Pretentious art crap

Cafe Society
41

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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.

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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.

42

I see that my above related tale is redundant. Look at this quote from the article that earthling posted (emphasis mine):

This happens all the time.

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.

43

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.

44

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!

45

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.

46

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.

47

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 :slight_smile: nice :slight_smile: 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.

48

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! :stuck_out_tongue:

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.”

49

Clearly, you’ve never seen Reflections of Evil.

50

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

51

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.

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’.

52

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.

53

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.

“All people” think it’s not art? What the hell am I, chopped liver?

Incidentally, why do you keep capitalizing art?

54

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.

55

That still doesn’t respond to the part of my post you quoted.

Okay, then why would you put quotes around it?

They don’t deserve that because they’re not art? Or because they’re better art?

56

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.

57

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.)

This is really, really insulting, you know that?

58

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

59

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

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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.

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: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?