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I am curious as to what an art critic's view of such abstract paintings are. Like, in what way is Number 17a worth 200 million? To me all I see is squiggly lin

I am curious as to what an art critic's view of such abstract paintings are. Like, in what way is Number 17a worth 200 million? To me all I see is squiggly lines and random colors. I do enjoy art, but mostly old school art, say Van Gogh. Paintings that depict expressions, humans, situations, etc.

beat 7y ago
Art criticism is no different than any other field... it's completely baffling to people without education in it, and makes total and obvious sense to those who do. I went to the University of Iowa, which has Jackson Pollock's Mural, his most important painting. It's worth about $250M. I'd just stare at it for long periods of time. It's extraordinary, breathtaking, a symphony of squiggly lines - but in no way random. The figures and sense of right-to-left motion are quite clear, but it's impossible to point to any little detail and see the whole. It's like trying to understand a symphony from one bar of what the second violins are doing, or trying to understand Thanksgiving dinner from a little smear of butter. And it's an entirely different painting at different perspectives. Looking at it from 50 feet is a very different experience from looking at it from five feet. The tiny detail work is as extraordinary as the whole. https://www.wikiart.org/en/jackson-pollock/mural-1943-1 https://www.wikiart.org/en/jackson-pollock/mural-1943-1
- LudwigNagasena 7y ago
  >Art criticism is no different than any other field... it's completely baffling to people without education in it, and makes total and obvious sense to those who do. Many fields are not baffling to people without specialized education. Your description of Pollock’s mural reminds me of this: https://xkcd.com/915/ https://xkcd.com/915/
  - beat 7y ago
    Many fields are shallow. But this really boils down to a distrust of intellectualism, and the idea that Joe Sixpack's off-the-shelf opinion is more valid than the opinion of someone who actually studies the subject seriously - that the real student is merely an elitist snob who uses their study to lord over the cretins. Sigh.
    - longerthoughts 7y ago
      I agree with you here but would just add that this line of thinking has limits. I am not a serious student of astrology but feel perfectly comfortable dismissing the validity of horoscopes and the authority of those who peddle them. The trouble is if you assume an entire field is garbage then you're assuming the authorities of that field are either dishonest or deluded and you dismiss anything they say as self-sustaining nonsense. When that's the case, how do you change somebody's mind?
      - beat 7y ago
        And that's pretty much what all this "Pollock paintings are stupid" stuff gets to, right? That anyone who likes his work or claims to find special value in it is "dishonest or deluded". You can find quotes to that effect all over this post.
        missingrib 7y ago
        Right, but what the parent comment is arguing (I think) is that there actually are fields where you can say that people who find special value in it are dishonest or deluded (astrology). The challenge comes in distinguishing which are valid and which aren't. For the record, I like Pollock and find art history/criticism much more valuable than astrology. But, how would you explain that to someone who just sees it as paint smears?
    - LudwigNagasena 7y ago
      Art has nothing to do with intellectualism. And many subfields of art, even that with experts contemplating brush strokes, are very anti-intellectual in their core.
  - PhasmaFelis 7y ago
    > Many fields are not baffling to people without specialized education. And many fields are. I feel like at this point you're nitpicking their phrasing ("any" instead of "many") instead of addressing their point. > Your description of Pollock’s mural reminds me of this: https://xkcd.com/915/ https://xkcd.com/915/ Note that comic doesn't claim that those differences aren't real, just that they're not visible or interesting to most people, which is pretty close to what the parent comment said.
    - LudwigNagasena 7y ago
      Of course they are real. And people can find them fascinating and other people can find them boring. Nothing wrong with either attitude.
    - nwallin 7y ago
      You're right, it doesn't say that they aren't real. It says that they're dumb and meaningless and very real to the poor ignorant souls who think they're real. I'm pretty snobby about a handful of things, but I'm well aware that it's pure snobbery and that I don't have some sort of intellectual blah blah blah than makes me better than the ignorant plebian next to me on the subway. Art snobs are no different than wine snobs, comic book snobs, cigar snobs, film snobs, anime snobs, whiskey snobs, dog show snobs, foodie snobs, beer snobs, you name it. But modern art snobs are somewhat unique in claiming to be better than the rest of us. I can listen to a model train snob talk about their stupid thing for however long and just vicariously enjoy their enthusiasm for the topic. I hear them talk and I just hear, "this thing is so cool!" and in that moment I think it's cool too. I listen to a modern art snob talk about Jackson Pollock or whatever and I just hear, "I'm so much more intellectual, cultured, and sophisticated than you!" Some people are objectively worse than others, and modern art snobs are objectively worse than nearly all other snobs. I'll marry a stamp collector or a buckeye, but I wouldn't marry a modern art snob with no self awareness about their snobbery. Text editors. I'm snobby about text editors. Emacs is best. fite me. /s
      - PhasmaFelis 7y ago
        > It says that they're dumb and meaningless and very real to the poor ignorant souls who think they're real. Taking joy in something doesn't make you ignorant or dumb. Whether you choose to be a smug asshole about it is orthogonal to the object of interest. > But modern art snobs are somewhat unique in claiming to be better than the rest of us. [...] I listen to a modern art snob talk about Jackson Pollock or whatever and I just hear, "I'm so much more intellectual, cultured, and sophisticated than you!" Are you getting this from beat's comment above? Because I definitely don't see it. I've never seen it IRL, either. It sounds like you're taking your dislike of modern art, and maybe a couple of encounters with unpleasant fans, and projecting it onto the entire field.
