# Pretentious art crap **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 18, 2004, 10:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pretentious-art-crap/225086 "2004-01-18T10:12:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Truth\_Seeker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5fc32e/32.png) [@Truth\_Seeker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Truth_Seeker)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2004, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pretentious-art-crap/225086/41 "2004-01-21T19:19:38Z")
> [@](#): > > \*\*Are you saying The Simpsons aren’t art? On what grounds? \*\* Not necessarily. But The Simpsons are closely tied to the culture from which it arises. Not even that – it is inextricably linked with the _pop culture_ from which it arises. If you remove The Simpsons from its cultural context, it’s pretty banal. Now compare _The Simpsons_ to, say, _The Trojan Women_. 2500 years old and it still smacks you right between the eyes, even if you aren’t an ancient Greek. > [@Delphica](#): > > \*\*“Primative” art and arts from other cultures were valued for their otherness – for AT LEAST the past 75 years, this art has been appreciated even if only in a “oh, look at those wonderfully quaint natives, making this wonderfully primative art” patronizing sort of way. \*\* Well, part if the problem with “primative” art is that is often folk art and often rather crudely executed. Certainly nowadays, a great deal of it is specifically made for the tourist/export trade. Africa[sup]1[/sup], for example, does produce some beautiful work, but it also produces a lot of ethnic schlock made by indifferent craftsmen/women with crude tools and lousy materials. I don’t like Kinkade, either. By contrast, the discovery of paleolithic cave paintings (and it doesn’t get any more “primitive” than that) in the mid-nineteenth century sparked a dramatic re-evaluation of the culture that produced them. They are often described as “haunting” because many people immediately connect with them and, by extension, with the artist. Somehow, though they are 20,000 years old, they need no explanation. Now it is true that we cannot appreciate the magical/religious context of this work. Nonetheless, at least part of the artist’s message still gets through. [sup]1[/sup] This problem is hardly unique to Africa, I find it’s pretty common right around the world. ---
**Author:** ![yosemite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/3ab097/32.png) [@yosemite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yosemite)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2004, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pretentious-art-crap/225086/42 "2004-01-21T19:22:29Z")
I see that my above related tale is redundant. Look at this quote from the article that **earthling** posted (emphasis mine): > [@](#): > > While lecturing at art departments across the country, New York painter John Alexander has noticed a new appetite for technical learning. **"Art is the only profession I know where you don’t seem to need even the basic, rudimentary skills to be involved.** It would be absolutely bizarre to give someone a saxophone and then say, ’Forget everything that’s ever been done in music—the chords, the notes, the tones. Just go in there and start blowing it.’" In a recent presentation to a group of graduate students, Alexander mentioned “some of the most rudimentary things about making something look three-dimensional. These kids had no knowledge of that—and they were so excited to learn it.” This happens all the time. > [@stonebow](#): > > I don’t have a problem with people with really interesting “ideas” working on them. There are a lot of great ways to express yourself creatively that do not require some of the standard technical art skills like drawing and painting. However, to just learn how to talk, talk, talk but show nothing else, to me, is bullshit. One of my friends had to go through a degree program in order to teach. He’d already established himself as a good artist—gotten into many galleries and all—but he wanted to teach, and for that he needed a degree. So he enrolled in a local (highly regarded) college and got his degree. He already knew more than (probably) some of his teachers, so it wasn’t a matter of him having to _learn_ anything new—he was just there to do his time and get that piece of paper. But for all the other students enrolled in the program, well, they were going to leave with no skills whatsoever. The stories that my friend told made my jaw drop open. One amusing thing he told was how he would do these assignments where he’d just produce some CRAP. Complete and utter crap—nothing he did professionally, nothing he’d ever show to a gallery—because he knew that this is what the professors wanted to see. He’d show off this crap piece of work in class, talk, talk, talk, spin his tale of bullshit artspeak. He’d get enthusiastically praised by the art professors, who _loved_ hearing the bullshit talk, talk, talk. So my friend got his good grade—the only thing he was aiming for. Then he’d walk outside, and promptly dump that crap piece (which had just gotten such high praise from the teachers) in the trash. It was all