4 ms·

I actually just went to a modern art museum last weekend, and I came away thinking nothing more than "I should become a modern artist so I can bilk some rich id

by bane 11y ago

I actually just went to a modern art museum last weekend, and I came away thinking nothing more than "I should become a modern artist so I can bilk some rich idiot out of their money, I could produce a lifetime worth of work this weekend." This video brings up the notion that modern art has been reduced to nothing but personal expression. And I think that's the problem. Artists aren't that special and I'm not particularly interested in their expression, I'm far more interested in what expression art can inspire in its audience...and modern art hasn't been effective at doing this.

Moshe_Silnorin 11y ago
Fine art is the production of Veblen goods; The innovation of modern art was that obvious lack of effort on the artist's part actually increases the ability of his or her work to signal wealth.
s986s 11y ago
I reslly appreciated your comment but here is some food for thought. If art is about mimicking the real world, some will be much better than others and there will be only one best If art is about capturing the perfect moment to inspire emotion, one could argue there are a thousand ways to do it. If you believe artists should all speak in the same voice, i would say many would lose interest. If you allow artists to speak in their own voice, the cream will rise to the top. Naturally, the most sellable and marketable products will be given the limelight (pop art as an example) and omce those go out of fassion, a new fad will arise As much as i agree that many modern peices look like they are pictures mixed with bleach, i dont think that is a bad thing. We have a free art market today while in the old world only the best were commissioned.
- veddox 11y ago
  I don't think that that is what he was trying to say. Art is not about "mimicking" the real world, neither should every artist speak with the same voice - far from it! However, an artist that only talks about his own personal experience will not make art that anybody else wants to see. There has to be some sort of connection to the lives of other people around him, otherwise his art is meaningless to all but himself. And meaningless art is a contradiction in terms. Art should be an interpretation of the real world that its audience can somehow relate to. Artists aren't all that special as people, but they can be special in that they can get other people to think about the world around them in a new way. Of course, all interpretations factor in the view point of the author/artist, and that's OK - else we really would have a whole bunch of artists producing identical stuff, and who wants that? The important thing is that somehow, the audience has to be involved in the work of art. And by the way: what's so bad about some artists being better than others? Isn't that the way it's supposed to be? After all, nobody would claim all programmers are identical in skill, so why should all artists be?
  - s986s 11y ago
    There is nothing wrong for one artist to have a better hand than another. I would also argue there is nothing wrong with an artist speaking from their own perspective instead of one that is forced upon them. "Should" is a very naughty word. Our government "should not" servey us, but they "should" in order to keep us safe. Artists "should not" create selfish peices but they "should" speak in their own voice. There was a recent exhibit i found particularly interesting where the artist used real dead bodies. This was interesting because he was legally alowed to and others would pay to go see it. The art itself is not appealing but it applies to the fourth wall. Our world today is filled with so many loopholes and rediculous businesses that an art peice like this reflects on it. If the artist did not speak selfishly, these kind of rediculous loopholes may never be exposed. But in the same notion, would should look at our own lives and recognize art is not a unique case, obvious and loud but far less damaging in many regards
isolate 11y ago
> Artists aren't that special Good artists are/aren't special in the same way that good programmers are/aren't special.
- bane 11y ago
  The problem with modern art is that there's no way to determine good or shitty artist. It's become some kind of weird money driven popularity contest, but skill of any sort has not been a component for decades.
  - isolate 11y ago
    From what I've seen, it's more like there are too many people with great marketing and poor talent that make lots of money, and too many people with poor marketing and great talent that don't. You don't really see a lot of great talent at art galleries and shows because you need good marketing to get into them. But when you start to know artists personally, and you follow their process and techniques, you can witness the development of their talent, even for modern art, which I assume means anything developed post-war. We probably agree that most stuff is crap, but maybe just dig a little deeper and look a little longer?
  - yk 11y ago
    You are confusing the money driven popularity contest with art. There is a modern art market, and you are right that it is just aesthetically pleasing objects made by famous guys, however that someone else pays a lot of money does not mean that you have to like it.
  - pjbrunet 11y ago
    "There's no way to determine good or shitty artist." You need an expert opinion to see through the fake reviews and artificially inflated prices. There is a way. Among artists, it's generally accepted who has more raw talent, who's more prolific and so on. It's never absolutely clear but it's clear enough. As an artist, you work with these other artists and it becomes apparent after a while. Spoken or unspoken. Matisse respected Picasso. Picasso respected Cezanne. Cezanne respected Monet, and so on. Those aren't fake endorsements. It's not like a sport where you just follow a predetermined formula, add up some points and choose a winner. It's about perception, which is what artists really do. The painting is the end result of how that artist lives and perceives the world--that's the raw talent. But if you're not in that environment, you're not going to notice it. You get movements like Impressionism, where somebody like Monet earns respect from peers and that reputation spreads and it expands from there.
yeahbutyoudidnt 11y ago
> I actually just went to a modern art museum last weekend, and I came away thinking nothing more than "I should become a modern artist so I can bilk some rich idiot out of their money, I could produce a lifetime worth of work this weekend." modern art = i could do that + yeah, but you didn't (credit to Craig Damrauer)
- coldtea 11y ago
  >modern art = i could do that + yeah, but you didn't So? The "yeah, but you didn't" about a lot of modern art is different than the "yeah, but you didn't" about someone saying "I could be a hollywood star", "I could win the Tour de France", etc. In the modern art's case, people could totally "do that", and that they didn't only proves that they didn't bother.
  - yeahbutyoudidnt 11y ago
    No, not really. Al freír de los huevos, lo verá.
    - coldtea 11y ago
      Sometimes los huevos are just a crappy omelette. And you got the parts wrong: it's the artist presenting some crap that's more like Quixote (although often an insincere Quixote who doesn't even himself believe in the crap he makes), and the critic that's more like Sancho. Are you implying that the artist is some kind of special person, whose training or inherent sense of aesthetics etc, make him produce stuff that laymen can't produce? Because if you are, then besides the obvious fact that lots of artists are even less training in the arts or aesthetics than some laymen, you also ignore that the whole point of 20th century art was that art is not some special "sphere" but it belonged to everyone and even kids could do it just as well as "artists". Down to snubbing traditional art education and history. Dadaism and surrealism were all anti-artist in that sense.
  - TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
    Abstract hard can be harder than it looks. (Buy some acrylics and try it if you don't believe me.) But the 'you didn't' part is more about self-promotion and networking than aesthetics. If you park your abstract canvas on the desk of Important Gallery and wait for them to offer you an exhibition, you'll be waiting a long time - unless you've already made a name for yourself through self-promotion, networking, and (cynical?) cultivation of galleries, patrons, and important collectors. Or you've been already been canonised by same as The Next Big Thing. So from the point of view of art-as-marketing, you couldn't do that. Put crudely, no one cares unless they can make money from your work (top tier galleries, collectors) or cultural capital (national galleries, museums.) And money isn't going to happen unless you're already on the inside having come up through art school and made the right connections, or you're enough of an edgy outsider to have a bankable story.

