I Could Do That
August 30, 2015 10:42 AM Subscribe
"So you look at a work of art and think to yourself, I could have done that. And maybe you really could have, but the issue here is more complex than that -- why didn't you? Why did the artist? And why does it have an audience?"
A primer from PBS Digital Studios, addressing common questions about modern art. (YT, 5:40)
A primer from PBS Digital Studios, addressing common questions about modern art. (YT, 5:40)
At one point she basically makes the argument that yes you could very easily produce an identical work, but your biography is nowhere near as interesting, tragic and relevant as the artist's, so there.
While there's no doubt that the whole "my kid could have done that" line of thinking is mostly stupid, I'm not sure this particular argument is very persuasive or useful in countering it.
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posted by Dumsnill at 11:09 AM on August 30, 2015
While there's no doubt that the whole "my kid could have done that" line of thinking is mostly stupid, I'm not sure this particular argument is very persuasive or useful in countering it.
.
posted by Dumsnill at 11:09 AM on August 30, 2015
At one point she basically makes the argument that yes you could very easily produce an identical work, but your biography is nowhere near as interesting, tragic and relevant as the artist's, so there.
That's...really, really not what she's saying at all.
posted by advil at 11:13 AM on August 30, 2015 [11 favorites]
That's...really, really not what she's saying at all.
posted by advil at 11:13 AM on August 30, 2015 [11 favorites]
Me and my dumbshit high school classmates could have used something like this when we went to see Voice of Fire in the National Gallery.
Nowadays, my stock answer to "is it art?" is, "if you have to ask the question, the answer is automatically 'yes'." And from there we descend into an exhausting ad infinitum that would probably stand on its own as performance art.
posted by klanawa at 11:16 AM on August 30, 2015
Nowadays, my stock answer to "is it art?" is, "if you have to ask the question, the answer is automatically 'yes'." And from there we descend into an exhausting ad infinitum that would probably stand on its own as performance art.
posted by klanawa at 11:16 AM on August 30, 2015
"Is it art?" and "Is it good art?" are two very different questions.
posted by Faint of Butt at 11:35 AM on August 30, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by Faint of Butt at 11:35 AM on August 30, 2015 [4 favorites]
I really like this. Just this last week there was an EXTREMELY heated argument in a photography facebook group I belong to where the overwhelming majority of people were LOLing at a photo that had taken first place in a competition. They thought it was ugly/dumb due to it not being objectively beautiful, like most of the landscape (or similar) photos that are usually posted there (it was more of a photojournalism or documentary-style photo) and they then extrapolated their thoughts on that to the actual talent/skill of the award-winning photographer and the judgement of the judges. It was a dispiriting discussion, to say the least.
posted by triggerfinger at 11:37 AM on August 30, 2015
posted by triggerfinger at 11:37 AM on August 30, 2015
When I was a kid, a gallery owner gave my mother a Jean Cocteau lithograph in return for a favor. It looks like a very simple drawing, with only a few lines, and I immediately thought, I could do that! So I did, over and over - I was obsessed with it, drew it all over everything, until I began to understand what was special about it.
In fact my mother ended up giving it to me and I still have it, and I still see new things in it all the time. It's my most prized possession.
posted by maggiemaggie at 11:38 AM on August 30, 2015 [35 favorites]
In fact my mother ended up giving it to me and I still have it, and I still see new things in it all the time. It's my most prized possession.
posted by maggiemaggie at 11:38 AM on August 30, 2015 [35 favorites]
Art is whatever three or more people say it is, not including the artist and their mother.
posted by johnnyace at 11:43 AM on August 30, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by johnnyace at 11:43 AM on August 30, 2015 [2 favorites]
"At one point she basically makes the argument that yes you could very easily produce an identical work, but your biography is nowhere near as interesting, tragic and relevant as the artist's, so there. "
Like Advil said, that is ABSOLUTELY not even remotely what she's saying. You need to re-watch.
