modern art = shit

civ_eng_girl

Urban Hiker wrote:

I also thought some were pretty damn good. Hell, I'd hang them in my bathroom or wear them on a t-shirt.

That number 21 is hilarious to me 'cause there is something very much like it in the special exhibits section of the Seattle Art Museum. I think I wanted to tell that painting to 'Fuck Off' when I saw it.

haha... "fuck you, yellow ochre #86!!" :mad:

Collin

civ_eng_girl wrote:

LOL! i saw this one when it was at the Art Institute of Chicago:

http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?criteria=O%3ADE%3AI%3A5%7CG%3AHO%3AE%3A1&page_number=79&template_id=1&sort_order=1

read the description dunky... it should piss you right off!

Meet Malevich,

or Laib

Urban Hiker

Collin wrote:

Meet Malevich,

or Laib

For them I counter with this: http://theworstartaward2006.files.wordpress.com/2006/08/25.JPG

What do you say civ_eng_girl?

civ_eng_girl

Urban Hiker wrote:

For them I counter with this: http://theworstartaward2006.files.wordpress.com/2006/08/25.JPG

What do you say civ_eng_girl?

how 'bout a little EMEK?
http://www.expressobeans.com/public/detail.php/23563


hahah... to tell you the truth, i didn't hate the Reinhardt one when i saw it... it struck me as odd when i first looked at it, because it looked like it was a plain black canvas... and it wasn't until i read the description that i noticed the subtle detail in it... which then made me wonder if having such subtle detail in it made it more or less odd? i couldn't decide. overall it was strange, but not unpleasant.

decides2dream

MrSmith wrote:

I don't believe that skill is unnecessary in creating art. A poet or writer needs special skill with language, a musician needs skill with an instrument. why does a visual artist get off easy? why should I value an unskilled artist's work? One must have skill to convey an idea or emotion to someone visually (and not by using a stupid placard!)

i agree that photorealism is a huge waste of time, but thats not what the great ones go for either. I love the impressionists. they often blended technical skill and creativity masterfully. But much of the art since sucks because the art establishment has completely rejected any degree of quality, and many in fact go out of their way to discourage technical ability and consider the ideas of art pre-19th century to be inferior. they threw out hundreds of years of artistry. anyone can be an artist now.

hmmm...again....impressionists = modern art.


who said 'unskilled'....there are varying degrees of skill, and also what one CHOOSES to employ. plenty of artists have the SKILL, and do not utilize them fully b/c the IDEAS are paramount to the technique in their minds.


there are artists, today, who possess and demonstrate said 'skills' that others seem to laude. take a look at the superrealists and dare say such arytists are 'unskilled.' that said, give me the work of klimt, matisse, chagall over it any day of the week.


ART IS SUBJECTIVE.



*anyone* could be an artist at ANY time. whether one gets *recognized* ofor their efforts, another story entirely.


techinical ability alone does not equate "art" but merely, technical ability. one can play, draw, paint, etc...but the ideas and concepts are what truly make an artist create art imho.

LikeAnOcean

Art isn't supposed to be like-able.. It's supposed to provoke thought. Some of the simplistic things in life can end up being the most interesting.

That said, most modern art pisses me off. It's interesting, but still pisses me off.



I like the work Darell Anderson did for Stephen King. This is the stuff I'm into..

http://www.braid.com/darktower/stanza%20images/stanza%2010.jpg

http://www.stephenking.com/darktower/images/the_artwork/song/9.jpg

http://www.stephenking.com/darktower/images/the_artwork/song/11.jpg

http://www.braid.com/darktower/stanza%20images/stanza%206.jpg

jamie uk

Jeremy1012 wrote:

That's like saying modern music is shit, or modern film is shit, or modern literature is shit. Of course some of it is, even a lot. A lot is fantastic though. Art is not about photorealistic paintings, it's about ideas.

I don't reckon it is really, modern music is good if it's well crafted, whatever it sounds like. I appreciate that point. But to call some of the pictures you posted 'art', is like me banging a dustbin with a golf club and saying it's music.
i.e. It isn't, it requires no particular talent or requirement, other than having the essential elements..a bin and a club. Just like taking a picture of corrugated iron simply requires a camera and some erm, corrugated iron, rather than talent and craft.
Oh, and the ever present 'brass neck', that I mentioned earlier, that allows thses individuals to wax lyrical (talk bollocks) about it 'til the finger painted cows come home.

catefrances

decides2dream wrote:

ART IS SUBJECTIVE.

this is true. though it doesnt change the fact that some modern art is still shite.

decides2dream wrote:

*anyone* could be an artist at ANY time. whether one gets *recognized* ofor their efforts, another story entirely.

