I visited the Tate Modern art gallery today and I’m sorry to say it left me rather cold. call me a philistine if you wish, but I do think a lot of modern art has crawled rather too far up its own arse - and I can’t help wondering if quite a lot of it is now poking fun at the audience’s tolerance for pretentious bullshit.
But that’s not really what I wanted to say here. What I wanted to pick at is this: Why does so much of popular modern art seem to be so grungy?
I estimate that more than three quarters of the sculptures I saw today looked like they had been dredged up out of the Thames.
More than half of the paintings looked like something had gone horribly wrong with the paint or canvas texture, the brushes, or the artist’s motor neurons.
Grunge has become the Comic Sans of modern art - easy, frivolous, superficial and nearly ubiquitous.
There even seems to be a formulaic approach creeping into the method - i.e. take something conventional and add something nasty or surprising:
– Here are some photos I took, then left the negatives to gather dust for a year - look at the dirty, degraded effect!
–Here is an iron figurine that I pissed on every day for a month - look at the rust!
–Here is a picture of a dog, painted using dog turds, mixed with the cremated remains of dogs - look a the lumps!
etc, etc.
Of course, I appreciate there are notable exceptions to this theme (Jeff Koons, for example), but can’t we have just a bit more variety? - and variety, I mean, something different, not more variations of the same thing.
The funny thing of course is that when engineers and other self-styled “productive types” criticize the arts, the standard defense is that art creates something beautiful.
Bearing in mind that I am not in any way an art historian, themes of decay and destruction are hardly purely the domain of contemporary art. The Romantic movement had its share of art exploring the theme.
And on a purely aesthetic level, rust has the potential to be very visually pleasing - which is not to suggest that that’s what any of the artists in the Tate are going for, but between bold colour with many subtle variations, and a softening to the hard lines of metal, rust can be lovely.
As for why, now? I guess there are probably a bunch of well-thought-out critical theories, but I’d go with, a response to the current uncertainties in the world, representing the emotional and moral state of the artist or the society the artist lives and works in, a rejection of the smooth sleekness of much modern design and much that surrounds us in everyday life… any or all of the above.
I’d say it might be a confirmation bias. Maybe it’s just the art being shown in London is different than in Houston, but I go to both the Contemporary Arts Museum of Houston and the Houston Museum of Fine Arts several times a year, and go to several art galleries each month, and I can hardly think of the last time I saw grungy, rusty art. If I was just going to say off the top of my head the dominant trait of most of the art I’ve been seeing recently, I would say I’ve been seeing a lot of very colorful works.
I don’t really know that much about art though, so I can’t really answer your question more than that. Do you maybe remember any of the artists names that you saw?
Rust and decay are evocative. People don’t like rust and decay because it suggests that things are wearing out, and often hints at other unpleasant things like poverty. Including them in art can evoke a viseral response from the viewer because of this dislike.
Some sculptors use steel that’s designed to weather by acquiring a layer of oxidation. Richard Serra is one such artist and the Tate Modern has a couple of his pieces.
I’m afraid I can’t remember any of the names, apart from the famous ones - Monet and Pollock (I actually surprised myself in liking the Pollock - it’s thisone).
In all honesty, I think if anything, I might be overgeneralising rather than getting confirmation bias - the sense that something is ‘grungy’ could be pretty vague and could end up being applied to two different things with no common features at all.
But still, I struggled to perceive any qualities at all in most of the works on public display there. I didn’t go into any of the exhibitions as there were admission costs and I seemed to be the only one out of our family group of four that was even trying to understand/enjoy/appreciate anything.
I know it’s all too common a response to modern art to say “but I could have made that!” - but this seemed to go even further - I could have made these exhibits, but couldn’t imagine why I would have bothered.
Cor-ten has been in vogue for a while, and with the sculptors I know personally, it’s because it’s easier to get and easier to work yourself - no need for a foundry (like bronze) or special after-treatment (unlike like other steels, I think they mean - ISTM that aluminium would have all these advantages too). And that russet finish is very attractive (just ask any historical armour junkie, both Western and Japanese armours have used the finish to good effect at times)
I’m probably the biggest historical armour junkie on this forum, and I don’t like the rusty-looking modern art. It’s true that suits of armour during the Renaissance were sometimes russeted or browned, but this was also done in conjunction with gilding, etching and elaborate ornamentation. The overall effect was to give the steel vivid, contrasting colors. Which is the opposite of Richard Serra’s “sculptures” which just look like pieces of a rusty old garbage scow dredged up from the bottom of a polluted lake. There’s no bold color contrasts at all in Serra’s work, it’s all completely monotonous. On the other hand you will never see an armour by Jacob Halder or Anton Pfeffenhauser or the Greenwich shop or any of the other master armouries of the Renaissance that’s just russeted or browned or blued all over. The foremost intent was always for the designs on the steel to stand out from the background.
