Among people who buy art as an “investment”? I’m sure it’s definitely out there. Among people who just like experiencing and thinking about art? I’ll bet good money it’s less common.
I think you understood his post fine. But, in my experience, that type of modern art fan is the exception, not the rule, which is what I mean by that being “more a straw man and caricature.” Art is for everyone to enjoy. Or maybe I just don’t hang out with pretentious douchebags.
ETA: I should amend that I have seen that attitude in fine art/gallery circles, especially in New York. But that’s from the “scenesters.” Just your average modern art fan? Not so much.
All fields have experts. Even in entertainment and leisure there are people who are more knowledgable than others. Some people have more refined palates.
These ideas seem to be at the core of many Cafe Society discussions.
Funny that reading that got your hackles up, and this didn’t:
Considering that one was a sentiment expressed by someone in this thread, and the other a position so vanishingly rare that I, for one, have never once met a person, in real life or online, who held it. And I just spent two and a half years in a San Franciscan art school. To the extent that I’ve heard that position expressed at all, it’s always, without exception, been in direct response to being repeatedly called a liar and an idiot.
Outstanding post. Thanks.
Agh. I’d written a reply to everyone and the computer ate it. In short, I appreciate how being in the same room with something like this may make a difference. The 44 M bit wasn’t actually pertinent to my OP, maybe I should have left it out seeing how much everyone is focusing on it.
Okay, I’m not saying you’ve converted me. But I will give you full credit for being the first person who admires this painting and can articulate why you admire it.
Music is not inherently abstract. Most music has a specific concrete meaning or emotional context. This is a sad song. This piece is about a certain battle or historical event. If you do enjoy that, do you like Phillip Glass?
If find you can’t resell it I will give you a dollar if it fits between the wheels of my car and is oil resistant. but you have to deliver it. You can keep the frame.
I don’t have any kids but I’ve painted almost the exact same thing quite a few times over the last year AND was paid for it. In fact the last one I did the buyer’s brother was there for the unveiling and told be my work was vastly better than the one he commissioned. I’d show you a picture of it but you really need to be in the room to appreciate the subtle strokes I used. I completely redefined the space with the use of industrial objects set nearby to give the work depth. I’ve spent years perfecting the use of different applicators to get just the right effect knowing that light will change it’s appearance throughout the day. I like to keep my lines very precise and do not charge extra for straying off the visual plane.
Reverse snobs are not any cooler than regular snobs when it comes to making judgements about art (or pretty much anything else, for that matter).
Your reverse snobbery, like the direct snobbery of the pretentious poseurs who like to sneer at people who don’t enjoy modern art, is simply a form of bragging about your own taste by disparaging the taste of people who disagree with you.
“I don’t see any merit in that painting and I wouldn’t want to own it even if some people do consider it a masterpiece” is an aesthetic opinion. “I would destroy that so-called masterpiece if I owned it” is merely swaggering about how much you despise people who have the effrontery to have an aesthetic opinion that’s different from yours.
I could close my eyes, walk outside and point to anything, ANYTHING, and make a similar statement.
Lets try shall we, OK, I ended up pointing at a 4x4 used as a gate post. I’ll just metaphorically yank it up and toss it on the floor of the Guggenheim Museum. The dirt at the bottom represents the elements of life from which we spring but yet holds us back, anchored to the earth. Ripping it out of the ground was an act designed to free it from confinement. The post itself is a timeworn example of how mankind has forced conformity out of a free-form soul, laid bare and lifeless to be used by others and then discarded as it decays. The hinges born into the side of the post is the link to a gateway. Closed it shows us our limitations, open it allows only the limits of our imagination.
You can’t be a reverse snob regarding the emperor’s clothes. The professor got it right on the first go. I never said I’d destroy it. I gave it worth. It’s worth a dollar to keep oil from getting on my garage floor.
BTW I love modern art. I also like antiques. But unlike antique snobs I don’t care if it’s old or who made it. I care about how good it looks and appreciate craftsman who had vision and artistic license.
But in all the thousands of years of art history, Newman was the FIRST to do this painting as a serious work of art. There’s a huge difference between some kid doing this, as opposed to someone who is a trained, educated artist who knows what he’s doing, and can articulate WHY he’s doing it.
And a “could have done” work of art will not sell for even one cent.
wait what? It’s art because some jackass is trained as an artist and made the painting and not because a kid did it in kindergarten? That’s the criteria?
This reminds me of the 60 minutes interview of a couple who collected art all their lives. They had a famous artist over to their apartment and as a gift he tacked on a 1 inch piece of string to a door frame.
I have must have 100 million dollars worth of art stuck in various places in my house.
BTW, I think I discovered the reason for the high value in the painting. It’s got something to do with the Illuminati. If you look at the picture sideways you can see Jesus in agony with the crown of thorns.
Calling the work of an artist who’s been well-known and highly regarded by art historians, museum curators and collectors for nearly a half-century “the emperor’s new clothes” is the essence of reverse snobbery.
Not content to say “Meh, I don’t like it and I don’t see any particular achievement or value in it”, you’re insisting that because you don’t see anything in it, there can’t be anything in it at all. You’re just bragging about how much smarter you think you are than all those “so-called experts”.
Sure, you care about how good it looks to you. So do most viewers and collectors of art, even the ones who have different opinions about what looks good than you do.
Well, you appreciate craftsmen who exhibit the kind of craft you personally like, who had vision that you are sympathetic to, and who availed themselves of the kind of artistic license that you personally consider appropriate.
You evidently don’t have any sympathy or liking for the Abstract Expressionist/Color Field vision, which as I noted above was based on the concept of trying to convey ideas and emotions by combinations of color, size and shape alone, without relying on the traditional artistic vocabulary of realistic representation.
Nor do you have any liking or approval for the kind of craft those painters used, which focused on choosing the structure and arrangement of simple forms and working into them subtle details (like the color gradients Miller was talking about) that wouldn’t distract from the appearance of simplicity.
And that’s fine. You don’t have to like Abstract Expressionist or Color Field painting at all, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But when you try to argue that because you don’t like it there must simply not be anything in it to like, you’re just indulging in reverse snobbery.
You don’t make yourself look more knowledgeable or insightful by sneering at “the experts”, any more than a more traditional pretentious art snob looks more knowledgeable or insightful by sneering at “the masses”.
The only emotion modern art used to inspire in me was rage followed by confusion. Then it made me horny and I’d get confused again which would drive me to a rage. I made my peace with modern art when I realized that I didn’t have the background to appreciate it. In many cases I would not recognize the object as art were it not hanging on the wall of a museum with a little placard nearby telling me it was art.
Modern art seems to be the only type of art that does this to me. I don’t particularly care for African art but I can recognize it as art and even appreciate the work that went into creating a sculpture or a pattern on clothing. I don’t always understand the symbolism used in paintings from the 14th century but I find many of them aesthetically pleasing, and, again, I can recognize them as art regardless of the context I find them in.
I think Pepperwinkle has give the best answer in this thread. You’re not meant to appreciate it. Modern art is like that guy who won’t let you into the exclusive club saying “You don’t have to go to Kinkade’s place but you can’t come here.”
No, that just made me roll my eyes.
So do it. If it’s original enough, and moves or interests enough people, then you’ve created a worthwhile piece of art.