  - itronitron 7y ago
    Great works of art often baffle art critics... https://youtu.be/Ofq_nl366VM?t=75 https://youtu.be/Ofq_nl366VM?t=75
danielpal 7y ago
I'll explain. Most people who criticize contemporary are, usually use a combination of its just a bunch of random lines or a "5 year old could have painted that" - as if the complexity of difficulty of an art piece its what makes it valuable. But nothing is further from the truth, a simple piece, with a strong composition such as Number 17a, could look simple but its quite powerful and complex. Let me use an analogy you can better understand. I am sure you can appreciate music. Most people who listen to the Marriage of Figaro by Mozart, can understand it's a master piece. Yet, it isn't the most difficult balad Mozart composer and many other musicians have created far more complex balads. Also a gifted 5 year old could probably learn to play it and reproduce it quite accurately. Does that diminish its value because a 5 year old can play it? It's even possible for an average 5 year old to invent a similar balad after listening to it. But could an average 5 year old create something like the Marriage of Figaro from scratch without ever hearing it? It takes a pretty special 5 year old, like Mozart to produce something like that. And its the whole composition that matters, not just a few notes - anyone can play a few notes. The same happens with Pollock. He was the first drip painter. And while an average 5 year old could drip some paint in a canvas (play a few notes), they won't be able to create a powerful composition of colors that mirrors a full Pollock composition. Sure, there are amazing reproductions of Pollock made by very trained art forgers - yet that doesn't diminish the value of Pollock just because someone else after analyzing his technique is able to reproduce it. The value is another story. It's worth $200M because of its size and scarcity. Pollock wasn't a big art producers and thus there aren't many paintings around. Yet there are many people who love his work and want to buy it. Supply and demand dictates the price. Sure you can buy something similar from an art forger, but its not the same, the same way that listening to a album on a set of speakers is not the same as having the artist play live for you.
- LudwigNagasena 7y ago
  >as if the complexity of difficulty of an art piece its what makes it valuable But it is true. Of course it is not the whole story, but complexity and difficulty influence how humans interpret and value things.
  - watwut 7y ago
mcavoybn 7y ago
I am no expert, but I think the value of art is based on what someone is willing to pay for it. Art collectors and galleries will estimate this value based on a variety of factors like: How wealthy are the potential buyers? In what context is the artwork being released? Have there been other works by artists which went for a similar price? Etc. etc. Also, art can be looked at as a science experiment where the artist performs an experiment and shares their results with the world. Expressionism is one such "field of research" with Jackson Pollock being a prominent researcher. His body of work is like a groundbreaking experiment and each painting is an artifact of that experiment. In other words buying a Jackson Pollock is sort of like buying one of Einsteins papers.
- beat 7y ago
  The economic value of art is based on what someone is willing to pay for it. That's very different from value in general. Van Gogh's "Starry Night" is probably the most valuable painting in the world, a canonical work recognized instantly by probably half the world's population. Van Gogh died penniless. He gave away his paintings for food and wine. Does that mean "Starry Night" was worthless when Van Gogh painted it, just because no one would pay him for it? Or is the intrinsic value of the painting distinct from its economic value?
  - watwut 7y ago
    And yet, his suicide and mental problems helped to his popularity after death. Had he drew same pictures without such fascinating story, he would be known less. Intrinsic value is about what you value. Which may be million different things and changes over time.
  - mcavoybn 7y ago
    >value in general When you are in a philosophical vacuum, generalizing value is useful. However, markets concertize value. The question of "why has this been so valuable" is firmly answered by "this is how much someone payed for it". "What is value?" is an excellent philosophical question. "Why is (some item) so valuable?" is easily answered by a simple analysis of history and statistics.
pmoriarty 7y ago
There are a lot of things the general public do not understand about art. One of those is that to some artists, especially ones that create non-representative art, the process of creating their art is just as or even more important than the final product. To a consumer, viewer, or critic of art, the value of a work of art may be in the final product, but the artist may not view it that way at all, and it could be valuable to them because of, say, the way the process made them feel at the time, or how it helped them work through some personal issues they were going through. So, yeah, you might feel like some abstract work of art is "garbage", or think that "my 2 year old could do that" or something, but your reaction is really irrelevant to some artists. Some artists want to be seen, recognized, acknowledged, and appreciated by the public, while others work just for themselves and really couldn't care less what you or anyone else thinks of their work. As an abstract, visual artist myself, I find my work to be very meditative for me, and akin sometimes to digging through layers of earth and excavating something buried within, which can be fun, intriguing, or therapeutic for me. I do strive to make the final result pleasing to myself, but to me the process of creating the work itself has value, and what some random person off the street thinks of it is really of no consequence to me. As for what a painting