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[Captain_404]

This reminds me...

I never really got Warhol until I saw his works in person. They seemed dull and uninspired to me. When I saw them in person I actually did have an emotional reaction to some of them. It was the same way with my sister and Van Gogh. She never appreciated his work at all till she saw it in person.

People here should remember that looking at tiny little pictures of things on the internet is completely different than seeing them in real life.

[s0]

Don't you just love it when people think "postmodern" and "abstract" are synonyms for "weird"?

[unsilentwill]

Yes.

What's worse is when people think that art from 1916 to 1922 is the same art today.

This thread is a lot of people saying "I know what The Art is, that is not The Art". Perhaps we have forgotten that we cannot isolate ourselves from the past, and that hieroglyphics, "fine art", impressionism, modern, futurism, post-modern, and abstract are all part of an artistic heritage, an inescapable tradition where one man acts in response to his own history. Reactions upon reactions, revolutions, adaptions.

That's how I understand that piece, which means, not well at all. It uses common imagery to react to what we know of the objects. Whether or not it has value is dependent on the purpose--is it reliant on some manifesto of meaning, or does it tell a story? Is it meant to show an emotion externally or evoke a subjective meaning internally?

Will it last? No. Is it meant to? Will it inspire? Who is to say?

[aeiowu]

I like me some Pen.  

Don't you just love it when people think "postmodern" and "abstract" are synonyms for "weird"?

agreed.

this is abstract: http://liabelle.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/nude-descending-a-staircase.jpg
this is postmodern: http://www.jssgallery.org/other_artists/andy_warhol/campbells.jpg

if you're truly interested in learning more about art, read this: http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Comics-Invisible-Scott-Mccloud/dp/006097625X

[s0]

This thread is a lot of people saying "I know what The Art is, that is not The Art". Perhaps we have forgotten that we cannot isolate ourselves from the past, and that hieroglyphics, "fine art", impressionism, modern, futurism, post-modern, and abstract are all part of an artistic heritage, an inescapable tradition where one man acts in response to his own history. Reactions upon reactions, revolutions, adaptions.

What generally irks me about about criticism thrown at "modern art" (I hate that term) by random people on the internet (or elsewhere) is that 90% of them somehow consider themselves authorities on declaring what "art" is or isn't, despite having generally no idea what they're talking about. I my opinion denying something the status of "art" because it doesn't conform to one's expectations is more pretentious than all "modern art" made in the last 50 years thrown together.

To take an example from the field of games, I'm not a huge fan of adventures (point&click or otherwise), because they don't contain most of the things I like about games (motor skills, strategy, emergent gameplay, nonlinearity etc.), but I don't go parading around on the internet claiming that adventures are "not games" because I play games for other reasons than solving linear puzzles or reading dialog.

[threesided]

I generally hate when I see art like this, not because it's unappealing, but because it's not all that original to do anymore. There was a great article I read by this guy Donald Kuspit, who discusses how the art world is falling to shit because of it's reliance on low brow gimmicks like this, ignoring the kind of higher qualities art can possess. What makes this piece shitty because of that, is because it's been done before, and they're just rehashing that same low brow shock value that the dadaists and other kitsch artists already did. It's lazy and takes all the onus and responsibility out of the artists' hands. It sucks that the whole abject void of an art movement persists, but whatever, as an artist all I can do is counteract it with my own work.

Ultimately, this piece will be wholly forgotten, so I find it easier to just ignore it. This kind of work is old news and just needs to be left behind already.

edit: Here's the article I'm referring to http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/features/kuspit/kuspit9-11-08.asp

  

[jpgray]

People are worried they'll be seen as unthinking boors if they don't claim some profound reaction to what social authorities tell them is profound art.  I could play Cecil Taylor and someone just noodling mindlessly on a piano, and defy you to tell the difference.  I could show you a random spill of bricks and then Carl Andre's work, and defy you to tell the difference.  What makes it "art" (and it is art) is that is called art.  What makes something "fine art" is it being called fine art by prominent social authorities in the field.  This becomes a problem with work like this:



You, I and anyone else could paint this, and conceive of this.  The difference for Malevich is that he was well-connected enough to have his square championed by the requisite prominent authorities as fine art.  You can't just come off the street and paint a square that's fine art, you have to have connections to the right people before your square is fine art.  What fine art is, therefore, has almost nothing to do with the piece or concept, but rather the ability of the artist to get it hailed as such.

As for elitism, abstract/conceptual art is hardly egalitarian.  It's all about your connections, first of all, and a person can only appreciate your work if she ingests whole volumes of tedious justification for the earth-shattering meaning of something like spilled bricks, or a black square.  The average passerby thinks it's just a square, or just spilled bricks.  For that he is deemed ignorant and uncultured, and so may be compelled from fear of this to see something in the piece.

I don't see this as good or bad, it's just the way it is.  I myself prefer art that you can appreciate in any context, without having to know the title, the artist, the school, the movement, the philosophical justification, etc.  The worst conceptual art, absent a context (such a museum pedestal) that defines it as art, would not be seen as such.  Exploiting the human propensity for pattern-seeking and social conformity isn't a sufficient condition for something to be great art, in my view.