a means to an end for him. The art education he got was pretty much useless as far as actually _educating_ him. He just needed the piece of paper. And he got it. Now he’s able to teach, so all is well. But I worry about the others students, who went through the whole program, completely oblivious that there might be more out there for them to learn. Part of me doesn’t feel sorry for these students, because I simply can’t understand how they _couldn’t KNOW_ that something was missing. (And we’re not talking about anything obscure or hard to define—we’re talking about the nuts and bolts basics stuff.) How could they not KNOW that they need to learn this stuff? I sure as hell knew, all through high school and then junior college, what was missing from my education. I knew that there was much more out there that I wanted to learn. And I made a point of enrolling in classes that would teach me more about those things. So, I don’t get it. Maybe I’m being a little too hard on these people, but if I were going to major in a something, and work several years earning a degree for it, I would assume that I’d have a _clue_ what the whole thing was about. For instance, the friend I mention above got his degree in ceramics. You know, clay, pottery—ceramics. As most of you know, ceramics can be made on that potter’s wheel thingie. Yeah, you know, that thing. Well, in the program my friend was enrolled in, NO ONE was taught the potter’s wheel—the teachers made a point of not teaching it. And all the students didn’t think to ask about why they weren’t learning the potter’s wheel. They didn’t even know what it was. But I ask you—how can you dedicate yourself to getting a ceramics degree and yet not even _know_ what a potter’s wheel _looks_ like? It boggles the mind. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2004, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pretentious-art-crap/225086/43 "2004-01-22T12:30:42Z")
> [@GuanoLad](#): > > There is no Bad Art, there’s just Inappropriate Art, or Outdated Art, or Decidedly Obscure And I Don’t Get It Art. Presumably the artist likes it, and therefore some other people will like it. That’s exactly the problem, I think - The only responses seemingly available to the viewer are: “Oh, you’re _so right_, I love your work” “I don’t understand it, therefore I am crass and uncultured” The option of “This is utter tripe” isn’t permitted (and will merely be forcibly interpreted as “I don’t understand it…”) - whatever criticism is levelled at the work, it is just too easy for the artist to say that he intended it to produce exactly that reaction. It means, I think, that we _can’t_ presume the artist likes it - he may very well just be taking the piss, knowing that anyone crying out “The emperor has no clothes” will be driven back by the sneering condescension of everyone else. ---
**Author:** ![spingears](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ebca7d/32.png) [@spingears](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spingears)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2004, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pretentious-art-crap/225086/44 "2004-01-22T12:58:06Z")
> [@GuanoLad](#): > > [This](http://www.artcritical.com/blurbs/JSMcMillian.htm) is linked to from Dave Barry’s latest column. He claims it’s genuine, and it appears to be so. Except it’s so much pretentious bullshit, I am not so sure. > > Is it real, or is it a joke? Just another Put On! What else but some idjit pretending or attempting to be an ‘Artiste.’ Carp is crap and when you stir it, it stinks! ---
**Author:** ![RTA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b4bc9f/32.png) [@RTA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTA)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2004, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pretentious-art-crap/225086/45 "2004-01-22T14:08:34Z")
> [@](#): > > My stepfather and I wondered aloud if the artist walked in at that moment, would he instantly see the out-of-place rock and shout Mon Dieu and run to fix it? We thought not. Actually, he would. I work closely with artists to develop these kinds of exhibitions, and I guarantee that they can be very fussy people. And no punk kid’s quarter should stay placed inside a piece of artwork for longer than the one day or less it should take to notice it. I’m saddened to hear some of the positions and anecdotes expressed in this thread. Of all the reactions to all the different things and situations in all of human history, “I don’t understand it, therefore I hate/fear/resent it” has got to be, hands down, the most regressive. Perhaps that’s a lesson that some of you can take away from this kind of art - that deep down, we’re still just a confusing encounter away from being frightened animals. ---