posted by jonathanhughes at 11:46 AM on August 30, 2015
Like Advil said, that is ABSOLUTELY not even remotely what she's saying. You need to re-watch.
posted by jonathanhughes at 11:46 AM on August 30, 2015
I sometimes wonder whether the valorization of "art" and "creativity" since the Romantic era has been bad for art itself. All the weird debates surrounding connoisseurship and Good Taste and high and low culture, whether your favorite artist sucks and you're just not smart/subtle/well-informed enough to appreciate this guy's art, so let me explain it to you... a lot of this feels as though what should be a fairly easy and natural sequence of earnest production/ voluntary pleasurable reception has been hopelessly distorted by being made to also serve as a mechanism for social signalling. I mean, on some level, the question "Is this Art?" should be meaningless, shouldn't it? It's a thing that somebody (Art-ificially) made, do you like it? Yes? Good! Enjoy! But what's actually below the surface of that question is, Must I make myself like this to prove my intelligence, even though it's not inherently pleasing to me? Must I pay taxes to fund it? Must I commend you for spending $X to put it in your collection? All of which are fundamentally questions about status and economics, not about beauty or appreciation.
I do think it's interesting that these debates about What Counts As Art seem to spring up a lot more in the arena of the visual arts, vs., say, classical music or dance, and I wonder whether that's because the funding in the performing arts has remained more directly tied to audiences, or whether it's something about the medium itself.
posted by gallusgallus at 12:04 PM on August 30, 2015 [8 favorites]
I do think it's interesting that these debates about What Counts As Art seem to spring up a lot more in the arena of the visual arts, vs., say, classical music or dance, and I wonder whether that's because the funding in the performing arts has remained more directly tied to audiences, or whether it's something about the medium itself.
posted by gallusgallus at 12:04 PM on August 30, 2015 [8 favorites]
Here's a great example of an idea that was pretty obvious in retrospect. How come he thought of it and I didn't?
posted by sneebler at 12:18 PM on August 30, 2015
posted by sneebler at 12:18 PM on August 30, 2015
If I were to say something like "I could do that," what I would mean might be something like "This doesn't display a remarkable amount of technical skill and that's what I really look for in art [mostly because that approach to art had said all that it had to say by the mid 60s at the *latest*, and if I'm looking at some hideous Clyfford Still-esque piece that has been made since 1980, I have to wonder what the hell the artist was thinking, or at least what the artist's fans and critics might be thinking when they don't dismiss it out of hand.]"
But I *wouldn't* usually say "I could do that" because I know first-hand how difficult it is to make an accurate copy of anything, regardless of the skill that went into making it. Also, while I am happy to dismiss pretty much all the latter-day Rothkos that I see, it's harder to dismiss Rothko himself, for all that he couldn't draw and was kind of a one-trick pony; Rothko has the advantage of being one of the the first people to paint like Rothko, and he was working at a time when painting like that was relevant and interesting.
posted by surlyben at 12:19 PM on August 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
But I *wouldn't* usually say "I could do that" because I know first-hand how difficult it is to make an accurate copy of anything, regardless of the skill that went into making it. Also, while I am happy to dismiss pretty much all the latter-day Rothkos that I see, it's harder to dismiss Rothko himself, for all that he couldn't draw and was kind of a one-trick pony; Rothko has the advantage of being one of the the first people to paint like Rothko, and he was working at a time when painting like that was relevant and interesting.
posted by surlyben at 12:19 PM on August 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
"Is it art?" and "Is it good art?" are two very different questions.
Yeah, but you gotta start somewhere.
posted by klanawa at 12:27 PM on August 30, 2015
Yeah, but you gotta start somewhere.
posted by klanawa at 12:27 PM on August 30, 2015
At one point she basically makes the argument that yes you could very easily produce an identical work, but your biography is nowhere near as interesting, tragic and relevant as the artist's, so there.
Just to clarify her argument--- it's not that Felix Gonzalez-Torres had a sad life, and therefore, art. It's that his art built on aspects of his biography and are enriched for it.