[s0]

So basically if it's not populist, it sucks.

[jpgray]

So basically if it's not populist, it sucks.

I'd say rather that if spilled bricks and squares are called fine art, then they are.  If not, they are not.  Whether anything "sucks" or not is down to taste.  To my taste, they aren't great art.

[Jolli]

mmmmmmmmmmm art

[s0]

Accessibility isn't necessarily a hallmark of great art either. In fact, a lot of good art, whether it's Michelangelo or Joan Miro has a kind of depth that's not apparent at first glance. It doesn't make a that much of a difference in the long run. Also @your whole "you have to have connections" argument: Unfortunately, it's like that in every creative field and always has been, I don't see your point.

And, yeah, another thing, Cecil Taylor is a really bad example because his music can be "understood" without reading books. Again, at first glance it might seem "random" or whatever, but listen repeatedly and with an open mind and you'll start to "get it".

[increpare]

this is abstract: http://liabelle.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/nude-descending-a-staircase.jpg

I actually have always thought of that chiefly as being representational/figurative (which isn't to say that it can't be abstract as well, but I wouldn't give it as an example of an abstract piece).

[threesided]

Yeah, abstract art is kind of a blanket term for anything non-representational basically.

Minimalism, Expressionism, Cubism, Color-Field, they're all abstract.

[jpgray]

Also @your whole "you have to have connections" argument: Unfortunately, it's like that in every creative field and always has been, I don't see your point.

This isn't the case.  You can write short stories, get published by a respectable journal, and receive critical praise as an artist, without knowing anyone in the field.  You can't spill bricks, however much the spillage is pregnant with meaning, and wind up in the Tate.

And, yeah, another thing, Cecil Taylor is a really bad example because his music can be "understood" without reading books. Again, at first glance it might seem "random" or whatever, but listen repeatedly and with an open mind and you'll start to "get it".

Absent contextual pressure to "get it," no one listens, or would listen, to Cecil Taylor.  To enter into the experience sympathetically, one has to come to his work with contextual knowledge: that he is famous and respected, that he is trying to do something specific, that he fits into jazz tradition in such and such a way, etc.  One forms the intention of giving him a fair hearing on that basis.

As for your other points: Broad appeal isn't everything, true.  It's also true that learning contextual facts can alter one's appreciation of -any- piece.

All that said, I would still have to agree with the boy in the story, that the emperor's new clothes aren't very good, well-made, or otherwise profound.  True, comparatively few pieces of fine art are abstract/conceptual to the point of approaching non-existence, but the closer they get, the less I enjoy them.  Nude Descending a Staircase I enjoy, Fountain I don't enjoy so much.

[Alec S.]

I think it's better to say that every form of creative expression is art, and that whether something is "good art" should be left up to the individual and their appreciation and reaction to a piece.

[s0]

This isn't the case.  You can write a novel, get published by a respectable publisher, and receive critical praise as an artist, without knowing anyone in the field.  You can't spill bricks, however much the spillage is pregnant with meaning, and wind up in the Tate.

There are outsider artists, duh. Also, people who get "discovered" like you described are mostly just really, really lucky. They're also the exception, not the rule. Most creative people without "connections" never manage to get their work published no matter how good they are.

And on the topic of "contextual pressure". The way I got into "weird" music was via hearing my dad play Pink Floyd's Ummagumma album at age 14. I had the typical "What is this shit? Is this even music?" reaction at first, but for some reason I listened to it again on my own and kept coming back to it. I guess I was fascinated with it because it was so different from anything I'd heard up to that point. I didn't even really who Pink Floyd was. I kinda knew they were a famous rock band from the 60's or 70's but not much beyond that. Also, keep in mind that at that time, I generally dismissed any music made before the 90's out of hand.  

[aeiowu]

this is abstract: http://liabelle.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/nude-descending-a-staircase.jpg

I actually have always thought of that chiefly as being representational/figurative (which isn't to say that it can't be abstract as well, but I wouldn't give it as an example of an abstract piece).

I hear you, but it's an abstraction of motion and I think most people can make it out while not being so representational that they don't confuse the two. Better to introduce someone to abstract art with something they can sink their teeth into rather than some Kandinsky squares and triangles..

EDIT:

This should help

[jpgray]

There are outsider artists, duh. Also, people who get "discovered" like you described are mostly just really, really lucky. They're also the exception, not the rule. Most creative people without "connections" never manage to get their work published no matter how good they are.

I guess my point is that the more abstract your work is, the more you need to rely on factors exterior to your work.  You can be a nobody, paint great impressionistic landscapes, and get into decent galleries that represent such a style.  To paint a square and get into decent galleries that represent such a style, you're going to need good connections, personality, &c.  That's not to say one is more "art" than the other, but there are practical differences in appreciation.

[s0]

This is a picture by Oswald Tschirtner, a mental institution patient who didn't have any connections in the art world before being "discovered". There are a couple more people like him, though they're not necessarily mentally ill.  

I'm not saying I think this is good or anything, just an example of a relatively "famous" abstract artist without connections.

[Tanner]

I guess somebody went to a birthday party but they got board.

why is everyone still here? this thread peaked on the first page