If you really want a head scratcher try to figure out why Jackson Pollock painting are so expensive. The guy was basically a failed painter until he came up with this "art" of drip painting. And then you'll have people who argue the skill involved in dripping paint. Ok. On the other hand, I doubt very seriously that you or 10 thousand people could have painted anything by Picasso. There is difficulty in painting just like anything else and I know for me personally that I've been moved deeply by john biggers's work.
I'm talking about the random crap that gets passed for art these days. I remember somebody gets amazing reviews for literally littering the ground with trash and calling it art. You can BS an interpretation, but all I see is a bunch of trash on the floor.
You guys ever see 'My Kid Could Paint That'? Great documentary. About a little girl who becomes somewhat famous in the art community for her 'abstract' paintings...which raises the question of the validity of such art. And then, of course, is the question of whether or not she really painted it.... Another good one is 'Who the #$&% Is Jackson Pollock?' about a truck driver who buys a painting in a $5 garage sale and later finds out it might be a lost Pollock painting worth millions. She then goes on a quest of sorts to prove it. Really interesting.
I'm a science guy, all that artsy fartsy stuff is baloney. The art crowd decides whats "in" then all of a sudden it's art. I took a philosophy of the arts course at UH and asked the professor about one painting "if I had that scribbled on my notebook would you have stopped and been amazed?" she said "No, its about the meeeeeaning".
I'm not so much against the trending, but more so the inconsistency by which they judge what's good or not.
sigh. this is like saying all poems are supposed to rhyme like VDay Roses are Red poems, Mother Goose or Dr Seuss. or all singing is supposed to be pretty like a landscape of Justin Biebers sorry you don't get it. just take solace in the fact you probably understand why all singing is not supposed to be pretty.
Everything requires technique, that's were I draw the line. Making statements and "found" art isn't really that important to me. Plus, now you got these factories, i can't remember the guys name but he hires workers and they produce this kitsch art. Once again, in my opinion that isn't really artistic kind of work if you aren't even doing it yourself. The art world is just a little pretentious in my opinion by "deciding" what is important in art.
1. Kid artist was not really a big deal in the "art world". Maybe big in the cat painter community, though. 2. The guy who "proved" that woman's painting is a Pollock is a con artist and has all sorts of legal issues. The people he was ridiculing for not accepting his sham fingerprint science have been proven to be right.
Abstract expressionism (and its popularity) originated with art critics and wealthy art collectors. Art critics (always jealous of those who can actually create) realized that they could be as famous as their subjects if they chose subjects who couldn't actually paint and then hyped them to death (sometimes literally)(sometimes they were just bored, sometimes they were rebelling). Art collectors, listening to the art critics, bought works from these pretend-artists, and they perpetuated the idea that AbEx painters had "genius" because that assured the value of the art they purchased, and helped solidify the artistic community around them in their roles as 'wealthy patrons of the arts.' The throngs of fans of AbEx continue to perpetuate the myth of 'genius' by making themselves part of an exclusive club of people who "get it" - and, by extension, they deflect valid criticism of abstract expressionism by breezily dismissing it with "you just don't get it." (Note: I get it, and it's crap.) Some painters included in this group do evince some genuine creativity, but very few. At best, the art allows the viewer to put all meaning and emotion in these paintings - any emotional response you have to one of these works comes from YOU ... it's all you. And, while that may seem like something that the artist deserves credit for, keep in mind that, if you get an emotional response to an abstract painting, you could just as easily go stare at the rust swirls on the side of a rusty old boxcar, or look at the rainbow oil runoff in a mudpuddle, and get the same feeling. But an artist didn't rust the boxcar or put the oil in the mudpuddle outside your house.
Well, you are defining art. That's where artists draw the line. If artists let laymen define art, there never would have been anything other than perfect portraits and sculptures. And we can carry this into music, film etc. Don't define artists. Let them define themselves. Yeah, fair enough. But the "found" art, "appropriators" (like the Art Guys) and readymades like Duchamp are almost always very well accomplished artists. You probably just walked into a show of theirs that wasn't in context for you. That's all. I actually think it's pretty cool history. Art Guys I know were just having fun with their friends on the appropriations and playing on Duchamp. ok fine. But that is the same for music, film, p*rn...all art! Why is painting and sculpture being singled out?
right. but again. it seems like you are the one holding Art (with a capital 'A') to a high level. I just really like it. I like music too. Film. Dancing. You'd probably say modern dancing is bullsh!it. Film noire. Beatnik poems. Rap Music. Geodesic domes. Do you see where I'm going here? Either you're going to say, Yes they are all bulls!t, making my point, or you are going to say, No, only paintings and scultpture are....making my point. Are you saying your get it, but the Art culture (as in capital 'A') is what sucks, unlike any other "art culture."
btw: I forgot about that bullsh1t theater batman jones does. or is it Theatre!. modern theater sucks too.