Take this work, a pile of candy that visitors are invited to take a piece from. Ok, so what?
Well, the pile of candy is 175 pounds, the weight that his partner was supposed to weigh, except his partner had AIDS, and was slowly becoming emancipated as he died. So when the visitors take the candy, they're making the pile of candy shrink.
So it's not that "Oh, his life is sad"-- this wouldn't work if the biographic details were simply, say "Gonzales-Torres was poor and unhappy"; it's the fact that the art is reflecting an event in his life and thus turns into (for me, at least), a profound statement on death and dying.
posted by damayanti at 12:54 PM on August 30, 2015 [13 favorites]
Just to clarify her argument--- it's not that Felix Gonzalez-Torres had a sad life, and therefore, art. It's that his art built on aspects of his biography and are enriched for it.
Take this work, a pile of candy that visitors are invited to take a piece from. Ok, so what?
Well, the pile of candy is 175 pounds, the weight that his partner was supposed to weigh, except his partner had AIDS, and was slowly becoming emancipated as he died. So when the visitors take the candy, they're making the pile of candy shrink.
So it's not that "Oh, his life is sad"-- this wouldn't work if the biographic details were simply, say "Gonzales-Torres was poor and unhappy"; it's the fact that the art is reflecting an event in his life and thus turns into (for me, at least), a profound statement on death and dying.
posted by damayanti at 12:54 PM on August 30, 2015 [13 favorites]
Here's a great example of an idea that was pretty obvious in retrospect. How come he thought of it and I didn't?
I know at least Bill Watterson has addressed/parodied this attitude.
posted by damayanti at 12:57 PM on August 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
I know at least Bill Watterson has addressed/parodied this attitude.
posted by damayanti at 12:57 PM on August 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
My father taught Fine Art at the University of Guam after graduating from OSU. He painted and collaged up to the last week of his life. I remember quite clearly sitting on a bar stool as a child in my dad's studio and watching him paint. I often asked him, "What is art?" At first I asked to get his goat. With time, I began to appreciate his answers and explanations and recounting of histories.
I learned more about Art with that one question then with all the hours I've spent in museums or classrooms.
posted by endotoxin at 1:54 PM on August 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
I learned more about Art with that one question then with all the hours I've spent in museums or classrooms.
posted by endotoxin at 1:54 PM on August 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
Picture a triangle.
One point is technical skill, or what you might call craft. The ability to paint a bowl of fruit absolutely realistically, say, or add perfect cloissoné to an enamel bowl. This is what most people look for because one person can be objectively more skilled than another at making the same thing, and this kind of skill exists outside the art world, so people are used to evaluating it.
The second point is design. This is the actual placement and interplay of forms, colors, etc. A painting of a bowl of fruit might not be utterly realistic, but the forms are planned such that it is more pleasing to the eye than it would be otherwise. Follow this to its extreme, and you reach total abstraction. The shapes no longer represent a thing, but they stir up an emotional response in the viewer. People can usually still "get" this one, although most will respond to it in terms of "I like it" or "I don't like it" and might not engage with it on a deeper level.
The third point of the triangle is concept. This isn't how realistically you painted the bowl of fruit, or how you framed and presented the forms, but rather why you painted the bowl of fruit. For many works of art, the answer is simply because the artist is really good at their craft and they like doing it, and maybe they had a favorite scene from a religious text they wanted to paint. The closer you get to the conceptual point of the triangle, the more the work is focused on the context and thinking around the piece than the actual object itself. In the case of, say, performance art, there isn't even an object, just an event that happened and the people who experienced it have a reaction and that is the piece. People generally have the hardest time with this stuff because it's mostly invisible, it takes more work, you can't tell if it's objectively good or bad, and most of the time the results are not going to be beautiful or entertaining. Beauty and entertainment are like the sugar and fat of art. Yes, they're good, but you're missing out if that's all you ever consume. Some people appreciate a nice whiskey, or a really sour pickle, or an incredibly spicy hot sauce.