**Author:** ![Stonebow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ed8c4c/32.png) [@Stonebow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stonebow)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2004, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pretentious-art-crap/225086/46 "2004-01-22T14:45:11Z")
> [@RTA](#): > > I’m saddened to hear some of the positions and anecdotes expressed in this thread. Of all the reactions to all the different things and situations in all of human history, “I don’t understand it, therefore I hate/fear/resent it” has got to be, hands down, the most regressive. > > Perhaps that’s a lesson that some of you can take away from this kind of art - that deep down, we’re still just a confusing encounter away from being frightened animals. I think that you’ve made **Mangetout’s** for him. Is there no circumstance under which you’d admit that some piece of ‘art’ was actually garbage? There seems to be a lot of redefninition of terms going on. Modern art divorces itself from a fairly long tradition of some sort of technichal aspect to art (I’m speaking of graphic/performance stuff, not literary art). I suppose that’s all well and good, but if you are going to contend that ‘everything can be art’ or ‘the artist’s feelings are all that matter’…then I don’t understand how you can justify the commercial trade of it. and btw- **yosemitebabe** , the quote you’ve got attributed to me isn’t by me. And I didn’t see anyone else in this thread that it could belong to. Though, to be fair, I agree with the sentiment, so if it was a paraprase, I understand. ---
**Author:** ![Pabitel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bbce88/32.png) [@Pabitel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pabitel)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2004, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pretentious-art-crap/225086/47 "2004-01-22T18:43:02Z")
> [@RTA](#): > > Perhaps that’s a lesson that some of you can take away from this kind of art - that deep down, we’re still just a confusing encounter away from being frightened animals. Or rather we are just one pretentious encounter away from being pissed off. There is a great deal of difference between being serious and being pretentious. Yet the art world has largely lost that distinction. BTW: Just because you think that junk on display is 🙂 nice 🙂 that does not give you license to to deride those who find it tedious. Remember, deep down, we’re still just an encounter with those who don’t like our toys away from being frightened animals. ---
**Author:** ![yosemite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/3ab097/32.png) [@yosemite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yosemite)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2004, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pretentious-art-crap/225086/48 "2004-01-22T19:24:07Z")
**stonebow** , sorry! I have no idea why I thought you wrote that statement. How odd! Because I am the product of an artsy-fartsy art school, I guess it will always be difficult for me to out-and-out condemn some of this whacky art stuff. I remember going to an art museum in San Francisco with my parents, ages ago. They were _humilating_ me by laughing at all the whacked-out strange stuff on display, while I strained to try to find “meaning” of a stack of folded blankets (BLANKETS! They were _ **freakin’ BLANKETS!!!** _) on display on a podium. I was very serious about trying to figure out what the whole point was—but there they were. A stack of blankets. I hoped that maybe they were made out of some other material (I knew of one artist who could make realistic leather-looking objects out of ceramics—very cool), so I poked, ever so gently, at the stack of blankets with my program book. Nope. Just blankets. I felt so tacky, touching the “art” like that! 😛 Even though I was respectful and serious about all the art on display, I couldn’t blame my parents for their reaction either. They were not stupid people—they loved art too. But come on. Blankets. It becomes especially aggravating to me to see artists try to “artspeak” their way out of flat-out **bad drawing** or **bad painting.** I understand that a stack of blankets (or an old couch, or a glowy giant ice cube thing on the lawn—something I remember from art school) might be open for some interpretation, but come on. If there is an _obvious_ attempt to render something, let’s say, realisticially, but it SUCKS, it **SUCKS.** Sorry. I’ve seen too much bad drawing, bad painting, bad rendering, where there was an obvious attempt to emulate a more “traditional” look, but it was done poorly, without skill or finesse, and yet the artist doesn’t want to hear that they need to improve it. Because, see, they _meant_ it to look that way. Look like what—shit? Okay, if they meant it to look like amateurish shit, they’ve succeeded, but if they wanted it to look pleasing and resemble the subject they were attempting to represent, they failed. Fortunately many art teachers, art classes, etc., won’t cater to such bullshit, but there are some out there who are loathe to tell someone, “Dude. You need to learn how to draw (or paint, or whatever) better.” Don’t get me wrong—there are some art styles which don’t require certain skills, but when these skills are required, no amount of talk, talk, talk, is going to compensate for the lack of it. And yet some artists get _outraged_ at the notion that yes, some things require skill. They loudly proclaim, “How _dare_ you **judge** me!” And to that, I usually respond, “Sorry, but you’re trying to communicate something to with everyone with your art, and in my opinion, you’re failing. I am under no obligation to respond favorably to your artwork.” ---
**Author:** ![SPOOFE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@SPOOFE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SPOOFE)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2004, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pretentious-art-crap/225086/49 "2004-01-22T20:39:31Z")
> [@](#): > > There is no Bad Art Clearly, you’ve never seen _Reflections of Evil_. ---