is worth on the art market, you have to realize that for many art buyers, these paintings are seen as investments, and their price is determined by what people are willing to pay for them (which is often determined by what they think these paintings will be worth to other investors in the future), not necessarily by them having any "objective value". Also, what's often valued in art market and to academic critics is someone doing something first, or stretching the boundaries of what is considered art. The first "blue canvas" or whatever, is worth a lot of money even though it took absolutely no skill to create, while anyone else creating a "blue canvas" today would be ignored because they're neither being original nor pushing the boundaries of what's considered art. As Salvador Dali once said, "The first man to compare the cheeks of a young woman to a rose was obviously a poet; the first to repeat it was possibly an idiot." On the other hand, the value of art in the art market is a testament to Any Warhol's definition of art: "Art is anything you can get away with."
- carrozo 7y ago
  Great summary. Feel free to share your work here? :)
colechristensen 7y ago
A novel in a foreign language is just squiggly lines on paper too. Part of abstract art not understood is just that, a foreign language. Part of it is a navel gazing community congratulating itself. Part of it is a popularity contest with random winners. It’s the problem with a specialty which is tending towards a singularity: quality becomes ever harder to judge and by ever fewer people who must dedicate ever more time to even understand. There are lots of hangers on who have only vague ideas about the quality and as a result the field gets overrun with nonsense. That doesn’t mean there is nothing there.
hnspirit 7y ago
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/modern-art-was-cia-weapon-1578808.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/modern-art-was-cia-... It's just more CIA-based nonsense.
dagw 7y ago
but mostly old school art, say Van Gogh I'm sure the irony isn't lost on you that not too long ago Van Gogh was decidedly "new school" and considered random colors and squiggly lines that most people didn't see the value in.
- lonelappde 7y ago
  This is the tragic comedy of people who espouse "conservative" values but don't put intellectual effort into it. There worldview is that whatever was canon before they were born is unassailable, and everything else and after is devoid of merit, but they can't explain why without appealing to authorities.
  - kaffeemitsahne 7y ago
    Or maybe they just like Van Gogh and don't like Pollock?
  - wool_gather 7y ago
    I think you've got a good insight, but you're at least skirting the same intellectual trap you've identified, by generalizing about "people who".
protonimitate 7y ago
> I am curious as to what an art critic's view of such abstract paintings are. Like, in what way is Number 17a worth 200 million? Art criticism has almost nothing to do with how much a piece is worth at auction. The price of a painting essentially comes down to the "fine art" world being a popularity contest.
- AnimalMuppet 7y ago
  Pollock is a famous name. How many people want to own a famous name, just for pride? How many Pollocks exist? (Or even, how many "big name" art pieces exist?) The first number is considerably larger. That's why the price is high.
jancsika 7y ago
> Like, in what way is Number 17a worth 200 million? That's not a fair question to ask an art critic. I mean, if you asked me why it's worth forty of your minutes to listen to Gyo:rgy Ligeti's Violin Concerto, I'd take a shot at it. But if Ligeti's music happened to be tied to an international black market such that his scores were being bought and sold for a quarter of a billion dollars what could I possibly say?
kpU8efre7r 7y ago
It's worth what people are willing to pay.
sixplusone 7y ago
Money laundering. and possibly communism http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20161004-was-modern-art-a-weapon-of-the-cia http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20161004-was-modern-art-a-w...
dfxm12 7y ago
Like, in what way is Number 17a worth 200 million? I don't know if you mean this painting specifically, or paintings in general, but obviously, art is worth what someone is willing to pay for it. Now, there are many reasons a person might pay a lot for a piece, or how a piece might end up selling for more than an expert would expect. Here are just a handful: 1. Someone buys expensive art and donates it to a museum for a nice tax deduction. The more the painting is, the more the deduction. The person who bought Number 17A immediately donated it to a museum. 2. Two collectors are both really rich and both really interested in a piece and get into a bidding war. It only takes two, but sometimes there are many people who want a particular piece or a piece from a particular artist. 3. A collector (or dealer) might try to spur interest in an artist by overpaying for a piece to try and reset the price for said artist. 4. You can launder money by buying or selling art at auction.
- v0x 7y ago
  Just wanted to point out that point 1 is very rarely valid; while you do get a tax break from donating to charity, what you save in taxes is not offset by the cost of the donation. The only case I can really think of where that is the case is if you have some property appraised at a value significantly higher than what you can actually sell it for on the market.
ronilan 7y ago
I’m not an art critic and I don’t know what the paintings are worth, but what I do know, for what it’s worth, is that each and every time I look a “squiggly lines” and think “wow this looks great” it turns out to be a painting by Jackson Pollack. So, for me, there is something there. Something that impressionism doesn’t have.
donjigweed 7y ago