Here is the armour of George Clifford, 3rd Earl of Cumberland. There is just no comparison between that and the eyesores that Serra makes. The Greenwich armours took the most unbelievable skill, master craftsmanship, and loving attention to detail, which is the polar opposite of the type of modern junk that the OP is rightly criticizing.
For the record, I am not against modern art, just shitty “emperor has no clothes” modern art. I like Donald Judd’s sculptures very much, for example.
There’s a small statue at the Museum in my city that is so finely detailed as to appear impossible for a mortal to carve. I don’t expect every piece of work to be this fantastic but I have a lot more respect for artists who can acccurately portray a real object. I can piss in a glass and take 50 different pictures of it with different filters and camera settings until one looks “arty”. BFD.
Yes, I can see the art in abstract pieces but I can also see crap when it looks like it was just launched out of the back end of a horse.
That’s because real art requires skill. Sure, you can have intellect and emotion and “meaning” out the wazoo, but without adequate technical capabilities, your art will suck. Always.
I live in Houston, too & agree that I don’t see all that much grungy rust. Unless you count the Art Car Parade–but that’s one of the most popular artistic events in the city.
Some of these “Modern Art Sucks” entries seem to be written by people who hardly ever go out to see art–at museums or galleries. Then they hit a weird show & flip out.
You beat me to it Argent, much of modern art is just an exercise in “the emperor’s new clothes.” The OP rightly perceive it to be a lump of garbage because that is exactly what it is.
This is the problem I have with a lot of modern art. I think it’s my lack of appreciation and possibly education in the subject, but I’m unable to find any sort of meaning in most modern art. The best example I can think of, though, has nothing to do with rust - it’s that oil of a big, red dot. Just a white background and a large red dot in the middle.
I also have trouble understanding certain terms applied to art in many mediums. For example, I’m not sure what it means when art or music is “organic.” Does that mean it looks like a plant, it came naturally to the artist, wasn’t made with pesticides or what?
Including a Giacometti bronze from 1955 really suggests to me that you’re not seeing a “modern trend toward grunge,” but simply a motif that recurs in a lot of art intended to reflect the world we live in.
Rust, decay, abandoned structures, etc. are something we SEE in modern society, and are things that are much more visible now than they were in previous centuries.
There’s many different approaches to art, but a common one is to try to reflect themes and imagery ones sees around them. For some, the idea is to take something that’s usually overlooked or backgrounded and put it in the foreground. If you’ll allow a little pretension, it could also be said that some of the grungy new art is a reaction TO clean modernism – trying to state that monoliths and simple geometric forms don’t stay pristine.
“Organic” as a term of art criticism tends to mean that the artwork draws on natural forms and motifs rather than constructed ones. “Organic” painting or sculpture would tend to avoid hard lines and smooth surfaces in favor of curves and textures. There may also be an attempt to use “natural” materials within the work (or emulate their appearance). Organic art, as a movement, is an attempt to reject the “mechanical” feel of modernist art and showcase some of the natural beauty of the world we inhabit.
The reason a lot of “modern” art seems unapproachable is twofold: much of it is very context sensitive and only “works” if you understand it. That doesn’t make it worthless, it’s just specific. Frankly, I agree that many galleries and museums give such works too much attention, but said works aren’t without value.
The other reason is simpler – a lot of modern and postmodern art isn’t about “meaning” something. It’s about design and “look.” Pollack’s work is a great example. I frequently hear people say they don’t “get” his stuff, but the point is that there’s nothing to get. The intention was simply to paint patterns and colors that work well together. And Pollack was good at it. As much as people love to say, “My kid could do that,” the truth is that they couldn’t. Not without practice and years of paying attention to what sort of colors and patterns work together. Pollack’s famous works may mostly just be a bunch of splatters, but they’re genuinely GOOD bunches of splatters, made by somebody who genuinely obsessed about the balances of shape and color in his work.
Maybe - but to be honest, I picked those examples from their interactive tour fairly indiscriminately - there were a great many works of grunge on display at the Tate Modern on Saturday that just aren’t on the website - (not just because of copyright reasons that restrict the use of images, but just because they’re not included).
I won’t try too hard to defend myself on this count, except to say that I used to work for a publisher of art books stocking catalogues of a comprehensive range of exhibitions, galleries and individual artists.
I know that’s not the same as seeing it in the flesh, but whatever my problem is with modern art, it’s not complete lack of exposure.
But it’s interesting what you say about people not going out to see art - if art is this difficult to appreciate, why would they bother and how would they start?
And at the end of it all, why should anyone change their mind about it? Can you be absolutely sure it really isn’t just a load of old rubbish?