**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:** [January 22, 2004, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pretentious-art-crap/225086/50 "2004-01-22T22:05:16Z")
> [@Truth Seeker](#): > > Not necessarily. But The Simpsons are closely tied to the culture from which it arises. Not even that – it is inextricably linked with the pop culture from which it arises. If you remove The Simpsons from its cultural context, it’s pretty banal. Now compare The Simpsons to, say, The Trojan Women. 2500 years old and it still smacks you right between the eyes, even if you aren’t an ancient Greek. I don’t believe this is true in the slightest. (The stuff about The Simpsons, not the stuff about the Trojan Women) The Simpsons are as much a product of their pop culture as William Shakespeare was a product of his. Sure, in a hundred years, a lot of the jokes won’t make sense any more. A lot of the jokes in A Midsummer Night’s Dream\* don’t make sense to a contemporary audience. On the other hand, a lot of them still do. Most importantly, like Shakespeare, the best Simpsons episodes (and there are a lot of them) have an emotional heart that you don’t need a cultural context to understand. In how many other countries are the Simpsons popular? In how many other languages? It is, of course, impossible to guess what aspects of our popular culture will survive the test of time, but the Simpsons’ chances seem extra-ordinarily good to me. > [@smiling bandit](#): > > No. It would one a bloody stupid waste of a perfectly good chair! Seriously. Now, if he had some very unusual but specific way he needed it to look, then _maybe_. Okay, what if he built the chair from scratch to look exactly like it does? Would that be art? What if he was like **yosemitebabe** ’s friend, and could make ceramics that looked like fabric? Would that be art? What if he’d painted a super realistic image of the chair? Would that be art? How about the photo of the chair linked to in the OP? Is the photo art? Now explain to me how something that looks just like a broken chair can be art, but the broken chair itself cannot? > [@](#): > > Anyway, I’m sure whether to pity you or envy you. It amazes me how worked up people can get over the most banal of things. Its a bloody used chair. I’ve got 30 of them in the next room, each one has been used a hundred times by a hundred people, most of whom I’ve never met and have little desire to. It sure is amazing. The idea that someone could be so offended by someone having a different aethetic sense that they find that person pitiable is astonishing to me. > [@](#): > > Very well. If this is the case, why are you bothering to go to galleries and so forth? You’ve just told us you see no difference between them, a rock, your floorboards, and a Ford commercial. If this is true, we have no need of artists as they are worthless and superfluous elements. Because I want to find out what art other people feel is good enough that it should be shared with the world. Just because I said that anything can be viewed as art doesn’t mean that all art is equal. > [@](#): > > However, this is not the case for everyone, and I should say, most people. I suspect few people would compare the pleasure of seeing a season 2 Simpsons episode with the annoyance of watching another Ford commercial with the aesthetics of enjoying a Rembrandt. Which is what I’ve been saying all along; not all art speaks to everyone in the same way. Some art won’t speak to some people at all, no matter how long they look at it or how much someone explains it to them. > [@](#): > > I have a hard time explaining exactly what I mean by saying that art needs technical competance. Allow me to explain what I mean by simile. > > The reason that I said art needs to demonstrate technical competance, not mere hard work or some vague idea, is essentially the same as the divide etween capitalism and Marx’s “To each according to his ability, from each according to his needs”. There are many Marxists who believe that value exists because of labor. Yet this is not so: we can prove to a high degree of probability that value has nothing to do with work or effort. In the same vein, “artists” who ignore even a minimalist requirement of hard work in favor of cheap and easy crap sofas are doing nothing at all. If they have any impact on the viewer, it is only by luck. So are you saying hard work is an indicator of artistic merit, or not? This paragraph seems internally contradictory; it could be taken as support for either of our arguments. In short, I don’t know what you’re trying to say here. > [@](#): > > Now, you say that they are “artists” and that you see art in their “creations”. However, you have already shown that you effectively make no distinction between art and anything else. If this is the case, we have no need of artists, especially since they seem to reject any notion of technical competance. I’m saying I see art in _this particular work_. I do not, for example, see anything artistic about the pile of blankets **yosemitebabe** described. That doesn’t mean its not there, it just means that it’s not accesible to me. