[Closed] Modern art??

i like it too. it's not exactly modern art in the way that cezanne, mondrian, rothko are though is it.

unless you know what he's trying to achieve then cezanne has no purpose whatsoever.

I have absolutely no knowledge about motion, time, space and perception

It's impressive that those of us without an education in art can ride a bike at all...

If you are looking at work that is old - and the 'modern' work we are talking about mainly here is really very old- then understanding more about it isn't a question of elitism its one of context. Rembrant his compatriots in the 17th century and the Hyper-realist painters of the 1970s were doing something very different but superficially very similar. Its fine to like either or both. But its interesting to learn why they were painting what they painted, the way they painted it, in the time when they painted it.

The hyper-realists of the 70s for instance have more in common with their contemporaries - hard edge abstract minimalists than they do with Rembrant. They might not have admitted it at the time - they were sworn enemies, the artists I know from that era recall college gang fights between the figurative artists and abstract ones, which usually started with the figurative popsters taunting the abstractionists that their paintings looked like something.

And hyper-realist artist today, like Ron Mueck are doing something different again, Mueck's work is sensuous in the way that the 70's artists deliberately weren't.

That said, I found my limits in the Tate Modern a couple of months ago. There was a film of a naked woman standing on a river bank jabbering in Spanish and throwing buckets of blood on herself.

If you mean the Ana Mendieta loop with the feathers, I loved that. Totally silent and jabber-free though.

Caillebot is my favourite impressionist...I wonder why 🙂
[img] [/img]

Mueck's work is sensuous in the way that the 70's artists deliberately weren't

I'm rather fond of Tracey Emin's art. I see no difference between her version of an act of creation or those of Rembrandt.

Perhaps the stuckists amongst us (Hello Fred) could define why this:

[img] [/img]

is not art.

Well that is rubbish - I like his work (in the main - and I have seen some of his work up close at Musee D'Orsey) but I have absolutely no knowledge about motion, time, space and perception. Why on earth should I need to?

cos otherwise it just looks like a really badly drawn bowl of fruit.

That is just the sort of crap people say to make it sound like they have some superior knowledge

Oh dear, if you say so. Not much point debating with you.

EDIT: Actually, I can't be bothered. 🙂

I haven't been taught anything about him - I just liked his work as soon as I saw it.

what do you like about it? What do you see as the central message? How does it change the way you see the world? What does it provoke in you?
Can you interpret it enactively, iconically, symbolically ?

cos otherwise it just looks like a really badly drawn bowl of fruit.

what do you like about it? What do you see as the central message? How does it change the way you see the world? What does it provoke in you?
Can you interpret it enactively, iconically, symbolically ?

I just like it. No more explanation needed than that - I just like how it looks.

Theres nothing wrong with that, theres also nothing wrong for liking if for a whole host of other reasons. And theres nothing wrong with disliking it even though you think it looks nice.

I just like it. No more explanation needed than that - I just like how it looks.

OK fine, it's a pretty picture.
For me, that's not art.

OK fine, it's a pretty picture.
For me, that's not art.

Don't be so silly. So if I like, say, Van Gogh's, Sunflowers just because I like how it looks it stops being art?

No, it just means it never was art, for you.

Well, if you like it because it is pretty, then you tell me why it is art?

It's only art if you think it has artistic merit.

your opinions about art are a bit sad, not because i am precious about what the notion of art is (why not just good art and crap art?) but because they are so 'the same' in relation to a different kind of model of receptivity, based, not around taste (if anything that de-values the question of what art is) but because, well, how do i put it? imagine a collector like Leo Castelli, or a serious critic like Briony Fer or Benjamin Buchloh. Together these are the people who's reception of art enables us to see anything at all, these are the people who buy the first examples of whoever it is. and then clever business people do. but in a way these guys don't spend money and time and ideas, hedging their bets, trying to get their heads round things in the same way we do, but they [u]produce[/u] art's value, do you see? they are not so much passive recievers who think (ignorantly) that their choices 'make them who they are' but together with the artists, who they usually are friendly with, they construct the art's social value which they then hand down to us to have petty arguments about.

so what you're saying is that these demi-gods help the artist write the bullshit after they've finished making the big lumps of interesting stuff for us to look at..?

(and have you got a contact number for these esteemed weavers of cultural futures..? cos I've got some pretties that need an official seal of approval...)

yeah, i'm not saying it's right. but the realities of patronage, ideology, philosophy, and the unappealing reality of a factory line of spotty interns doing most of the actual 'making', goes back well past the 15th century. in some ways the 'de-materialisation' of art (which a lot of the contemporary art that everyone loves to hate is influenced by which really had its key moment in the late sixties) can be seen as a good thing from the average joe's point of view. the work becomes about an embodied everyday relationship to the world in a way that, waaaaaaay before it can be marketed, had to go through some pretty rigorous argumentation to get noticed. it also presents work which often is 'unownable', collective and socially and politically active in important new ways.

Binners?

Binners?!?

BINNERS??!?!!!

BIIIIIIIINNNNNNEEEEEERRRRSSSS?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Don't be so silly. So if I like, say, Van Gogh's, Sunflowers just because I like how it looks it stops being art?
No, it just means it never was art, for you.
Well, if you like it because it is pretty, then you tell me why it is art?
It's only art if you think it has artistic merit.

[i]It's only art if you think it has artistic merit.[/i]

Which normal people express by saying 'Ooh, I like that'.

Art is a massive excuse for peoples' essential cock monkeyness to be displayed.

Sigh.

Photography is the essence of this question I believe.

I could take a photo of a stunning landscape and it'd be a lovely picture. But it would not be art imo.