which is much what the fluxus artists were saying.

if you stand in front of an artist or piece of art and say "oh yeah i can do that", then why dont you?

catefrances

civ_eng_girl wrote:

we really shouldn't forget that some of people's favorite "real" artists fall under the 'modern art' category:

Picasso
Seurat
Matisse
Modigiliani
Van Gogh
Klimt
Dali


what about Jackson Pollock? can you splatter paint better than him?

what about Warhol? are soup cans art?

so many questions....

anything's art if you pay enough for it.

dunkman

LikeAnOcean wrote:

Art isn't supposed to be like-able.. It's supposed to provoke thought. Some of the simplistic things in life can end up being the most interesting.

you just described Jeffrey Dahmer...

is serial killing art?

Westernsky

dunkman wrote:

is serial killing art?

No, but that reminds me of something... you might get a kick out of the film Art School Confidential - it's got bad art and campy serial killing storyline.
It's bad awful hilarious.

harmless_little_f***

MrSmith wrote:

But much of the art since sucks because the art establishment has completely rejected any degree of quality, and many in fact go out of their way to discourage technical ability and consider the ideas of art pre-19th century to be inferior. they threw out hundreds of years of artistry. anyone can be an artist now.

This is actually a very interesting point of view, because it was only in the 16th/17th/18th/19th centuries that technical ability even became remotely associated with art, and especially with the Enlightenment and Modernity, when precision and detail and exactness started to matter. In all areas of thought and industry, we wanted to find exactness. We wanted to find 'truth'. These centuries were famous for the 'old masters' - called so for a reason.

Before this, just to take one example, you had ancient Celtic art which, though skillfull, was often far from precise and featured men with elongated appendiges - *ahem* - as well as lion heads, dog heads, bird heads... much like tribal art. I don't take the view that 'Yeah but these were more primitive people.' They weren't, they were skilled labourers and farmers and architects and craftsmen in gold and stone. But colour and imagination and spiritual depth were the order of the age, not technical ability and photo-realism. They wouldn't have even heard of photo-realism.

So you could say that Modern/Post-modern art is doing nothing more than going back to a Pre-modern time when none of our Modernist artistic trappings mattered. This technical ability is no more a part of art than space shuttles are part of world exploration.

Westernsky

harmless_little_f*** wrote:

This is actually a very interesting point of view, because it was only in the 18th/19th centuries that technical ability even became remotely associated with art, and especially with the Enlightenment and Modernity, when precision and detail and exactness started to matter. In all areas of thought and industry, we wanted to find exactness. We wanted to find 'truth'. These centuries were famous for the 'old masters' - called so for a reason.

It goes back a bit further. Think early renaissance, even before Brunelleschi and Donatello were working on developments in perspective in the 15c. At this point there is still a close link between art (architecture) and science. This type of precision became highly valued, almost in a divine context and became central to the notion that artist were creating not just a depiction, but a "window" to another place.

harmless_little_f*** wrote:

But colour and imagination and spiritual depth were the order of the age, not technical ability and photo-realism. They wouldn't have even heard of photo-realism.

I think that is the key that hasn't been mentioned. One of the single most important developments in nineteenth century art is the invention of the modern camera and the spread of photography. Once you can capture the image as it is seen, create, without any deception, a true window with a photograph, why should artists strive to? There had been hints of modernism, from the loose brushwork of Velasquez to David flattening out the picture plane, but from the mid nineteenth century forward, artists began focusing on formal issues... art for art's sake (see Whistler's 1874 Nocturne in Black and Gold).
Impressionism stems forth from this movement, this push towards painterly concerns (light, texture, surface...).

One of the things I hear mentioned again and again is the idea that anything can be art, and this is problematic because it takes the skill and craft out of the equation. If anything can be art, then anyone can be an artist. The thing is that is not truly a modernist idea, that comes directly from Duchamp.

It's Duchamp and his readymades that really force this notion of the appropriated object as art (anything can be art). That upside down urinal was art because he said so, because he made that choice, because he placed it in context, and because he forced it to be seen that way in 1917 (even if it was tossed out of the gallery). No one really picks up on Duchamp' ideas for another forty-odd years, hence his close link to post modernism and later conceptual or idea art.

But I digress....
I agree that art is subjective. I am only encouraged that people continue discussions like this, that art, even arguably bad art, can still insight this type of spirited discourse.
And in that spirit I will contribute my idea of bad, sad and pathetic art: Damien Hirst's For the Love of God, 2007.