by bane 11y ago

Moshe_Silnorin 11y ago

Fine art is the production of Veblen goods; The innovation of modern art was that obvious lack of effort on the artist's part actually increases the ability of his or her work to signal wealth.

s986s 11y ago

I reslly appreciated your comment but here is some food for thought. If art is about mimicking the real world, some will be much better than others and there will be only one best If art is about capturing the perfect moment to inspire emotion, one could argue there are a thousand ways to do it. If you believe artists should all speak in the same voice, i would say many would lose interest. If you allow artists to speak in their own voice, the cream will rise to the top. Naturally, the most sellable and marketable products will be given the limelight (pop art as an example) and omce those go out of fassion, a new fad will arise As much as i agree that many modern peices look like they are pictures mixed with bleach, i dont think that is a bad thing. We have a free art market today while in the old world only the best were commissioned.

veddox 11y ago
I don't think that that is what he was trying to say. Art is not about "mimicking" the real world, neither should every artist speak with the same voice - far from it! However, an artist that only talks about his own personal experience will not make art that anybody else wants to see. There has to be some sort of connection to the lives of other people around him, otherwise his art is meaningless to all but himself. And meaningless art is a contradiction in terms. Art should be an interpretation of the real world that its audience can somehow relate to. Artists aren't all that special as people, but they can be special in that they can get other people to think about the world around them in a new way. Of course, all interpretations factor in the view point of the author/artist, and that's OK - else we really would have a whole bunch of artists producing identical stuff, and who wants that? The important thing is that somehow, the audience has to be involved in the work of art. And by the way: what's so bad about some artists being better than others? Isn't that the way it's supposed to be? After all, nobody would claim all programmers are identical in skill, so why should all artists be?
- s986s 11y ago
  There is nothing wrong for one artist to have a better hand than another. I would also argue there is nothing wrong with an artist speaking from their own perspective instead of one that is forced upon them. "Should" is a very naughty word. Our government "should not" servey us, but they "should" in order to keep us safe. Artists "should not" create selfish peices but they "should" speak in their own voice. There was a recent exhibit i found particularly interesting where the artist used real dead bodies. This was interesting because he was legally alowed to and others would pay to go see it. The art itself is not appealing but it applies to the fourth wall. Our world today is filled with so many loopholes and rediculous businesses that an art peice like this reflects on it. If the artist did not speak selfishly, these kind of rediculous loopholes may never be exposed. But in the same notion, would should look at our own lives and recognize art is not a unique case, obvious and loud but far less damaging in many regards

isolate 11y ago

> Artists aren't that special Good artists are/aren't special in the same way that good programmers are/aren't special.

