Not the art itself. I have, on my desk, a drinking glass, a pack of nicotine gum, a deck of playing cards, a spoon, a webcam, and about a buck fifty in loose change. I could place any one of them in a glass case in the modern art wing of any gallery, confident in the fact that someone, somewhere will draw some kind of cosmic significance from the display. But _I_ wouldn’t have actually done _anything_. On a related note, I’ve just had an idea for a piece of performance art. The piece would be me, in a gallery, with a slide projector and a laser pointer, explaining why I think installations like Creed’s Work No. 867 aren’t _really_ art. I’d give the same lecture every five minutes for the entire day. With a one hour break for lunch. However you slice it, and however much umbrage the artistic establishment who fawn over the works I criticise may take from it, you’d all have to conclude that my presentation is, in fact, art, because I’m holding it within someone else’s art gallery and have thereby proven that my “work” has significance to someone other than myself. In all seriousness, has anyone ever done this? 'Cos I’m totally up for giving it a go 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![fumster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9c0ed/32.png) [@fumster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fumster)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2011, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/like-stupid-and-pompous-idiots-who-try-to-define-and-limit-what-art-is/602008/27 "2011-11-06T00:55:00Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > You certainly seem very invested in what other people do with their time and money. Yeah, I can’t believe I started this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2011, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/like-stupid-and-pompous-idiots-who-try-to-define-and-limit-what-art-is/602008/28 "2011-11-06T00:56:11Z")
Uh yeah, and the “modern art is all a bunch of hooey” pieces have been done to death. Stoners will like your work, though, so that’s nice. ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2011, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/like-stupid-and-pompous-idiots-who-try-to-define-and-limit-what-art-is/602008/29 "2011-11-06T00:57:14Z")
> [@sh1bu1](#): > > Yeah, I can’t believe I started this thread. You are posting in it though and casting very rude and unwarranted aspersions at artists, art critics and galleries. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2011, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/like-stupid-and-pompous-idiots-who-try-to-define-and-limit-what-art-is/602008/30 "2011-11-06T00:57:17Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > Jeezum crow, you guys. Seriously sh1bu1 and trihs, show me on the doll where the bad art touched you. My eyes. THE GOGGLES DO NOTHING. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2011, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/like-stupid-and-pompous-idiots-who-try-to-define-and-limit-what-art-is/602008/31 "2011-11-06T00:57:42Z")
> [@sh1bu1](#): > > You are missing his point, it’s a conspiracy to mistakenly make some people think they are adequate. If they’re amusing themselves, why do you give a fuck? For example, I think soccer is stupid and boring. I can’t imagine how anyone can honestly sit for several hours and watch a bunch of grown men kick a ball around … let alone how anyone can get worked up enough about soccer to riot in the streets over it. And yet … I don’t go around claiming that soccer fans are deluded fools who only pretend to like soccer matches so they have an excuse to feel a sense of belonging. I accept that there’s something likeable about soccer that just doesn’t resonate with me. And maybe if I’d spend some time working on liking soccer I’d discover what it is. I don’t because life is short and there’s too much other stuff I’d rather do. Everything is not all about you. The people who like art you don’t aren’t doing it to deliberately piss you off. Except Jeff Koons. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![brittekland](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/aeb1de/32.png) [@brittekland](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brittekland)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2011, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/like-stupid-and-pompous-idiots-who-try-to-define-and-limit-what-art-is/602008/32 "2011-11-06T01:00:54Z")
> [@The\_Hamster\_King](#): > > You’re right. The entire art scene is a conspiracy to make you feel inadequate. :rolleyes: No, it is a conspiracy to sell more black clothes. ---
**Author:** ![fumster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9c0ed/32.png) [@fumster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fumster)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2011, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/like-stupid-and-pompous-idiots-who-try-to-define-and-limit-what-art-is/602008/33 "2011-11-06T01:01:06Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > You are posting in it though and casting very rude and unwarranted aspersions at artists, art critics and galleries. OMG, you are right. I was rude enough to post in a thread that pitted me. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2011, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/like-stupid-and-pompous-idiots-who-try-to-define-and-limit-what-art-is/602008/34 "2011-11-06T01:01:49Z")
> [@Weston](#): > > But in that instance it’s the _gallery_ that’s really doing the work. Yeah, but that’s true of most art. Museum culture is a THING, and it warps how we look at the art that it chooses to frame. > [@](#): > > On a related note, I’ve just had an idea for a piece of performance art. The piece would be me, in a gallery, with a slide projector and a laser pointer, explaining why I think installations like Creed’s Work No. 867 aren’t _really_ art. I’d give the same lecture every five minutes for the entire day. With a one hour break for lunch. However you slice it, and however much umbrage the artistic establishment who fawn over the works I criticise may take from it, you’d all have to conclude that my presentation is, in fact, art, because I’m holding it within someone else’s art gallery and have thereby proven that my “work” has significance to someone other than myself. LOL. I can’t imagine anyone taking umbrage over it. If you can turn it into an interesting experience and get people to show up, go for it. ---
**Author:** ![armedmonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@armedmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/armedmonkey)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2011, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/like-stupid-and-pompous-idiots-who-try-to-define-and-limit-what-art-is/602008/35 "2011-11-06T01:08:01Z")
> [@Weston](#): > > In all seriousness, has anyone ever done this? 'Cos I’m totally up for giving it a go 🙂 Well, an Italian put some of his [shit in a can](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artist%27s_shit) and sold it for 124,000 euros. If you sell it right, a chewed piece of your nicotine gum might net you a few thousand. ---
**Author:** ![jordanr2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/838e76/32.png) [@jordanr2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jordanr2)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2011, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/like-stupid-and-pompous-idiots-who-try-to-define-and-limit-what-art-is/602008/36 "2011-11-06T01:08:46Z")
> [@Weston](#): > > But in that instance it’s the _gallery_ that’s really doing the work. Not the art itself. I have, on my desk, a drinking glass, a pack of nicotine gum, a deck of playing cards, a spoon, a webcam, and about a buck fifty in loose change. I could place any one of them in a glass case in the modern art wing of any gallery, confident in the fact that someone, somewhere will draw some kind of cosmic significance from the display. But _I_ wouldn’t have actually done _anything_. If you think this is true, have at it! I’d love to see how many critics you could dupe with something like this. I find strange, though, this repeated stereotype of the critical establishment finding “cosmic significance,” allegorical meaning, or whatever lofty and sublime things detractors of the art want to ridicule, in minimal/conceptual works of art. This is something that appeared in the other thread as well - the idea of some imagined trivial work representing “the suffering of left-handed Lebanese olive farmers.” I could be wrong, but I suspect the majority of conceptual artists working in this terrain have no such intentions: art in this vein isn’t meant as some statement meant to wrench emotion out of you that you’re an insensitive moron for not getting, it’s a recondite gesture within particular currents of contemporary art history. I mean, the very idea of conceptual art would seem, most of the time, to preclude working within the more conventional emotional vein that detractors are mocking with the stereotypes they throw around. In other words, a baffling straw-man. > [@](#): > > On a related note, I’ve just had an idea for a piece of performance art. The piece would be me, in a gallery, with a slide projector and a laser pointer, explaining why I think installations like Creed’s Work No. 867 aren’t _really_ art. I’d give the same lecture every five minutes for the entire day. With a one hour break for lunch. However you slice it, and however much umbrage the artistic establishment who fawn over the works I criticise may take from it, you’d all have to conclude that my presentation is, in fact, art, because I’m holding it within someone else’s art gallery and have thereby proven that my “work” has significance to someone other than myself. Well yeah, how does that not qualify as art? ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2011, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/like-stupid-and-pompous-idiots-who-try-to-define-and-limit-what-art-is/602008/37 "2011-11-06T01:10:22Z")
> [@sh1bu1](#): > > OMG, you are right. I was rude enough to post in a thread that pitted me. Don’t be ridiculous. You’re perfectly free to post in any thread you choose and to share your opinion. I don’t like it and it’s crap, is not, however an opinion that grows in meaning with repetition. I am very curious where you get the idea that craftsman and illustrators are not real artists. That’s the sort of thing I’m talking about when I said making rude aspersions. Have you any evidence that the ‘art world’ looks down on these menial laborers as you would have it or have you concocted an image of a snooty french man in a beret that you’ve labeled modern art? ---