I have zero artistic ability. My father is a very accomplished amateur artist. I've got into this discussion with him several times. Rather than Pollock's work, the best exemplar supporting the argument that artistic value is arbitrary is, in my opinion, Rothko's color field paintings [1]. My father explained to me that the reason it's in the Smithsonian is because he did something no one else had ever done before, he reduced the traditional landscape painting to it's absolute minimum. Same thing for Pollock, he did something no one else had ever done before. At least according to a very small clique of New York Jews. (Joking. Kind of. Not being anti-semitic, I'm an atheist Jew.) Of course, the fact that this guy [2] is not also in the Smithsonian is strong evidence that it is in fact completely arbitrary. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_field https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_field [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owSZs7H24UY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owSZs7H24UY
- watwut 7y ago
  Association of Jews with modern art is one of things that really really irritated nazi in Germany. They believed that Jews are intentionally destroying German culture by doing and promoting non traditional art. But like, while somewhat over represented in Vienna modern circles, they were no majority at any point nor only the ones liking it. Probably not even more likely to like it.
  - lonelappde 7y ago
    But hey, what's a little cultural cringe among friends, to show off one's ignorance of its connection to genocide.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
WhompingWindows 7y ago
First off, Van Gogh is not even close to old school, he painted less than 150 years ago. Second, the main reason for high valuations in modern art is because the artists were well-connected and got to their ideas first. Modern art is about concepts, not representation of real-life. Thus, you have a blank white canvas next to the greatest "old school" Van Gogh Monet masterpieces in NYC and Paris. Consider, those blank white canvases take very little skill and creativity to produce. What they are a snapshot of a moment in art where very rich, well connected artists got to the idea of a blank white canvas as a message "first." Thus, they staked their flag in the ground and claimed that signpost in the long road of art history, and their rich, well-connected art selling friends probably convinced some gullible curators and collectors that those completely contentless abstractions are somehow valuable. I'll give Pollock and others their due, that is some very interesting technique. However, as an oil painter myself, I believe the solid color canvasses hanging in museums are a slap in the face to the craftsmanship and sheer genius of the great painters, Pollock included.
- Zeebrommer 7y ago
  Would you count Rothko under the solid colour canvasses? On paper they don't look like much, but the few that I've seen in real life somehow still really left an impression on me.
  - cromulent 7y ago
    That brought back memories of this great podcast: https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-many-deaths-of-a-painting/ https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-many-deaths-of-a-...
  - phaus 7y ago
    They are aesthetically pleasing to me. I might even hang some prints on a wall, but it would be to add some color, not because I find them to be a superior display of artistic ability. To be fair a lot of simple looking art like this is produced by artists with a sound understanding of composition and color theory. For some of them everything they do is done with intention and thought. However, having a sound understanding of color theory and composition are just two basic skills any good artist will possess in addition to a multitude of other skills. Note that I'm not saying that artists have to adhere to standard color theory and composition. I'm saying that when people deviate from them usually the good ones do it in an intentional way with a full understanding, and the specific way they break the rules is well thought out and so it works.
dekhn 7y ago
Agree. I didn't really pay much attention to art until I visited the Rijksmuseum during the renovation and saw the Night Watch in person in an empty, quiet room. It transformed what I understood about art (the dynamic range of that painting, as well as the characters who inhabit it, are both extraordinary). That led me down the rabbit hole of classic Dutch Masters and when I see things like Pollock, I really wonder if I'm missing some extraordinary thing that separates his work from that of a 3 year old flinging paint.
- dagw 7y ago
  Have you seen the painting in question live? If you haven't I really recommend it. I didn't really get it either until I got a chance to really see some of his works up close. The the scale and details and layers and dynamism and the way the paint is sculpted into a 3D surface just doesn't come across on a computer screen. You don't have to like it, but there is no way you can in good faith study a Pollock and come away believing a 3 year old could have done that.
  - dekhn 7y ago
    Fair enough. I had the same experience with Van Gogh (the 3D paint scuplting). But I expect that even the zoomed-out version looks like something I'd care about, like a flower, not abstract.
    - dagw 7y ago
      Not caring for the way a piece of art looks is not a good reason to belittle the talent and effort that went into creating it.
      - dekhn 7y ago
        Please note that all my lines written above are polite and do not belitte anybody. Instead, they are statements about what I feel and believe based on my experiences.
B1FF_PSUVM 7y ago
> Like, in what way is Number 17a worth 200 million? >To me all I see is squiggly lines and random colors. I favor the Bitcoin hypothesis - a consensus derived worth for a portable, mostly anonymous, value store of no intrinsic utility - just slightly ahead of gold and diamonds really ... (Only usefully available to the really rich, though)
krsdcbl 7y ago
A lot of art is just "squiggly lines and random colors" - the inherently interesting thing is what kind of feeling or atmosphere the actual arrangement provokes
goto11 7y ago
The incredible prices for some art does not correspond to appreciation by art critics. It is investment objects so the prices correspond to what the investors think they will be able to sell them for in the future which in turn depends on things like name recognition and perceived staying power. It is certainly not art critics that decided that a Pollock should cost 200M. But is considered worth 200M because some billionaire will pay that much for it.