So you've got this triangle, and you can look at a work of art and think about where it lands within that triangle. Realize that many works will not fall directly in the center. Also realize that there are more questions to ask about a work of art than "is this well made?" and "is this pleasing to look at?" Realize that art is a dialogue, that the artist is raising questions so that you are prompted to think about yourself and the artist and the world. Finally, realize that a particular work of art might not resonate with you at all, but it might change the life of the person who just walked in behind you, and that's ok.
posted by buriednexttoyou at 5:23 PM on August 30, 2015 [8 favorites]
One point is technical skill, or what you might call craft. The ability to paint a bowl of fruit absolutely realistically, say, or add perfect cloissoné to an enamel bowl. This is what most people look for because one person can be objectively more skilled than another at making the same thing, and this kind of skill exists outside the art world, so people are used to evaluating it.
The second point is design. This is the actual placement and interplay of forms, colors, etc. A painting of a bowl of fruit might not be utterly realistic, but the forms are planned such that it is more pleasing to the eye than it would be otherwise. Follow this to its extreme, and you reach total abstraction. The shapes no longer represent a thing, but they stir up an emotional response in the viewer. People can usually still "get" this one, although most will respond to it in terms of "I like it" or "I don't like it" and might not engage with it on a deeper level.
The third point of the triangle is concept. This isn't how realistically you painted the bowl of fruit, or how you framed and presented the forms, but rather why you painted the bowl of fruit. For many works of art, the answer is simply because the artist is really good at their craft and they like doing it, and maybe they had a favorite scene from a religious text they wanted to paint. The closer you get to the conceptual point of the triangle, the more the work is focused on the context and thinking around the piece than the actual object itself. In the case of, say, performance art, there isn't even an object, just an event that happened and the people who experienced it have a reaction and that is the piece. People generally have the hardest time with this stuff because it's mostly invisible, it takes more work, you can't tell if it's objectively good or bad, and most of the time the results are not going to be beautiful or entertaining. Beauty and entertainment are like the sugar and fat of art. Yes, they're good, but you're missing out if that's all you ever consume. Some people appreciate a nice whiskey, or a really sour pickle, or an incredibly spicy hot sauce.
So you've got this triangle, and you can look at a work of art and think about where it lands within that triangle. Realize that many works will not fall directly in the center. Also realize that there are more questions to ask about a work of art than "is this well made?" and "is this pleasing to look at?" Realize that art is a dialogue, that the artist is raising questions so that you are prompted to think about yourself and the artist and the world. Finally, realize that a particular work of art might not resonate with you at all, but it might change the life of the person who just walked in behind you, and that's ok.
posted by buriednexttoyou at 5:23 PM on August 30, 2015 [8 favorites]
Which point of the triangle is salesmanship?
posted by Wolfdog at 5:32 PM on August 30, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by Wolfdog at 5:32 PM on August 30, 2015 [4 favorites]
> Here's a great example of an idea that was pretty obvious in retrospect. How come he thought of it and I didn't?
Then again, Piraro came out with this comic not long before that one http://bizarro.com/comics/august-19-2015/
posted by waninggibbon at 6:00 PM on August 30, 2015 [2 favorites]
Then again, Piraro came out with this comic not long before that one http://bizarro.com/comics/august-19-2015/
posted by waninggibbon at 6:00 PM on August 30, 2015 [2 favorites]
I'm guessing PBS didn't ask for any input from Tom Wolfe.
posted by mrhappy at 7:04 PM on August 30, 2015
posted by mrhappy at 7:04 PM on August 30, 2015
"Advertising is the greatest art form of the twentieth century." -- Marshall McLuhan
posted by mrhappy at 7:35 PM on August 30, 2015
posted by mrhappy at 7:35 PM on August 30, 2015
> Which point of the triangle is salesmanship?