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2004, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pretentious-art-crap/225086/51 "2004-01-23T00:56:46Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Okay, what if he built the chair from scratch to look exactly like it does? Would that be art? What if he was like **yosemitebabe** ’s friend, and could make ceramics that looked like fabric? Would that be art? What if he’d painted a super realistic image of the chair? Would that be art? How about the photo of the chair linked to in the OP? Is the photo art? Now explain to me how something that looks just like a broken chair can be art, but the broken chair itself cannot? If you drop a gum wrapper on the floor, is that Art? If someone picks it up afterwards and proclaims it art, is that Art? I would be surprised and dismayed if you think so. > [@Miller](#): > > I’m saying I see art in _this particular work_. I do not, for example, see anything artistic about the pile of blankets **yosemitebabe** described. That doesn’t mean its not there, it just means that it’s not accesible to me. There’s no difference. Okay, I’ll grant that he may be trying to make a statement, he may be trying to make people think about something important to him. He failed, of course; all people are thinking is ‘it’s not Art, it’s just a crappy old chair.’ But just trying to make a statement is not enough to be considered Art - it’s more like Philosophy. It’s not ‘_Artistic_ Expression’, it’s just ‘Expression’. ---
**Author:** ![FisherQueen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/58f4c7/32.png) [@FisherQueen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FisherQueen)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2004, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pretentious-art-crap/225086/52 "2004-01-23T01:21:42Z")
I frequent my friendly neighborhood contemporary art museum. Sure, sometimes I see things I don’t get, and sometimes things I think are stupid. But I like the ways the artists try to question what the nature of art is, and to make me question it, too. Even if it doesn’t always work. Last weekend, I saw an artwork that consisted of a series of bags of shredded paper, each bag containing a different color. Ooookay. But I happened to have the little headphones with an interview with the artist, who talked about how she had created a completely different work of art with the shredded paper, and after that exhibition, had separated and bagged it up and added it to her collection of works. Former art, or art in potential. Now, that piece probably won’t end up in any college textbooks, but I thought it was kind of cool. On a table, there was a rather odd piece. An apparently random collection of photos, kitsch statues, a photocopies letter from a soldier in Iraq, a few baubles. Reading the sign, I learned that the museum, which is located in a pretty rough and poor neighborhood, had invited the people who live in its block to lend objects that they considered beautiful or important. It was then displayed with as much respect and dignity as the works of the professional artists. I thought that was kind of cool, too. I read the Barry piece, and I thought it didn’t really reflect my experience at the museum in my city. The kind of pretension he describes exists, I have no doubt, but when I’m there, I see people trying to understand, people shaking their heads in disbelief and moving on, people laughing or saying ‘What the hell is that?’ and people who are clearly moved. I rarely see the poseurs he describes. I don’t actually have anything to say about this specific chair. It looks, from the silly description, like it’s a part of a larger work that includes video. I saw a piece once that had a cheesy sofa like the one that’s in everyone’s grandmother’s basement which the patrons were encouraged to sit on as they watched the video artwork about how much everyone’s childhood is alike. I don’t like to judge the chair without seeing the whole work. The critic, I feel free to say, needs to calm down a little bit, and take a breath. It’s a chair, dude. ---
**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:** [January 23, 2004, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pretentious-art-crap/225086/53 "2004-01-23T02:43:03Z")
> [@GuanoLad](#): > > If you drop a gum wrapper on the floor, is that Art? If someone picks it up afterwards and proclaims it art, is that Art? I would be surprised and dismayed if you think so. I don’t know. I’d have to see the gum wrapper, first. However, this is entirely non-responsive to the portion of my post you quoted. > [@](#): > > There’s no difference. Okay, I’ll grant that he may be trying to make a statement, he may be trying to make people think about something important to him. He failed, of course; all people are thinking is ‘it’s not Art, it’s just a crappy old chair.’ But just trying to make a statement is not enough to be considered Art - it’s more like Philosophy. It’s not ‘_Artistic_ Expression’, it’s just ‘Expression’. “All people” think it’s not art? What the hell am I, chopped liver? Incidentally, why do you keep capitalizing art? ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2004, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pretentious-art-crap/225086/54 "2004-01-23T03:28:35Z")