beat 7y ago

Art criticism is no different than any other field... it's completely baffling to people without education in it, and makes total and obvious sense to those who do. I went to the University of Iowa, which has Jackson Pollock's Mural, his most important painting. It's worth about $250M. I'd just stare at it for long periods of time. It's extraordinary, breathtaking, a symphony of squiggly lines - but in no way random. The figures and sense of right-to-left motion are quite clear, but it's impossible to point to any little detail and see the whole. It's like trying to understand a symphony from one bar of what the second violins are doing, or trying to understand Thanksgiving dinner from a little smear of butter. And it's an entirely different painting at different perspectives. Looking at it from 50 feet is a very different experience from looking at it from five feet. The tiny detail work is as extraordinary as the whole. https://www.wikiart.org/en/jackson-pollock/mural-1943-1 https://www.wikiart.org/en/jackson-pollock/mural-1943-1

LudwigNagasena 7y ago
>Art criticism is no different than any other field... it's completely baffling to people without education in it, and makes total and obvious sense to those who do. Many fields are not baffling to people without specialized education. Your description of Pollock’s mural reminds me of this: https://xkcd.com/915/ https://xkcd.com/915/
- beat 7y ago
  Many fields are shallow. But this really boils down to a distrust of intellectualism, and the idea that Joe Sixpack's off-the-shelf opinion is more valid than the opinion of someone who actually studies the subject seriously - that the real student is merely an elitist snob who uses their study to lord over the cretins. Sigh.
  - longerthoughts 7y ago
    I agree with you here but would just add that this line of thinking has limits. I am not a serious student of astrology but feel perfectly comfortable dismissing the validity of horoscopes and the authority of those who peddle them. The trouble is if you assume an entire field is garbage then you're assuming the authorities of that field are either dishonest or deluded and you dismiss anything they say as self-sustaining nonsense. When that's the case, how do you change somebody's mind?
    - beat 7y ago
      And that's pretty much what all this "Pollock paintings are stupid" stuff gets to, right? That anyone who likes his work or claims to find special value in it is "dishonest or deluded". You can find quotes to that effect all over this post.
      - missingrib 7y ago
        Right, but what the parent comment is arguing (I think) is that there actually are fields where you can say that people who find special value in it are dishonest or deluded (astrology). The challenge comes in distinguishing which are valid and which aren't. For the record, I like Pollock and find art history/criticism much more valuable than astrology. But, how would you explain that to someone who just sees it as paint smears?
  - LudwigNagasena 7y ago
    Art has nothing to do with intellectualism. And many subfields of art, even that with experts contemplating brush strokes, are very anti-intellectual in their core.
- PhasmaFelis 7y ago
  > Many fields are not baffling to people without specialized education. And many fields are. I feel like at this point you're nitpicking their phrasing ("any" instead of "many") instead of addressing their point. > Your description of Pollock’s mural reminds me of this: https://xkcd.com/915/ https://xkcd.com/915/ Note that comic doesn't claim that those differences aren't real, just that they're not visible or interesting to most people, which is pretty close to what the parent comment said.
  - LudwigNagasena 7y ago
    Of course they are real. And people can find them fascinating and other people can find them boring. Nothing wrong with either attitude.
  - nwallin 7y ago
    You're right, it doesn't say that they aren't real. It says that they're dumb and meaningless and very real to the poor ignorant souls who think they're real. I'm pretty snobby about a handful of things, but I'm well aware that it's pure snobbery and that I don't have some sort of intellectual blah blah blah than makes me better than the ignorant plebian next to me on the subway. Art snobs are no different than wine snobs, comic book snobs, cigar snobs, film snobs, anime snobs, whiskey snobs, dog show snobs, foodie snobs, beer snobs, you name it. But modern art snobs are somewhat unique in claiming to be better than the rest of us. I can listen to a model train snob talk about their stupid thing for however long and just vicariously enjoy their enthusiasm for the topic. I hear them talk and I just hear, "this thing is so cool!" and in that moment I think it's cool too. I listen to a modern art snob talk about Jackson Pollock or whatever and I just hear, "I'm so much more intellectual, cultured, and sophisticated than you!" Some people are objectively worse than others, and modern art snobs are objectively worse than nearly all other snobs. I'll marry a stamp collector or a buckeye, but I wouldn't marry a modern art snob with no self awareness about their snobbery. Text editors. I'm snobby about text editors. Emacs is best. fite me. /s
    - PhasmaFelis 7y ago
      > It says that they're dumb and meaningless and very real to the poor ignorant souls who think they're real. Taking joy in something doesn't make you ignorant or dumb. Whether you choose to be a smug asshole about it is orthogonal to the object of interest. > But modern art snobs are somewhat unique in claiming to be better than the rest of us. [...] I listen to a modern art snob talk about Jackson Pollock or whatever and I just hear, "I'm so much more intellectual, cultured, and sophisticated than you!" Are you getting this from beat's comment above? Because I definitely don't see it. I've never seen it IRL, either. It sounds like you're taking your dislike of modern art, and maybe a couple of encounters with unpleasant fans, and projecting it onto the entire field.
- itronitron 7y ago
  Great works of art often baffle art critics... https://youtu.be/Ofq_nl366VM?t=75 https://youtu.be/Ofq_nl366VM?t=75