bane 11y ago
The problem with modern art is that there's no way to determine good or shitty artist. It's become some kind of weird money driven popularity contest, but skill of any sort has not been a component for decades.
- isolate 11y ago
  From what I've seen, it's more like there are too many people with great marketing and poor talent that make lots of money, and too many people with poor marketing and great talent that don't. You don't really see a lot of great talent at art galleries and shows because you need good marketing to get into them. But when you start to know artists personally, and you follow their process and techniques, you can witness the development of their talent, even for modern art, which I assume means anything developed post-war. We probably agree that most stuff is crap, but maybe just dig a little deeper and look a little longer?
- yk 11y ago
  You are confusing the money driven popularity contest with art. There is a modern art market, and you are right that it is just aesthetically pleasing objects made by famous guys, however that someone else pays a lot of money does not mean that you have to like it.
- pjbrunet 11y ago
  "There's no way to determine good or shitty artist." You need an expert opinion to see through the fake reviews and artificially inflated prices. There is a way. Among artists, it's generally accepted who has more raw talent, who's more prolific and so on. It's never absolutely clear but it's clear enough. As an artist, you work with these other artists and it becomes apparent after a while. Spoken or unspoken. Matisse respected Picasso. Picasso respected Cezanne. Cezanne respected Monet, and so on. Those aren't fake endorsements. It's not like a sport where you just follow a predetermined formula, add up some points and choose a winner. It's about perception, which is what artists really do. The painting is the end result of how that artist lives and perceives the world--that's the raw talent. But if you're not in that environment, you're not going to notice it. You get movements like Impressionism, where somebody like Monet earns respect from peers and that reputation spreads and it expands from there.

yeahbutyoudidnt 11y ago

> I actually just went to a modern art museum last weekend, and I came away thinking nothing more than "I should become a modern artist so I can bilk some rich idiot out of their money, I could produce a lifetime worth of work this weekend." modern art = i could do that + yeah, but you didn't (credit to Craig Damrauer)

coldtea 11y ago
>modern art = i could do that + yeah, but you didn't So? The "yeah, but you didn't" about a lot of modern art is different than the "yeah, but you didn't" about someone saying "I could be a hollywood star", "I could win the Tour de France", etc. In the modern art's case, people could totally "do that", and that they didn't only proves that they didn't bother.
- yeahbutyoudidnt 11y ago
  No, not really. Al freír de los huevos, lo verá.
  - coldtea 11y ago
    Sometimes los huevos are just a crappy omelette. And you got the parts wrong: it's the artist presenting some crap that's more like Quixote (although often an insincere Quixote who doesn't even himself believe in the crap he makes), and the critic that's more like Sancho. Are you implying that the artist is some kind of special person, whose training or inherent sense of aesthetics etc, make him produce stuff that laymen can't produce? Because if you are, then besides the obvious fact that lots of artists are even less training in the arts or aesthetics than some laymen, you also ignore that the whole point of 20th century art was that art is not some special "sphere" but it belonged to everyone and even kids could do it just as well as "artists". Down to snubbing traditional art education and history. Dadaism and surrealism were all anti-artist in that sense.
- TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
  Abstract hard can be harder than it looks. (Buy some acrylics and try it if you don't believe me.) But the 'you didn't' part is more about self-promotion and networking than aesthetics. If you park your abstract canvas on the desk of Important Gallery and wait for them to offer you an exhibition, you'll be waiting a long time - unless you've already made a name for yourself through self-promotion, networking, and (cynical?) cultivation of galleries, patrons, and important collectors. Or you've been already been canonised by same as The Next Big Thing. So from the point of view of art-as-marketing, you couldn't do that. Put crudely, no one cares unless they can make money from your work (top tier galleries, collectors) or cultural capital (national galleries, museums.) And money isn't going to happen unless you're already on the inside having come up through art school and made the right connections, or you're enough of an edgy outsider to have a bankable story.