> [@](#): > > However, this is entirely non-responsive to the portion of my post you quoted. Guy picks up chair from dump. Guy puts chair in gallery. Guy says it’s Art by making up some bullshit gobbledegook justification. The part I quoted suggested that was all it took for you to accept it was Art. And I am capitalising Art because I can’t be arsed putting quotes around it. As something of an artist myself, I have always thought Art with a captial A is a crock of shit. But I do like some pretty paintings and nice drawings and suchlike, which in my mind usually doesn’t deserve quotes or capitals. ---
**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:** [January 23, 2004, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pretentious-art-crap/225086/55 "2004-01-23T03:54:54Z")
> [@GuanoLad](#): > > Guy picks up chair from dump. Guy puts chair in gallery. Guy says it’s Art by making up some bullshit gobbledegook justification. The part I quoted suggested that was all it took for you to accept it was Art. That still doesn’t respond to the part of my post you quoted. > [@](#): > > And I am capitalising Art because I can’t be arsed putting quotes around it. Okay, then why would you put quotes around it? > [@](#): > > As something of an artist myself, I have always thought Art with a captial A is a crock of shit. But I do like some pretty paintings and nice drawings and suchlike, which in my mind usually doesn’t deserve quotes or capitals. They don’t deserve that because they’re not art? Or because they’re better art? ---
**Author:** ![Algernon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a183cd/32.png) [@Algernon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Algernon)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2004, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pretentious-art-crap/225086/56 "2004-01-23T14:07:07Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by Miller_ > Okay, what if he built the chair from scratch to look exactly like it does? Would that be art? What if he was like yosemitebabe’s friend, and could make ceramics that looked like fabric? Would that be art? What if he’d painted a super realistic image of the chair? Would that be art? How about the photo of the chair linked to in the OP? Is the photo art? Now explain to me how something that looks just like a broken chair can be art, but the broken chair itself cannot? Non-artist venturing an opinion here. My answer to your last question here is that if the artist displayed even a modicum of skill in the creation of the object being exhibited, I’d grant them the benefit of the doubt and classify it as art. While I cannot always understand the intent of the creator, I can almost always understand the level of work and creativity and skill required to create it. Taking an object from the dump and exhibiting it requires neither skill nor creativity. Regarding your other questions, duplicating that chair in ceramic, or paint, or even photographing it creatively would classify it as art. Any of those results requires a skill that is not required to simply display the original object. To clarify a bit what I mean by skill. Obviously there is the traditional artistic skills. I’m willing to expand this definition a bit to include an artist who can take everyday objects and arrange them in such a way so that their creation evokes an emotional response in the viewer. But the emotional response has to be pervasive amongst the viewers. The _ability_ to unambiguously evoke an emotion would be a skill. If the artist was unsuccessful in evoking the intended emotional response, then they failed. If they regularly fail then they don’t have that skill and the stuff they display is junk, not art. ---
**Author:** ![Briny\_Deep](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/briny_deep/32/17188_2.png) [@Briny\_Deep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Briny_Deep)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2004, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pretentious-art-crap/225086/57 "2004-01-23T15:29:16Z")
> [@RTA](#): > > Actually, he would. I work closely with artists to develop these kinds of exhibitions, and I guarantee that they can be very fussy people. You don’t even know who the artist is (and neither do I), and yet you’re certain of his perception of / reaction to a rock’s being moved? Of course they’re fussy around _you_; you’re the Art Museum Guy. What, did you think they’d just let you fling the rocks around any old way, while helping them set up the piece, and say “Don’t worry about it, just put them anywhere”? They’re going to put on a big production for you, acting as if the exact placement of the rocks to the centimeter is an integral part of the art. How could they not, and still ask to be taken seriously? (I’m talking about our hypothetical Art Bullshitter here, the one who is laughing all the way to the bank at the art consumers for their pretentious gullibility. I acknowledge that some producers of rings of rocks may take the whole thing with utter sincere seriousness.) > [@](#): > > Perhaps that’s a lesson that some of you can take away from this kind of art - that deep down, we’re still just a confusing encounter away from being frightened animals. This is really, really insulting, you know that? ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2004, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pretentious-art-crap/225086/58 "2004-01-23T15:34:09Z")