danielpal 7y ago

I'll explain. Most people who criticize contemporary are, usually use a combination of its just a bunch of random lines or a "5 year old could have painted that" - as if the complexity of difficulty of an art piece its what makes it valuable. But nothing is further from the truth, a simple piece, with a strong composition such as Number 17a, could look simple but its quite powerful and complex. Let me use an analogy you can better understand. I am sure you can appreciate music. Most people who listen to the Marriage of Figaro by Mozart, can understand it's a master piece. Yet, it isn't the most difficult balad Mozart composer and many other musicians have created far more complex balads. Also a gifted 5 year old could probably learn to play it and reproduce it quite accurately. Does that diminish its value because a 5 year old can play it? It's even possible for an average 5 year old to invent a similar balad after listening to it. But could an average 5 year old create something like the Marriage of Figaro from scratch without ever hearing it? It takes a pretty special 5 year old, like Mozart to produce something like that. And its the whole composition that matters, not just a few notes - anyone can play a few notes. The same happens with Pollock. He was the first drip painter. And while an average 5 year old could drip some paint in a canvas (play a few notes), they won't be able to create a powerful composition of colors that mirrors a full Pollock composition. Sure, there are amazing reproductions of Pollock made by very trained art forgers - yet that doesn't diminish the value of Pollock just because someone else after analyzing his technique is able to reproduce it. The value is another story. It's worth $200M because of its size and scarcity. Pollock wasn't a big art producers and thus there aren't many paintings around. Yet there are many people who love his work and want to buy it. Supply and demand dictates the price. Sure you can buy something similar from an art forger, but its not the same, the same way that listening to a album on a set of speakers is not the same as having the artist play live for you.

LudwigNagasena 7y ago
>as if the complexity of difficulty of an art piece its what makes it valuable But it is true. Of course it is not the whole story, but complexity and difficulty influence how humans interpret and value things.
- watwut 7y ago

mcavoybn 7y ago

I am no expert, but I think the value of art is based on what someone is willing to pay for it. Art collectors and galleries will estimate this value based on a variety of factors like: How wealthy are the potential buyers? In what context is the artwork being released? Have there been other works by artists which went for a similar price? Etc. etc. Also, art can be looked at as a science experiment where the artist performs an experiment and shares their results with the world. Expressionism is one such "field of research" with Jackson Pollock being a prominent researcher. His body of work is like a groundbreaking experiment and each painting is an artifact of that experiment. In other words buying a Jackson Pollock is sort of like buying one of Einsteins papers.

beat 7y ago
The economic value of art is based on what someone is willing to pay for it. That's very different from value in general. Van Gogh's "Starry Night" is probably the most valuable painting in the world, a canonical work recognized instantly by probably half the world's population. Van Gogh died penniless. He gave away his paintings for food and wine. Does that mean "Starry Night" was worthless when Van Gogh painted it, just because no one would pay him for it? Or is the intrinsic value of the painting distinct from its economic value?
- watwut 7y ago
  And yet, his suicide and mental problems helped to his popularity after death. Had he drew same pictures without such fascinating story, he would be known less. Intrinsic value is about what you value. Which may be million different things and changes over time.
- mcavoybn 7y ago
  >value in general When you are in a philosophical vacuum, generalizing value is useful. However, markets concertize value. The question of "why has this been so valuable" is firmly answered by "this is how much someone payed for it". "What is value?" is an excellent philosophical question. "Why is (some item) so valuable?" is easily answered by a simple analysis of history and statistics.

pmoriarty 7y ago

There are a lot of things the general public do not understand about art. One of those is that to some artists, especially ones that create non-representative art, the process of creating their art is just as or even more important than the final product. To a consumer, viewer, or critic of art, the value of a work of art may be in the final product, but the artist may not view it that way at all, and it could be valuable to them because of, say, the way the process made them feel at the time, or how it helped them work through some personal issues they were going through. So, yeah, you might feel like some abstract work of art is "garbage", or think that "my 2 year old could do that" or something, but your reaction is really irrelevant to some artists. Some artists want to be seen, recognized, acknowledged, and appreciated by the public, while others work just for themselves and really couldn't care less what you or anyone else thinks of their work. As an abstract, visual artist myself, I find my work to be very meditative for me, and akin sometimes to digging through layers of earth and excavating something buried within, which can be fun, intriguing, or therapeutic for me. I do strive to make the final result pleasing to myself, but to me the process of creating the work itself has value, and what some random person off the street thinks of it is really of no consequence to me. As for what a painting is worth on the art market, you have to realize that for many art buyers, these paintings are seen as investments, and their price is determined by what people are willing to pay for them (which is often determined by what they think these paintings will be worth to other investors in the future), not necessarily by them having any "objective value". Also, what's often valued in art market and to academic critics is someone doing something first, or stretching the boundaries of what is considered art. The first "blue canvas" or whatever, is worth a lot of money even though it took absolutely no skill to create, while anyone else creating a "blue canvas" today would be ignored because they're neither being original nor pushing the boundaries of what's considered art. As Salvador Dali once said, "The first man to compare the cheeks of a young woman to a rose was obviously a poet; the first to repeat it was possibly an idiot." On the other hand, the value of art in the art market is a testament to Any Warhol's definition of art: "Art is anything you can get away with."