The triangle is the fin. The salesmanship is the rest of the rotting shark.
posted by nickzoic at 9:31 PM on August 30, 2015 [2 favorites]
The triangle is the fin. The salesmanship is the rest of the rotting shark.
posted by nickzoic at 9:31 PM on August 30, 2015 [2 favorites]
Capital-A-Art is not my field but it seems to me that a big part of this is that people go to an art museum (or read a textbook) thinking it's supposed to be a collection of "the best art," whereas it's really a collection of art that was significant in various specific historical contexts. I don't mean that it's wrong to look at works and like or dislike them on your own subjective aesthetic grounds but they are all part of a bigger story and if you don't "get" something - a.) that's perfectly okay but b.) you might want at least to try to find out why other people care(d).
posted by atoxyl at 2:19 AM on August 31, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by atoxyl at 2:19 AM on August 31, 2015 [4 favorites]
"This doesn't display a remarkable amount of technical skill and that's what I really look for in art [mostly because that approach to art had said all that it had to say by the mid 60s at the *latest*, and if I'm looking at some hideous Clyfford Still-esque piece that has been made since 1980, I have to wonder what the hell the artist was thinking, or at least what the artist's fans and critics might be thinking when they don't dismiss it out of hand.]"
I am quite interested in this comment, because you seem to be standing up for the idea of art as a contest of technical skill (or at least an endeavor which requires some minimum level of technicality to be done well) which I was going to say is another attitude which is common but which seem largely beside the point. What kind of art do you like? I actually completely agree that abstract expressionist sort of stuff is fairly played out (though Clyfford Still paintings are awesome) but surely then is any kind of realism and many other styles. If anything the conclusion that I'd come to is that painting as a medium is not particularly fertile ground these days.
Also you're aware that Rothko did not always do the color field thing?
posted by atoxyl at 2:42 AM on August 31, 2015
I am quite interested in this comment, because you seem to be standing up for the idea of art as a contest of technical skill (or at least an endeavor which requires some minimum level of technicality to be done well) which I was going to say is another attitude which is common but which seem largely beside the point. What kind of art do you like? I actually completely agree that abstract expressionist sort of stuff is fairly played out (though Clyfford Still paintings are awesome) but surely then is any kind of realism and many other styles. If anything the conclusion that I'd come to is that painting as a medium is not particularly fertile ground these days.
Also you're aware that Rothko did not always do the color field thing?
posted by atoxyl at 2:42 AM on August 31, 2015
From the YouTube comments (by user Lauren Fairweather):
> For me, looking at art and getting the feeling that I could do it myself is an AWESOME feeling. It's not an attempt to tear down what an artist did, which is a way I've heard other people reacting sometimes - it inspires and fuels my own creativity.
Precisely. It's good to recognise your own ability and also not to criticise the other artists for things they actually get right. Because I guess the reason why artists might say that they could do some other thing better is that they realise the original work had something good to build on. If it was completely worthless, well, why bother?
I started writing because I knew that just with a little bit of practice (okay, it turned out to be a lot of practice) I could be writing better stories than some of the (*ahem*) people who somehow managed to get published. And over that time, I started to realise that actually writing even bad books takes a lot of effort and that even those supposed hack writers still had to have a lot of technical competence to get people even considering the books to be publishable. Artistic competence isn't something that you either have or don't have - it's something that people are blessed in various forms, and some more than the others.
Bottom line: someone might ask me "do you think you could write better books than Dan Brown?" and I'd say "yeah, probably, but some parts of that require a lot of work. Did you know that Brown actually did something right in—" ...and then I get funny looks. Dan Brown getting something right? Unthinkable! But when you look at his novels critically, you can easily notice that he's got some knack in keeping the plot together and moving forward and keeping the reader entertained and intrigued, which is probably a secret of his success. It's surprisingly easy to write a boring book despite your best attempts, and Brown has made some books that, despite their failings in other areas, aren't boring.
posted by wwwwolf at 3:17 AM on August 31, 2015 [4 favorites]
> For me, looking at art and getting the feeling that I could do it myself is an AWESOME feeling. It's not an attempt to tear down what an artist did, which is a way I've heard other people reacting sometimes - it inspires and fuels my own creativity.