**Author:** ![fumster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9c0ed/32.png) [@fumster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fumster)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2011, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/like-stupid-and-pompous-idiots-who-try-to-define-and-limit-what-art-is/602008/38 "2011-11-06T01:10:56Z")
> [@jordanr2](#): > > I suspect the majority of conceptual artists working in this terrain have no such intentions: art in this vein isn’t meant as some statement meant to wrench emotion out of you that you’re an insensitive moron for not getting, it’s a recondite gesture within particular currents of contemporary art history. I mean, the very idea of conceptual art would seem, most of the time, to preclude working within the more conventional emotional vein that detractors are mocking with the stereotypes they throw around. In other words, a baffling straw-man. Poe’s law. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2011, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/like-stupid-and-pompous-idiots-who-try-to-define-and-limit-what-art-is/602008/39 "2011-11-06T01:16:08Z")
> [@sh1bu1](#): > > I know people think they are very dangerous and avant garde when they can look at a urinal and see a deeper underlying meaning than the poor huddled masses, but that ship has sailed a hundred years ago. Ninety four years ago, to be precise. But there’s nothing dangerous or avant garde about it at all, and no one is claiming there is. These are ideas that have been settled in the art world (as much as anything is ever settled in the art world, which is to say, not very) for the better part of a century. Your perception that people are putting this forward as a radical concept is entirely your own projection. These are not new ideas by any means. > [@](#): > > These days to be cutting edge you have to think that a woman giving birth in a gallery is art, despite the fact that millions of women around the world give birth every year without having to apply for a grant from some official designator of artistic merit. But no, if you are a white woman in an affluent country who knows people whose occupation in life is apparently to be as useless as possible then you get to be an [hushed tones]artist[/hushed tones]. The ultimate irony of course is that those who say there is no limit on art feel perfectly free to limit art themselves. Craftsmen and illustrators are not real artists. How could they be? What they produce is actually capable of being judged on its quality and appreciated on its merits. Man, this entire post is nothing but a mass of prejudice, projection, and preconception. I don’t even know how to start unraveling it. I mean, your assumption (which cropped up in the other thread a few times) that appreciation for conceptual art necessarily requires a contempt for fine or practical art is pretty bizarre, especially since a major theme in found art is the idea that everyday objects can be judged as works of art. Inherent to this concept is the requirement that illustrators and craftsmen _are_, in fact, artists capable of gallery-quality work. This is a huge component of the pop art movement. Injecting race into the discussion is also bizarre. You seem to be trying to imply that modern art is some white cultural enclave. Which is a weird criticism, considering how aggressively the contemporary art scene courts minority, outsider, and international voices. Also, the artist in question, [Marni Kotak](http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/brooklyn/woman_gives_birth_as_part_of_art_SS3s4RmN27FMKV41aElaQM), looks Hispanic to me, but who knows? Even the class element is a bit suspect. Most artists are not wealthy. I’ve not heard of Kotak before, and Googling her name, it seems that the only thing she’s really well known for is this birth thing. The only mentions I found of any of her other work is on her own website. She got some publicity out of this thing, but I’d be very, very surprised if she supports herself on her art. More likely, it’s something she does in her spare time while working at least one “straight” job. Possibly two - she does live in New York, after all. _Maybe_ she has some money from her parents. But that’s generally the exception for artists, not the rule. The bar to being an artist is _insanely_ low. Pretty much all you have to do is say, “I’m an artist!” and presto, there you are. Consequently, simply being an artist doesn’t get you much respect, even in artistic circles. Being a _successful_ artist will get you all kinds of attention, of course. But the odds of being a successful artist are absurdly long. You’re pretty much guaranteed to make a better living if you get a job as a carpenter, then by trying to succeed as an artist. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2011, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/like-stupid-and-pompous-idiots-who-try-to-define-and-limit-what-art-is/602008/40 "2011-11-06T01:17:26Z")
> [@The\_Hamster\_King](#): > > You’re right. The entire art scene is a conspiracy to make you feel inadequate. :rolleyes: No, it’s a “conspiracy” to make the self appointed elite make themselves feel superior. > [@sh1bu1](#): > > You are missing his point, it’s a conspiracy to mistakenly make some people think they are adequate. > [@The\_Hamster\_King](#): > > If they’re amusing themselves, why do you give a fuck? Because it discredits the art field and cedes the field of good art to amateur and commercial art. > [@The\_Hamster\_King](#): > > Everything is not all about you. The people who like art you don’t aren’t doing it to deliberately piss you off. Oh, no doubt that is part of the purpose; if the majority of the population doesn’t hate it, then it isn’t sufficiently elite. And it’s quite possible that they don’t like this so-called art; liking it isn’t the point. This is about status games, not art appreciation. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/like-stupid-and-pompous-idiots-who-try-to-define-and-limit-what-art-is/602008.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/like-stupid-and-pompous-idiots-who-try-to-define-and-limit-what-art-is/602008.md?page=3)