carrozo 7y ago
Great summary. Feel free to share your work here? :)

colechristensen 7y ago

A novel in a foreign language is just squiggly lines on paper too. Part of abstract art not understood is just that, a foreign language. Part of it is a navel gazing community congratulating itself. Part of it is a popularity contest with random winners. It’s the problem with a specialty which is tending towards a singularity: quality becomes ever harder to judge and by ever fewer people who must dedicate ever more time to even understand. There are lots of hangers on who have only vague ideas about the quality and as a result the field gets overrun with nonsense. That doesn’t mean there is nothing there.

hnspirit 7y ago

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/modern-art-was-cia-weapon-1578808.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/modern-art-was-cia-... It's just more CIA-based nonsense.

dagw 7y ago

but mostly old school art, say Van Gogh I'm sure the irony isn't lost on you that not too long ago Van Gogh was decidedly "new school" and considered random colors and squiggly lines that most people didn't see the value in.

lonelappde 7y ago
This is the tragic comedy of people who espouse "conservative" values but don't put intellectual effort into it. There worldview is that whatever was canon before they were born is unassailable, and everything else and after is devoid of merit, but they can't explain why without appealing to authorities.
- kaffeemitsahne 7y ago
  Or maybe they just like Van Gogh and don't like Pollock?
- wool_gather 7y ago
  I think you've got a good insight, but you're at least skirting the same intellectual trap you've identified, by generalizing about "people who".

protonimitate 7y ago

> I am curious as to what an art critic's view of such abstract paintings are. Like, in what way is Number 17a worth 200 million? Art criticism has almost nothing to do with how much a piece is worth at auction. The price of a painting essentially comes down to the "fine art" world being a popularity contest.

AnimalMuppet 7y ago
Pollock is a famous name. How many people want to own a famous name, just for pride? How many Pollocks exist? (Or even, how many "big name" art pieces exist?) The first number is considerably larger. That's why the price is high.

jancsika 7y ago

> Like, in what way is Number 17a worth 200 million? That's not a fair question to ask an art critic. I mean, if you asked me why it's worth forty of your minutes to listen to Gyo:rgy Ligeti's Violin Concerto, I'd take a shot at it. But if Ligeti's music happened to be tied to an international black market such that his scores were being bought and sold for a quarter of a billion dollars what could I possibly say?

kpU8efre7r 7y ago

It's worth what people are willing to pay.

sixplusone 7y ago

Money laundering. and possibly communism http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20161004-was-modern-art-a-weapon-of-the-cia http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20161004-was-modern-art-a-w...

dfxm12 7y ago

Like, in what way is Number 17a worth 200 million? I don't know if you mean this painting specifically, or paintings in general, but obviously, art is worth what someone is willing to pay for it. Now, there are many reasons a person might pay a lot for a piece, or how a piece might end up selling for more than an expert would expect. Here are just a handful: 1. Someone buys expensive art and donates it to a museum for a nice tax deduction. The more the painting is, the more the deduction. The person who bought Number 17A immediately donated it to a museum. 2. Two collectors are both really rich and both really interested in a piece and get into a bidding war. It only takes two, but sometimes there are many people who want a particular piece or a piece from a particular artist. 3. A collector (or dealer) might try to spur interest in an artist by overpaying for a piece to try and reset the price for said artist. 4. You can launder money by buying or selling art at auction.

v0x 7y ago
Just wanted to point out that point 1 is very rarely valid; while you do get a tax break from donating to charity, what you save in taxes is not offset by the cost of the donation. The only case I can really think of where that is the case is if you have some property appraised at a value significantly higher than what you can actually sell it for on the market.

ronilan 7y ago

I’m not an art critic and I don’t know what the paintings are worth, but what I do know, for what it’s worth, is that each and every time I look a “squiggly lines” and think “wow this looks great” it turns out to be a painting by Jackson Pollack. So, for me, there is something there. Something that impressionism doesn’t have.

