Modern art??

Elf you must appreciate that the definition of ‘Art’ is the key point here?

I’m bored now tbh.

Might come back later, dunno yet.

Elf you must appreciate that the definition of ‘Art’ is the key point here?

I don’t know – there were people way up there somewhere claiming that it only became art if you were clever enough to understand why it is art. 😯

There is an awful lot of “emperors new clothes ” about for sure

and the “just because you don’t like it / don’t understand it does not mean its not art” theory? NO one who espouses this can actually explain what it is we are not getting

It really is laughable how the talentless manage to convince people they have something to say. Some modern art even of the much derided forms of “installation” or “performance art” can be great art. Some of what people pay huge sums for is clearly “emperors new clothes” where its all about showing off how rich you are( as a patron) or how clever you are (as an artiste)

See the private eye cartoon series – “its grim up north london”

I’m sure many other people just thought we were ignorant savages.

I doubt it, I’m sure most of them would have agreed with your own evaluations.

How do you know that?

NO one who espouses this can actually explain what it is we are not getting

We’re not claiming to understand it. We’re just aware of the possibility that there might be something we don’t understand.

In other words, our minds are open.

I don’t know – there were people way up there somewhere claiming that it only became art if you were clever enough to understand why it is art

I hope that’s not aimed at me. My position has been quite clear here. I’ve stated that art has an aesthetic value – you either like it or you don’t. It does however have other values that are hard to comprehend without the benefit of education. That has nothing to do with being ‘clever’ and everything to do with being informed – two completely different conditions. It’s not that we’re not clever enough to understand it, we’re just not enabled to understand it.

It does however link to the other theme that I’ve tried to get across on this thread, that art sometimes threatens people in the way that the unkown often threatens people and their reaction to that is quite primitive, hence terms like ponce, rubbish, shite get bandied about.

To suggest we have closed minds because we think it is hollow vacous pap is just more of the same arrogance.

the unkown often threatens people

No i am not threatened by Hirst’s big shark in a tank slowly rotting nor do I find emins tent with the poorly embroidered names of everyone she has even “known” threatening. I find them to be shit and a bit vacous and nto saying much really except to folk wjo like to overy interpret these “creations”.

Indeed junkyard.

There are many instances of art critics being fooled by either childrens paintings or chimps and monkeys paintings.

One example among many
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/archive/permalink/pierre_brassau_monkey_artist/

No one who espouses this can actually explain what it is we are not getting

Would explaining to someone *why* something is art suddenly make them appreciate it *is* art?

MF – no but some attempt at explaining what it is that makes it art would be helpful. People make claims that its not that its vacuous rubbish but that I am missing the point – but then are unable to even give the slightest explanation as to what and where the point is.

Why does the difficulty of execution make a piece of art more “art”? ie: A “proper” painting instead of, say, one of Tracey’s videos?

Edit: Oh, there’s a “point”?

MF – no but some attempt at explaining what it is that makes it art would be helpful.

I think people have tried (and clearly failed) on here to explain what makes art already though and I think the definition is in ‘intent’.

If a cleaner leaves a mop in an art gallery it isn’t art.

It is a mop.

If an artist leaves a mop in an art gallery it isn’t art.

It is a mop.

If an artist spends hours sat pondering the meaningless of life and decides the best way of communicating that angst is by putting on display a mop for people to try to understand their inner feelings.

It is art.

what about if the artist puts the mop there because they believe it is their right to proclaim it art…?

It makes the original designer of the mop an artist and they would be due royalties.

I’m confused now. What if the cleaner, having mislaid her mop, inadvertently picked up the art and did the toilets with it. Would she potentially be liable to the full value of the artwork (which Charles Saatchi doubtless just bid £12 million for) or just a new mop?

8)

guys! it’s a social contruction! it’s not about the intrinsic qualities of innanimate objects or individual acts of agency!

Last time I was at Tate Modern, I walked through an intervening room to get to the Rothko exhibition and noticed, out of the corner of my eye, what looked like a pile of discarded decorating equipment (paint pots, brushes, canvas sheeting etc) piled up on a couple of pallettes.

There was no card on the wall explaining the object as there was for all the other installations and exhibits.

Just as I got to the Rothko room, I wondered why the Tate Modern had, despite the completely orderly and attractive state of the rest of the interiors, allowed this pile of stuff to linger?

And then I thought…

(go on, you fill in the rest).

I doubt it, I’m sure most of them would have agreed with your own evaluations.

POSTED 2 HOURS AGO #
Mr Woppit – Member
How do you know that?

Well, the way he described he was acting, he must have looked like a dickhead, i reckon most folks around would have sussed that

To suggest we have closed minds because we think it is hollow vacous pap is just more of the same arrogance

You are allowed to think about it, consider it and rebuke the artist, but you are NOT allowed to dismiss it out of hand simply because it’s just an everyday object. This includes just lining up negative adjectives for the fun of it.

WHY is it rubbish, Junkyard?

Next question – what do we think of the Mona Lisa?

No we probbly did just look like dickheads tbh. We din’t really care though. Who were they to judge us without knowing us?

If an artist spends hours sat pondering the meaningless of life and decides the best way of communicating that angst is by putting on display a mop for people to try to understand their inner feelings

Then they deserve a good kicking for being a PONCE! 😈

Innit Binners? Binners agrees with me.

Michael Craig-Martin : An Oak Tree

Then they deserve a good kicking for being a PONCE!

Might hurt a bit more than their “feelings”, that…

A very very interesting thread.