And because I can't help it, I'll also throw in one of my favorite artists (again because he was so twisted) Francis Bacon.

harmless_little_f***

Westernsky wrote:

It goes back a bit further. Think early renaissance, even before Brunelleschi and Donatello were working on developments in perspective in the 15c. At this point there is still a close link between art (architecture) and science. This type of precision became highly valued, almost in a divine context and became central to the notion that artist were creating not just a depiction, but a "window" to another place.

That was weird, I actually edited my 18th/19th C to include quite a bit earlier soon after I posted, and quite a bit before you did... hmmmm. Must have been a gap in the time/space continuum. But yes... you're exactly right. I'm just opposed to the idea that people say technical skill/photo realism *is* art, when that's only been the predominant idea for several hundred years, just a speck of dust on the whole of human history.

civ_eng_girl

Westernsky wrote:

(see Whistler's 1874 Nocturne in Black and Gold).

i have this on a fridge magnet at home!

went to an impressionist exhibit at the AGO, and this painting really stood out for me, against all of Monet's pastelly pinks and blues...

decides2dream

catefrances wrote:

this is true. though it doesnt change the fact that some modern art is still shite.

nothing i have posted even remotely suggests otherwise.

catefrances wrote:

which is much what the fluxus artists were saying.

if you stand in front of an artist or piece of art and say "oh yeah i can do that", then why dont you?

indeed.
it is the IDEA....beyond just the IMAGE.

as western sky states here:

Westernsky wrote:

I think that is the key that hasn't been mentioned. One of the single most important developments in nineteenth century art is the invention of the modern camera and the spread of photography. Once you can capture the image as it is seen, create, without any deception, a true window with a photograph, why should artists strive to? There had been hints of modernism, from the loose brushwork of Velasquez to David flattening out the picture plane, but from the mid nineteenth century forward, artists began focusing on formal issues... art for art's sake (see Whistler's 1874 Nocturne in Black and Gold).
Impressionism stems forth from this movement, this push towards painterly concerns (light, texture, surface...).

One of the things I hear mentioned again and again is the idea that anything can be art, and this is problematic because it takes the skill and craft out of the equation. If anything can be art, then anyone can be an artist. The thing is that is not truly a modernist idea, that comes directly from Duchamp.

It's Duchamp and his readymades that really force this notion of the appropriated object as art (anything can be art). That upside down urinal was art because he said so, because he made that choice, because he placed it in context, and because he forced it to be seen that way in 1917 (even if it was tossed out of the gallery). No one really picks up on Duchamp' ideas for another forty-odd years, hence his close link to post modernism and later conceptual or idea art.

definite history of the beginning of 'modern art'......in a nutshell. i brought up duchamp and the dadaist's earlier...in particular his fountain. evidently some may think that was the beginning of the end of art. to me, that's when it truly got *interesting*...beyond mere ability....and into the relam of ideas. now if that is pretentious wank to some, so be it. again, some of it is and can be. however, a LOT of it is not...and to dismiss it all, or call it all pretentious just b/c one doesn't like or agree with it....is quite dismissive, period. art for art's sake.

Jeremy1012

dunkman wrote:

you just described Jeffrey Dahmer...

is serial killing art?

The classical composer and pioneer of electronic music Karlheinz Stockhausen who died last year called 9/11 the greatest work of art ever conceived... so in a way, it could be. There was uproar about his comments but I know what he meant. He wasn't saying it was nice art or enjoyable art. He was just saying that, aesthetically, it was the most powerful and provocative creation ever made by human beings.

The guy was a pretentious git but it's an interesting idea.

harmless_little_f***

Jeremy1012 wrote:

The classical composer and pioneer of electronic music Karlheinz Stockhausen who died last year called 9/11 the greatest work of art ever conceived... so in a way, it could be. There was uproar about his comments but I know what he meant. He wasn't saying it was nice art or enjoyable art. He was just saying that, aesthetically, it was the most powerful and provocative creation ever made by human beings.

The guy was a pretentious git but it's an interesting idea.

The word 'deconstructionist' comes to mind.

jamie uk

Jeremy1012 wrote:

The classical composer and pioneer of electronic music Karlheinz Stockhausen who died last year called 9/11 the greatest work of art ever conceived... so in a way, it could be. There was uproar about his comments but I know what he meant. He wasn't saying it was nice art or enjoyable art. He was just saying that, aesthetically, it was the most powerful and provocative creation ever made by human beings.

The guy was a pretentious git but it's an interesting idea.

I don't think it's an interesting idea, I think it's ludicrous, and it's indicitive of the bollocks and bullshit that's been spouted here these last few days. Sorry an all

urbanhippie

jamie uk wrote:

I don't think it's an interesting idea, I think it's ludicrous, and it's indicitive of the bollocks and bullshit that's been spouted here these last few days. Sorry an all

Don't hold back Jamie...tell us how you really feel