Art can suck in two ways: **Soft Suckage** : the artist accomplishes what she’s trying to accomplish, but what she’s trying to accomplish doesn’t do anything for me. That can be a Walmart plastic tumbler filled with water and covered in Saran Wrap sitting on a pedestal, or it can be a work by Picasso. If it doesn’t do it for me, then it doesn’t do it for me, and I won’t spend much time pursuing other work by the artist. **Hard Suckage** : the artist doesn’t accomplish what she’s trying to accomplish. If I find out the artist was trying to paint a photorealistic sad clown, and I say, “Dude, that doesn’t look anything like a clown!”, then that’s hard suckage, and far less subjective than soft suckage is. A lot of modern art sucks softly: the artists do what they set out to do, but what they set out to do doesn’t interest me in the slightest. Then again, narrative junkie that I am, there’s not much visual art that really moves me; my brain seems hardwired to want stories in my art, and static visual art isn’t nearly as good at storytelling as novels, movies, radios, etc. Daniel ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2004, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pretentious-art-crap/225086/59 "2004-01-23T15:52:13Z")
> [@](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > Perhaps that’s a lesson that some of you can take away from this kind of art - that deep down, we’re still just a confusing encounter away from being frightened animals. > > This is really, really insulting, you know that? That’s the point. Lots of modern art isn’t meant to communicate anything beyond “You don’t get how ironic I am being, so I am better than you.” The inner circle plays the game and pretends that the art is really saying something, everyone else is either bored or offended (or intimidated into paying for the crap). Plus it is all derivative anyway. How many times can you listen to someone explain that they are making a statement about the emptiness of modern life by creating empty art, and keep a straight face? If “anything is art if you look at it the right way”, that has already been communicated a hundred times, and we no longer need artists. If an artist has any genuine insight beyond that, let me know. But dadaism has been done to death. If that is the extent of your creativity, better get a day job. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Truth\_Seeker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5fc32e/32.png) [@Truth\_Seeker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Truth_Seeker)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2004, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pretentious-art-crap/225086/60 "2004-01-23T19:09:37Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > \*\*The Simpsons are as much a product of their pop culture as William Shakespeare was a product of his. Sure, in a hundred years, a lot of the jokes won’t make sense any more. A lot of the jokes in _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_ don’t make sense to a contemporary audience. \*\* Very true. And many of Shakespeare’s plays are seldom performed exactly for that reason. Others require a great deal of study before you can really appreciate them. I’m not saying there is anything wrong with this, by the way. Understanding the cultural context of a work is often even more interesting than the work itself. Nonetheless, without the cultural underpinings, works like these are mostly inaccesible. Needing a cheat-sheet for a work’s cultural background is qualitatively similar to needing a cheat-sheet explaining what the artist was thinking when he created the work. The difference is that a culture’s “thought-processes” is likely to be a rewarding and enriching while a pretentious git’s “thought-processes” are likely to be trivial bollocks. A few of Shakespeare’s plots do travel extremely well. These, apparently, speak to some basic qualities of being human that transcend culture. > [@](#): > > \*\*On the other hand, a lot of them still do. Most importantly, like Shakespeare, the best Simpsons episodes (and there are a lot of them) have an emotional heart that you don’t need a cultural context to understand. \*\* :dubious: **Miller** , you seem unwilling to make value judgements with respect to art. Would you say that Byron is a better poet than [William McGonagall](http://www.taynet.co.uk/users/mcgon/themoon.htm)? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pretentious-art-crap/225086.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pretentious-art-crap/225086.md?page=4)