The problems are that:

1) Artists these days define themselves as artists and what they do as art because they are artists, and themselves as artists because they make art. This is a self-perpetuating circle jerk.
2) It is tempting to get really drawn in by the need for skill or craft in art – but that is missing the point. A musical analogy. Lots of great music is simple to play, lots of jazz improvisation is highly skilled but sterile and worthless. And that lovely looking experimental Hope freewheel – is that art?

I’d argue that there are somethings which might not satisfy some as art which I think are – because they really do blaze a new conceptual trail – and I’d include Duchamp, Dali, Mondrian, Pollock – I struggle with Rothko though. I did quite like those bricks when I saw them though…
There are other things which look like “art” which I believe are not. Any one of the millions of repetitive religious paintings found in most Italian museums, paintings of ugly aristocrats adorning National Trust houses which are little more than a predecessor of a big photo.

However for total vapid cynical sterility – it is difficult to beat the works of Hirst – and almost any Video Installation Art. 😈

Mr Woppit – That Tate installation was pretty cool actually. I did the same double-take on the way to the Rothko room.

All the objects were hand carved from polyurethane foam. Nothing was real. The ghetto blaster was particularly impressive!

People make claims that its not that its vacuous rubbish but that I am missing the point – but then are unable to even give the slightest explanation as to what and where the point is.

Err … no .. people make claims that various work is vacuous rubbish and are asked to back up their claims, at which point they flounce off to boil spaghetti, or start calling names.

molgrips – Member

To suggest we have closed minds because we think it is hollow vacous pap is just more of the same arrogance

You are allowed to think about it, consider it and rebuke the artist, but you are NOT allowed to dismiss it out of hand simply because it’s just an everyday object. This includes just lining up negative adjectives for the fun of it.

WHY is it rubbish, Junkyard?

Next question – what do we think of the Mona Lisa?

+1

Junkyard’s views re art are naive – dismissing something as not art because its conceptual and you dont understand it is ridiculous.

The Andre ‘bricks’ argument is also tired and obvious.

Dont understand why people like goldsworthy, kapoor, gormley arent being slated to the extent of the usuual suspects.

As for the Mona Lisa, its probably one of the best paintings ever made. I know people say its small but thats the sort of ignorant nonsense you would expect to hear. Look at Pre rennaissance paintings, people painted side on, their size dictated by status, subject matter dictated by the church, then look at the Mona Lisa. Given that its 500 years and consdering what went before, it genuinely was groundbreaking.

See, the Mona Lisa does nothing for me. Just a picture of a timid woman who’s been told to smile but is pathalogically shy. I see no amazing enigma there.

However, I don’t know its history or context, and I don’t know what went before it. So my comments have limited value.

All the objects were hand carved from polyurethane foam. Nothing was real. The ghetto blaster was particularly impressive!

Sounds like the same chap who did the studio I mentioned above. It’s as if he’s pre-empting all the people who say ‘where’s the skill in that it’s just a messy room’ by displaying extra-ordinary skill in making a piece that looks like just another ready made.

So, what if the unmade bed had been carefully sculpted in this way?

What if Picasso had painted an unmade bed all broken up and weird looking?

What if Rubens had painted a beautiful florid unmade 17th century bed in oils?

Junkyard’s views re art are naive

Then, right, just after that sneering arrogance:

As for the Mona Lisa, its probably one of the best paintings ever made

Why? Because you’ve bin told it is? The main reason it’s popular is cos it’s so priceless.

Thing about the Mona Lisa; it’s sposed to be one of the greatest paintings ever and all that, but it probbly won’t feature in most people’s All Time Top Ten Favourite Paintings Of All Time Mate.

S’a good painting mind, but had it bin painted by a ‘minor’ painter rather than Leonardo Da Vinci, I seriously doubt it would ever have bin so ‘popular’.

It’s not even one of Da Vinci’s best works…

And you called Junky ‘naive’, and tried to make out like your all sophisticated and knowledgeable and clever?

Ha ha!

What if Picasso had painted an unmade bed all broken up and weird looking?

What if Rubens had painted a beautiful florid unmade 17th century bed in oils?

Might have bin ‘art’, as they were artists and good at art stuff….

were they ponces though ?

Might have bin ‘art’, as they were artists and good at art stuff….

But it would’ve been exactly the same…

No it woon’t Mol. It wooduv bin a unique work of art created by a unique talent.

Check pon dis:

Bit good in’t it?

Now who’s being a snob?

I think you are wrong there elf – its art if its art – no matter who made it. If picasso had produced an unmade bed it still would have been toss

Why? Because you’ve bin told it is? The main reason it’s popular is cos it’s so priceless.

Thing about the Mona Lisa; it’s sposed to be one of the greatest paintings ever and all that, but it probbly won’t feature in most people’s All Time Top Ten Favourite Paintings Of All Time Mate.

S’a good painting mind, but had it bin painted by a ‘minor’ painter rather than Leonardo Da Vinci, I seriously doubt it would ever have bin so ‘popular’.

It’s not even one of Da Vinci’s best works…

And you called Junky ‘naive’, and tried to make out like your all sophisticated and knowledgeable and clever?

Ha ha !

ha ha indeed. Think you’ll find it probably is one of his best paintings (have you looked at his other work ?). The point is that it wouldnt have been painted by a minor painter, hence why its so good. Like saying Picasso’s ‘demoiselles’ would have been crap if it had been painted by someone else.The point is that it wasnt and couldnt have been painted by someone else.

Its priceless because its good, not the other way round.FFS !

Clearly you dont like conceptual art.

As for your favourite book at 3 years old being Gombrich, that cheered me up no end yesterday , was that after you’d finished Huxleys ‘the doors of perception’.

signing off 🙂