Precisely. It's good to recognise your own ability and also not to criticise the other artists for things they actually get right. Because I guess the reason why artists might say that they could do some other thing better is that they realise the original work had something good to build on. If it was completely worthless, well, why bother?
I started writing because I knew that just with a little bit of practice (okay, it turned out to be a lot of practice) I could be writing better stories than some of the (*ahem*) people who somehow managed to get published. And over that time, I started to realise that actually writing even bad books takes a lot of effort and that even those supposed hack writers still had to have a lot of technical competence to get people even considering the books to be publishable. Artistic competence isn't something that you either have or don't have - it's something that people are blessed in various forms, and some more than the others.
Bottom line: someone might ask me "do you think you could write better books than Dan Brown?" and I'd say "yeah, probably, but some parts of that require a lot of work. Did you know that Brown actually did something right in—" ...and then I get funny looks. Dan Brown getting something right? Unthinkable! But when you look at his novels critically, you can easily notice that he's got some knack in keeping the plot together and moving forward and keeping the reader entertained and intrigued, which is probably a secret of his success. It's surprisingly easy to write a boring book despite your best attempts, and Brown has made some books that, despite their failings in other areas, aren't boring.
posted by wwwwolf at 3:17 AM on August 31, 2015 [4 favorites]
An argument from a different side... Why is Modern Art so Bad
I think the one thing that a great many of the arguments people have mentioned miss something. In general your audience has heard them before and hasn't changed their opinion. You can bask in how you get it and sneer at those that don't, but does that help? And sorry my intent is not to ascribe motivation, or to be insulting, but it does often come across that way.
Yes there are some profound statements being made and some is beautiful, or surprisingly technical or has some other wonderful quality... But sometimes they feel lost in the sea of mundne. If so much of the work produced leave so many people cold... totally fail to inspire... or hell produces straight up contempt... then what exactly is the point?
Yes not all art is for all people. I love art, and I think there is a place for everything. But I really do feel that too much of it has come to rely on some clever artist's statement. Or on people trying to find meaning in some random assortment of items. Or make connections that honestly probably aren't there.
Maybe the only even remote point I have is the amount or ratio. Maybe there is simply too much of this "Bad" art being made, or maybe too much relative to the amount of "Good" art? And yeah those are pretty terrible and loaded descriptors.
posted by cirhosis at 11:42 AM on August 31, 2015
I think the one thing that a great many of the arguments people have mentioned miss something. In general your audience has heard them before and hasn't changed their opinion. You can bask in how you get it and sneer at those that don't, but does that help? And sorry my intent is not to ascribe motivation, or to be insulting, but it does often come across that way.
Yes there are some profound statements being made and some is beautiful, or surprisingly technical or has some other wonderful quality... But sometimes they feel lost in the sea of mundne. If so much of the work produced leave so many people cold... totally fail to inspire... or hell produces straight up contempt... then what exactly is the point?
Yes not all art is for all people. I love art, and I think there is a place for everything. But I really do feel that too much of it has come to rely on some clever artist's statement. Or on people trying to find meaning in some random assortment of items. Or make connections that honestly probably aren't there.
Maybe the only even remote point I have is the amount or ratio. Maybe there is simply too much of this "Bad" art being made, or maybe too much relative to the amount of "Good" art? And yeah those are pretty terrible and loaded descriptors.
posted by cirhosis at 11:42 AM on August 31, 2015
That video link is posted by Prager University, which is not an actual university, but a project of Dennis Prager, a National Review columnist and professional right-winger. It would be unfair to the argument to just say YANNO WHO ELSE HATED MODERN ART, but the matter is politicized.
