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> At some point along the way, art stopped being about trying to bring beauty and happiness and clarity into the human condition. I suggest dating that at arou

> At some point along the way, art stopped being about trying to bring beauty and happiness and clarity into the human condition. I suggest dating that at around 19 BC, when Virgil created the absolute masterpiece that is the Aeneid, probably the greatest work of Latin literature that has ever existed... as a nationalist propaganda piece designed to justify the existence of the newly-formed empire and to retroactively proclaim the divine and heroic heritage of the Roman emperor of the time.

chongli 4y ago
Sure, and one might also quibble and say that Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling as a piece of pro-Christian propaganda. And yet there is some difference between those gorgeous frescos and a banana duct-taped to a plain wall that goes much deeper than the time and effort they took to create. Whatever his reasons, Michelangelo created something which awes and inspires millions of people every year, regardless of religious affiliation or belief. Cattelan, on the other hand, has succeeded only in reminding the public how utterly irrelevant modern art has become: a lame joke for people with too much money and too little taste.
- Invictus0 4y ago
  Just wondering, how would you compare this work to the Nazca Lines or Stonehenge? To me it seems like a modern take on the both of them. Does all art have to be pretty paintings?
  - chongli 4y ago
    No, not all art has to be paintings. But I do believe that all art is rooted in an aesthetics. This work (Michael Heizer's) is a lot more beautiful and interesting than typical modern art (such as Cattelan's Comedian). I would even go so far as to call it an anachronism: it has all of the sincerity and none of the cynicism. My original comment was about modern art in general. The more I look at Michael's work, the less I think my previous take applies to it. I think it's an exception to the rule, however.
    - Invictus0 4y ago
      Comedian is designed to be a joke though, it's literally poking fun at the stupidity of modern art and all the gatekeeping in the art world. More than that, it's a true meme: it's an idea more than it is an artwork. How many other artworks are memes?
- hk__2 4y ago
  Nitpick: you’re talking about contemporary art, not modern art. Contemporary art is like contemporary music or anything we currently live in: some things may be good, other not, and we don’t know yet what will be remembered as “good art” or “good music” in 50 or 200 years. But without these experimentations art can’t evolve. People stopped doing paintings like Michelangelo did not because they weren’t beautiful, but because they wanted to experiment with something else, to exprime their ideas in different ways. Comparing old art and contemporary art is irrelevant for this reason. You’re comparing what we remember from one era to what’s currently being experimented. It would be very reductive to describe art as “something that’s beautiful”. A more general definition would be “a creation that makes you react”. You may be in awe or caught with disgust; in both cases the artwork creates a reaction. Cattelan’s art is built on provocation. Whether you like it or not, this is some kind of art.
  - fuzzfactor 4y ago
    >People stopped doing paintings like Michelangelo did Seems to me most people never started doing paintings like Michelangelo did, most likely because they were not capable and recognized their own limitations.
    - hk__2 4y ago
      > Seems to me most people never started doing paintings like Michelangelo did, most likely because they were not capable and recognized their own limitations. It’s a bit more complicated; Michelangelo was not a random artist painting alone in his workshop and you wouldn’t have been able to do what he did just because you were technically able. He was active durant the High Renaissance (like Raffaello and Leonardo), a period that ended with the Sack of Rome and the end of the Republic of Florence. It’s not that you couldn’t do it after him, it’s that the conditions that allowed him (and Raffaello, Leonardo and others) to do what he did were gone.
  - bobthechef 4y ago
    [dead]

chongli 4y ago

Sure, and one might also quibble and say that Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling as a piece of pro-Christian propaganda. And yet there is some difference between those gorgeous frescos and a banana duct-taped to a plain wall that goes much deeper than the time and effort they took to create. Whatever his reasons, Michelangelo created something which awes and inspires millions of people every year, regardless of religious affiliation or belief. Cattelan, on the other hand, has succeeded only in reminding the public how utterly irrelevant modern art has become: a lame joke for people with too much money and too little taste.

Invictus0 4y ago
Just wondering, how would you compare this work to the Nazca Lines or Stonehenge? To me it seems like a modern take on the both of them. Does all art have to be pretty paintings?
- chongli 4y ago
  No, not all art has to be paintings. But I do believe that all art is rooted in an aesthetics. This work (Michael Heizer's) is a lot more beautiful and interesting than typical modern art (such as Cattelan's Comedian). I would even go so far as to call it an anachronism: it has all of the sincerity and none of the cynicism. My original comment was about modern art in general. The more I look at Michael's work, the less I think my previous take applies to it. I think it's an exception to the rule, however.
  - Invictus0 4y ago
    Comedian is designed to be a joke though, it's literally poking fun at the stupidity of modern art and all the gatekeeping in the art world. More than that, it's a true meme: it's an idea more than it is an artwork. How many other artworks are memes?
hk__2 4y ago
Nitpick: you’re talking about contemporary art, not modern art. Contemporary art is like contemporary music or anything we currently live in: some things may be good, other not, and we don’t know yet what will be remembered as “good art” or “good music” in 50 or 200 years. But without these experimentations art can’t evolve. People stopped doing paintings like Michelangelo did not because they weren’t beautiful, but because they wanted to experiment with something else, to exprime their ideas in different ways. Comparing old art and contemporary art is irrelevant for this reason. You’re comparing what we remember from one era to what’s currently being experimented. It would be very reductive to describe art as “something that’s beautiful”. A more general definition would be “a creation that makes you react”. You may be in awe or caught with disgust; in both cases the artwork creates a reaction. Cattelan’s art is built on provocation. Whether you like it or not, this is some kind of art.
- fuzzfactor 4y ago
  >People stopped doing paintings like Michelangelo did Seems to me most people never started doing paintings like Michelangelo did, most likely because they were not capable and recognized their own limitations.
  - hk__2 4y ago
    > Seems to me most people never started doing paintings like Michelangelo did, most likely because they were not capable and recognized their own limitations. It’s a bit more complicated; Michelangelo was not a random artist painting alone in his workshop and you wouldn’t have been able to do what he did just because you were technically able. He was active durant the High Renaissance (like Raffaello and Leonardo), a period that ended with the Sack of Rome and the end of the Republic of Florence. It’s not that you couldn’t do it after him, it’s that the conditions that allowed him (and Raffaello, Leonardo and others) to do what he did were gone.
- bobthechef 4y ago
  [dead]