My Art History professor hated Abstract Expressionism. After reading how it was just a tool to fight the Soviets culturally, I lost whatever little respect I had for it. I feel sorry for the people who look at AbEx, and claim they can see the beauty. It was just smoke and mirrors.. The Independent: "For decades in art circles it was either a rumour or a joke, but now it is confirmed as a fact. The Central Intelligence Agency used American modern art - including the works of such artists as Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko - as a weapon in the Cold War. In the manner of a Renaissance prince - except that it acted secretly - the CIA fostered and promoted American Abstract Expressionist painting around the world for more than 20 years. Why did the CIA support them? Because in the propaganda war with the Soviet Union, this new artistic movement could be held up as proof of the creativity, the intellectual freedom, and the cultural power of the US. Russian art, strapped into the communist ideological straitjacket, could not compete. The connection is not quite as odd as it might appear. At this time the new agency, staffed mainly by Yale and Harvard graduates, many of whom collected art and wrote novels in their spare time, was a haven of liberalism when compared with a political world dominated by McCarthy or with J Edgar Hoover's FBI. If any official institution was in a position to celebrate the collection of Leninists, Trotskyites and heavy drinkers that made up the New York School, it was the CIA. Because Abstract Expressionism was expensive to move around and exhibit, millionaires and museums were called into play. Pre-eminent among these was Nelson Rockefeller, whose mother had co-founded the Museum of Modern Art in New York. As president of what he called "Mummy's museum", Rockefeller was one of the biggest backers of Abstract Expressionism (which he called "free enterprise painting"). His museum was contracted to the Congress for Cultural Freedom to organise and curate most of its important art shows. But look where this art ended up: in the marble halls of banks, in airports, in city halls, boardrooms and great galleries. For the Cold Warriors who promoted them, these paintings were a logo, a signature for their culture and system which they wanted to display everywhere that counted. They succeeded. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/modern-art-was-cia-weapon-1578808.html
What? Did he really say that? Do you realize how many artists Stalin killed, because he thought Western art was part of the intelligentsia. Do you realize what he did to Russian artists? Have you ever wondered why there are no Abstract Expressionalists from Russia who survived Stalin? Did your prof tell you what "Social Realists" are? Do you also realize we persecuted our artists, too...under the same theory. However, there is about a 20yr separation between Stalin forcing the end of "Western" art to artificially create Constructivism followed by Social Realists and when the CIA decided a relatively old art movement was a "tool." Sorry, but your art history prof is naive. And your little CIA paper that you posted is just all that. A CIA paper. don't make rimbaud get in on this. What happened is you are correct. The CIA said that. But Stalin did too. See the CIA said our artist were communists. Get it. We blackballed. And he killed his artists. However, none of this had anything to do with the power of the artist movement. It actually fueled it.
If any of you have taken art history, was your art history professor an artist? I know the one I took couldn't even draw. And she had a Ph.D in art history. To me, good art is something that cannot be done by laymen. Like portait paintings by the Renaissance artists who paid special attention to features of the human anatomy or sculptors by the masters like Michelangelo and Da Vinci. Or poetry that has meaning, that flows. I was at the UH art exhibit and one of the displays was an original nintendo with super mario selection screen on it, and one controller. And that was art. I could have done that. What gets me is that art enthusiasts who are not capable of painting, drawing, sculpting, or writing anything good seem to know what went through the minds of the works of the abstract artists. They seem to see things other people cannot see.
Actually, many abstract artists wrote what was going through their minds. Just like the Beatles did. You know; they had pens and paper then, and they weren't on LSD. What? I can't play music or paint, but I have much less confidence that I know what was going through John Lennon's mind, than Duchamps. What is your point?