donjigweed 7y ago

I have zero artistic ability. My father is a very accomplished amateur artist. I've got into this discussion with him several times. Rather than Pollock's work, the best exemplar supporting the argument that artistic value is arbitrary is, in my opinion, Rothko's color field paintings [1]. My father explained to me that the reason it's in the Smithsonian is because he did something no one else had ever done before, he reduced the traditional landscape painting to it's absolute minimum. Same thing for Pollock, he did something no one else had ever done before. At least according to a very small clique of New York Jews. (Joking. Kind of. Not being anti-semitic, I'm an atheist Jew.) Of course, the fact that this guy [2] is not also in the Smithsonian is strong evidence that it is in fact completely arbitrary. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_field https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_field [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owSZs7H24UY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owSZs7H24UY

watwut 7y ago
Association of Jews with modern art is one of things that really really irritated nazi in Germany. They believed that Jews are intentionally destroying German culture by doing and promoting non traditional art. But like, while somewhat over represented in Vienna modern circles, they were no majority at any point nor only the ones liking it. Probably not even more likely to like it.
- lonelappde 7y ago
  But hey, what's a little cultural cringe among friends, to show off one's ignorance of its connection to genocide.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

WhompingWindows 7y ago

First off, Van Gogh is not even close to old school, he painted less than 150 years ago. Second, the main reason for high valuations in modern art is because the artists were well-connected and got to their ideas first. Modern art is about concepts, not representation of real-life. Thus, you have a blank white canvas next to the greatest "old school" Van Gogh Monet masterpieces in NYC and Paris. Consider, those blank white canvases take very little skill and creativity to produce. What they are a snapshot of a moment in art where very rich, well connected artists got to the idea of a blank white canvas as a message "first." Thus, they staked their flag in the ground and claimed that signpost in the long road of art history, and their rich, well-connected art selling friends probably convinced some gullible curators and collectors that those completely contentless abstractions are somehow valuable. I'll give Pollock and others their due, that is some very interesting technique. However, as an oil painter myself, I believe the solid color canvasses hanging in museums are a slap in the face to the craftsmanship and sheer genius of the great painters, Pollock included.

Zeebrommer 7y ago
Would you count Rothko under the solid colour canvasses? On paper they don't look like much, but the few that I've seen in real life somehow still really left an impression on me.
- cromulent 7y ago
  That brought back memories of this great podcast: https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-many-deaths-of-a-painting/ https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-many-deaths-of-a-...
- phaus 7y ago
  They are aesthetically pleasing to me. I might even hang some prints on a wall, but it would be to add some color, not because I find them to be a superior display of artistic ability. To be fair a lot of simple looking art like this is produced by artists with a sound understanding of composition and color theory. For some of them everything they do is done with intention and thought. However, having a sound understanding of color theory and composition are just two basic skills any good artist will possess in addition to a multitude of other skills. Note that I'm not saying that artists have to adhere to standard color theory and composition. I'm saying that when people deviate from them usually the good ones do it in an intentional way with a full understanding, and the specific way they break the rules is well thought out and so it works.

dekhn 7y ago

Agree. I didn't really pay much attention to art until I visited the Rijksmuseum during the renovation and saw the Night Watch in person in an empty, quiet room. It transformed what I understood about art (the dynamic range of that painting, as well as the characters who inhabit it, are both extraordinary). That led me down the rabbit hole of classic Dutch Masters and when I see things like Pollock, I really wonder if I'm missing some extraordinary thing that separates his work from that of a 3 year old flinging paint.

dagw 7y ago
Have you seen the painting in question live? If you haven't I really recommend it. I didn't really get it either until I got a chance to really see some of his works up close. The the scale and details and layers and dynamism and the way the paint is sculpted into a 3D surface just doesn't come across on a computer screen. You don't have to like it, but there is no way you can in good faith study a Pollock and come away believing a 3 year old could have done that.
- dekhn 7y ago
  Fair enough. I had the same experience with Van Gogh (the 3D paint scuplting). But I expect that even the zoomed-out version looks like something I'd care about, like a flower, not abstract.
  - dagw 7y ago
    Not caring for the way a piece of art looks is not a good reason to belittle the talent and effort that went into creating it.
    - dekhn 7y ago
      Please note that all my lines written above are polite and do not belitte anybody. Instead, they are statements about what I feel and believe based on my experiences.

B1FF_PSUVM 7y ago

> Like, in what way is Number 17a worth 200 million? >To me all I see is squiggly lines and random colors. I favor the Bitcoin hypothesis - a consensus derived worth for a portable, mostly anonymous, value store of no intrinsic utility - just slightly ahead of gold and diamonds really ... (Only usefully available to the really rich, though)

krsdcbl 7y ago

A lot of art is just "squiggly lines and random colors" - the inherently interesting thing is what kind of feeling or atmosphere the actual arrangement provokes

goto11 7y ago

The incredible prices for some art does not correspond to appreciation by art critics. It is investment objects so the prices correspond to what the investors think they will be able to sell them for in the future which in turn depends on things like name recognition and perceived staying power. It is certainly not art critics that decided that a Pollock should cost 200M. But is considered worth 200M because some billionaire will pay that much for it.