Likewise most of the pics that come up in the 'world's greatest photos' lists are 'right place right time' snaps. So are they art?

Anyone can press the shutter release, but why are some photos art and some not?

Oh, and whilst I'm on this thread there's a massive difference between 'It's rubbish' and 'I don't like it' or 'it does nothing for me'.

i think 'normal people' don't visit art galleries because they don't get educated to enjoy art so it represents something they they feel alienated or excluded by.

probably why modern art elicits such negative responses generally.

that's indicative of our education system though isn't it ? spend 5 years attempting to teach a bunch of people who will never be able to draw/paint, how to draw/paint instead of teaching them how to get the most out of the huge canon of art that surrounds them.

I think there is nothing wrong with trying to understand the history of a piece of art, the context, the technology behind it, the inspiration, the display and so on, but I object most strongly to attempts to intellectualise and overstate the academic appreciation of it; it represents some odd desire to assume a superior attitude, some attempt at snobbery by the back door. The 'value' of art is personal, not financial, hence many peoples disregard for the work of Damian Hirst and Tracey Emin.

It's cool not to like stuff, just as much as it is cool to like stuff, and not liking stuff is not an admission of philistinism.

[i]i think 'normal people' don't visit art galleries because they don't get educated to enjoy art so it represents something they they feel alienated or excluded by.[/i]

If that's your attitude, who is doing the alienating and excluding?

Do we need to be educated to enjoy mountain biking? Is it of less value when experienced by 'normal people'?

You don't have to be educated to enjoy art for the little baby Jebus's sake! Get that notion out of your head please.

i think 'normal people' don't visit art galleries because they don't get educated to enjoy art so it represents something they they feel alienated or excluded by.

probably why modern art elicits such negative responses generally.

MF - it really does help.

The people who make these pieces might be drawing on a ton of cumulative knowledge and experience. If you don't have that then you have no context, and Pollock is just paint splodges and Rothko is just coloured squares.

Rothko is just coloured squares.

Well it is isn't it? But I still like his stuff. I even did some of my own with leftover eggshell from doing the woodwork. Framed 'em. They look the bollocks. All my mates think they're cool as shit when they came round.

[i]Pollock is just paint splodges and Rothko is just coloured squares.[/i]

and?

i like rothko too. i've got one in my lounge because the colours are just right. it looks great.

i've no idea what it is or what it means or why the painter painted it.

to my mind, because of that i'm not getting the most out of that piece of art. if i bothered to educate myself, i'd get more out of it.

+1 TM.

OTOH I get a lot out of the Emin bed without needing education, despite everything calling it rubbish.

Ooooh, I just look at mine and feel it. I'm not sure I could explain to ordinary people what I get out of it.

What were you thinkign when you made it?

Mrs deadly asked the same question. 🙂

I went to the opening of a show recently.. some of my work was featured and I knew a couple of the other exibitors.. it was a street art show..

I was not prepared to over analyse the work on the night preferring to keep things at a level that I felt was more honest (and that I felt more comfortable with..) I was really disappointed at the number of 'educated' folk who refused to engage in discussion with me regarding the exhibits once they realised that I wasn't going enter into any deep intellectual debate about the work..

but they were soon happy to talk once they discovered that I was far more informed about the work than they were.. (not happy enough to show this ignorant little street urchin any respect for my artistic integrity though unfortunately..)

In this way I felt alienated.. but I guess that's what keeps the whole circus moving..
we're expected to take a degree in physics to understand physics and so art has had to create an imaginary scholastic history and complexity to create degree courses and heirarchies so that the art industry can function as it does..

I watched a film, 'The Piano' on film night in our university hall of residence (back in the day when most of us didn't have tellies in our rooms). I watched it, ok fine - not bad. Then afterwards one of the English students started discussing it with me.

She pointed out TONS of symbolism and subtext that I'd missed completely. That's when I started thinking more carefully about books and films, and talking critically about them to try and understand from many angles. I get a lot more out than I used to.

With art, I am still in the dark. I do not understand the language in which things are being said to me. Which is a bit of a handicap to be fair 🙂

makes me think they are crap at communicating their ideas tbh
It is niche whoring of the highest order, elitist and thinks anyone who does not get it is somehow a bit dumb or ill informed. I might try this approach with non footy fans 🙄

With art, I am still in the dark. I do not understand the language in which things are being said to me. Which is a bit of a handicap to be fair

this.

i studied cezanne as part of my degree. it opened up a world that i previously did not understand.

i stand by what i said earlier, art is exclusive as we aren't broadly educated to appreciate beyond the aesthetic level.

[i]She pointed out TONS of symbolism and subtext that I'd missed completely.[/i]

Did she let you see her monkey?

If you don't have that then you have no context, and Pollock is just paint splodges and Rothko is just coloured squares.

elitist and thinks anyone who does not get it is somehow a bit dumb or ill informed

up to and including the painter.. which is pretty funny..

Art is...... 'anything done well'. [Andy Warhol]

'Everybody is an Artist...but only the Artist knows it'. [Joseph Beuys]

makes me think they are crap at communicating their ideas tbh

So I can blame the Germans for not understanding what I'm saying to them?

I think it is a pointless over interpretation of squares and splodges

It entirely depends on what the artist wanted to say. I firmly believe Shakespeare for instance is over-analysed. It's clear to me he just wanted to make a ripping good popular yarn.

However I'm sure Pollock wanted to convey something through the medium of splodges, and given his success I think he succeeded - to some. Arguably, he knew his audience.

Did she let you see her monkey?

Sadly not, but me at 18 was far too young for her at 21. Although if she'd have taken a student I'm sure I'd have enjoyed the lessons 🙂