In the video, artist Robert Florczak rips on works of real technical skill for violating "aesthetic standards," which were apparently set around 1900 and should never have moved since, but did so because of relativism. The "emperor's new clothes" are of course invoked.
posted by Countess Elena at 12:29 PM on August 31, 2015
In the video, artist Robert Florczak rips on works of real technical skill for violating "aesthetic standards," which were apparently set around 1900 and should never have moved since, but did so because of relativism. The "emperor's new clothes" are of course invoked.
posted by Countess Elena at 12:29 PM on August 31, 2015
Yeah... I wan't entirely aware of the background of that piece, thanks for pointing it out. I did find some of it a bit icky, I should probably have said that I didn't entirely agree with everything but it did make some valid (if snobish?) points.
The rest of what I said does stand on it's own though.
posted by cirhosis at 12:51 PM on August 31, 2015
The rest of what I said does stand on it's own though.
posted by cirhosis at 12:51 PM on August 31, 2015
But I really do feel that too much of it has come to rely on some clever artist's statement. Or on people trying to find meaning in some random assortment of items. Or make connections that honestly probably aren't there.
Maybe the only even remote point I have is the amount or ratio. Maybe there is simply too much of this "Bad" art being made, or maybe too much relative to the amount of "Good" art?
But what is this ratio you are assuming? How much of current art (let's say, 40s onwards) really has one of these properties? I personally think very little. Like, here's the Canadian National Gallery's entire contemporary collection (it's on my mind because I was there a couple weeks ago; note that for them contemporary doesn't include e.g. rothko or newman, that kind of thing is in "international") -- I am just hard pressed to find anything there that can be described as "bad" art for any of these reasons. In these discussions there's a lot of focus on specific examples that might be described as the low-hanging fruit, and the OP video chose to tackle examples of this head-on, defending even them (rightly so in my opinion). But this (properties in the italicized quote) is not at all how I experience the vast majority of pieces when I go to a contemporary gallery.
Even for something like voice of fire, that everyone likes to make fun of, I'm not convinced that in the end it relies on anything other than what it is. This is the kind of piece (along with a lot of color field work, as well as probably a lot of larger-scale contemporary art) where I feel like it's _really easy_ to underestimate just how different the experience of seeing the actual piece is from seeing a picture on the web or even a non-to-scale print. It is massive, almost overwhelming in its physicality, and dispels any notion that you or your kid could easily create such a thing. (Also, it turns out, now probably worth at least 10x what the gallery paid for it, based on recent prices at auction, so also a good ROI.)
posted by advil at 3:48 PM on August 31, 2015
Maybe the only even remote point I have is the amount or ratio. Maybe there is simply too much of this "Bad" art being made, or maybe too much relative to the amount of "Good" art?
But what is this ratio you are assuming? How much of current art (let's say, 40s onwards) really has one of these properties? I personally think very little. Like, here's the Canadian National Gallery's entire contemporary collection (it's on my mind because I was there a couple weeks ago; note that for them contemporary doesn't include e.g. rothko or newman, that kind of thing is in "international") -- I am just hard pressed to find anything there that can be described as "bad" art for any of these reasons. In these discussions there's a lot of focus on specific examples that might be described as the low-hanging fruit, and the OP video chose to tackle examples of this head-on, defending even them (rightly so in my opinion). But this (properties in the italicized quote) is not at all how I experience the vast majority of pieces when I go to a contemporary gallery.
Even for something like voice of fire, that everyone likes to make fun of, I'm not convinced that in the end it relies on anything other than what it is. This is the kind of piece (along with a lot of color field work, as well as probably a lot of larger-scale contemporary art) where I feel like it's _really easy_ to underestimate just how different the experience of seeing the actual piece is from seeing a picture on the web or even a non-to-scale print. It is massive, almost overwhelming in its physicality, and dispels any notion that you or your kid could easily create such a thing. (Also, it turns out, now probably worth at least 10x what the gallery paid for it, based on recent prices at auction, so also a good ROI.)
posted by advil at 3:48 PM on August 31, 2015
I am quite interested in this comment, because you seem to be standing up for the idea of art as a contest of technical skill (or at least an endeavor which requires some minimum level of technicality to be done well).
I kind of feel that way? At least with technically proficient work I can always marvel at the difficulty. The alternative is to have ideas which are so good that they can withstand shoddy execution, or else to have bad ideas and bad execution and repeat them often and with enough conviction that people take the art seriously. That can be interesting (Yves Klein is one of my favorite painters, and The Void might be my favorite modern art painting), but I tend to favor artists who can and do draw, and I like illustrative art movements: Art Nouveau, Vienna Secession, Egon Schiele. If we were discussing art over beers, I might try to make the case that the only culturally important visual artists since the 1960s are comic book artists and illustrators, (and maybe graffiti artists.)
As for Rothko, a few years ago I went to a Rothko retrospective, and they had a room full of his early paintings. My sense was of a guy who couldn't really draw (though it's hard to say for sure... it may have been intentional,) and who spent his youth making not very good paintings in the popular modernist styles of his time. His early work is all a bit here and there, and it was a relief to move on to the remainder of the exhibit, which consisted of the color field paintings he did from his 40s until his death. It made me wonder how cynical he was about them and their role in his success.
posted by surlyben at 7:18 PM on August 31, 2015
I kind of feel that way? At least with technically proficient work I can always marvel at the difficulty. The alternative is to have ideas which are so good that they can withstand shoddy execution, or else to have bad ideas and bad execution and repeat them often and with enough conviction that people take the art seriously. That can be interesting (Yves Klein is one of my favorite painters, and The Void might be my favorite modern art painting), but I tend to favor artists who can and do draw, and I like illustrative art movements: Art Nouveau, Vienna Secession, Egon Schiele. If we were discussing art over beers, I might try to make the case that the only culturally important visual artists since the 1960s are comic book artists and illustrators, (and maybe graffiti artists.)
As for Rothko, a few years ago I went to a Rothko retrospective, and they had a room full of his early paintings. My sense was of a guy who couldn't really draw (though it's hard to say for sure... it may have been intentional,) and who spent his youth making not very good paintings in the popular modernist styles of his time. His early work is all a bit here and there, and it was a relief to move on to the remainder of the exhibit, which consisted of the color field paintings he did from his 40s until his death. It made me wonder how cynical he was about them and their role in his success.
posted by surlyben at 7:18 PM on August 31, 2015
Achieving technical mastery requires an abundance of time, education, and materials that most people simply will never have. A lot of what people look for in technical skill is pretty narrowly defined and heavily influenced by western art history. It's great to enjoy the work of someone who has had the opportunity, talent, and drive to reach mastery over a visual medium. If you deprioritize that metric when taking in other artwork, however, you open yourself up to a whole world of voices with amazing things to say. You might also discover artists who have achieved mastery in skills you didn't even know existed.
In the end, certain things will touch you, and others won't. It doesn't hurt to keep an open mind, though.
posted by buriednexttoyou at 9:42 PM on August 31, 2015
In the end, certain things will touch you, and others won't. It doesn't hurt to keep an open mind, though.
posted by buriednexttoyou at 9:42 PM on August 31, 2015
The problem with the "It isn't art, I could have made that" "Then why didn't you?!" thing is when you discover that you've made the same piece of art as another artist, and you were first, and you don't think it's "good" art. It's happened to me once, and I expressed myself spectacularly poorly when it came up, but I seriously doubt that even if I phrased myself well the response would change much. "S/he did it first" isn't really the reason people like stuff, it's just a snappy comeback.
posted by Bugbread at 7:39 AM on September 1, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Bugbread at 7:39 AM on September 1, 2015 [1 favorite]
Borges's Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote is one of my very favorite things. It illustrates that context matters a great deal in art. The artist, the time, the place, the social context . . . All of these things necessarily change the way that audiences will consider a piece. There's a sense in which all art is a performance and not only an artifact.
posted by chrchr at 11:36 AM on September 1, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by chrchr at 11:36 AM on September 1, 2015 [1 favorite]
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posted by cmoj at 11:01 AM on August 30, 2015