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World's most popular painter sent his followers after me because of my review
- 300bps 3y agoI reviewed a programming book on Amazon must've been 15+ years ago. The author posted a review of me on his blog. Not a review of my review. Of me and everything he could find out about me on the public Internet.
- jakeinspace 3y agoI’m sorry but that’s objectively hilarious. Were you offended?
- htk 3y agoLet us know the book, please.
- boomboomsubban 3y agoThe author posted a review of you shortly after your review or fifteen years later? Both are bizarre and messed up, I'm not even sure which one would be worse.
- 300bps 3y agoHe posted his review within a day or two of me posting my review.
- catchnear4321 3y agogoodness, what did you do to the poor man to give him such obsessive focus?
- 300bps 3y agoI... gave an honest and reasonable assessment of the book. I think I gave it 3 stars.
- 90ne1 3y agoHow many stars did he give you?
- badcppdev 3y agoImagine if you'd given him 1 star :-D
- catchnear4321 3y agoit may not have elicited quite the extreme reaction. a 3 can be harsher than a 1. while an “unredeemable moron” might leave one star, that may not meet the bar for a response. while fighting with idiots on the internet is a past time, it is typically one entertained by… idiots. a three star review, on the other hand. no, this takes thought. a thinker left that harsh judgement. a foolish thinker, but a thinker. thoughtful, but wrong, incorrect. flawed. no mere idiot, so it must be an asshole. and we can’t have that. justice must be preserved. with a counter-review.
- 15457345234 3y agoThis is why I've moved away from arguing with people on the internet, because there are too many people out there today who are absolutely deranged and will make it literally their life's mission to stalk you through every means at their disposal. Also - mostly thanks to discord - it's trivial to summon an army of kids who are under the age of criminal responsibility who will do almost anything (online) if you kick them a few robux.
- evilduck 3y agoYou need to heavily cite this person’s review of you everywhere. Shit, I’d put that on my resume probably.
- gizajob 3y ago“World’s Most Popular” - nevertheless, I’m fairly aesthetically inclined and this is the first time I’ve ever heard of the guy. It’s also the case that the popular mainstream has become conservative to the point of fascism where it comes to critique. Positivity denying its opposite. The responses from the artist were also strange and overlooked their own contradiction, as in “you’re just one person with one opinion” (but my followers are also single people with single opinions, all of which must be positive at all times).
- Affric 3y agoKinda the point of the two articles.
- gizajob 3y agoI got it. The art is technically very well executed, but it’s nevertheless a hyper realistic take of an extremely bland instagram-type photo, again and again, which makes sense why it would be popular on instagram, and amongst the blandified youth with little taste and little knowledge of art history. Not really surprising.
- defrost 3y agoThey're just the images you're talking about. The article here and the earlier article that triggered the social media kickback both assert that "the art" includes both the images and the staging and presentation on social media. Much like <insert other famous artist> who made themselves an essential intertwined part of the <other famous artist> art show.
- gizajob 3y agoHe doesn’t need to be crying about not getting gallery representation then. He could also think about the aboriginal artists in Australia, who live totally offline and in the desert 300 miles away from the middle of nowhere, who still nevertheless manage to get gallery representation. Will be interesting to see what he’s producing in 5-10 years time.
- Mistletoe 3y agoOh good I thought it was going to be Thomas Kinkade.
- zabzonk 3y agoor tretchikoff
- flat-like-paper 3y ago[dead]
- zabzonk 3y ago> He is, by some measures, the most famous artist in the world compared with say picasso or michelangelo or van gogh? jesus, the generation of ignoramuses that we are producing.
- brudgers 3y agoPicasso is dead. Etc.
- zabzonk 3y agodeath does not diminish fame
- margalabargala 3y agoIt does diminish their state of being "in the world", though.
- zabzonk 3y agosort of depends - if i was going to ask the question, i would say: "who is the most famous artist in the world alive today?" i might come up with david hockney - but not this git.
- jxf 3y agoYou should read the rest of the review: > Devon Rodriguez is almost certainly the most famous artist in the world, at least on one level. Almost no one I know has ever heard of him. It's clear that the author means that in _popular circles_, he's very famous, but in _critical circles_, he's unknown. The author isn't trying to draw a comparison with Van Gogh. He's trying to make a statement about the changing nature of what it means to be a popular artist.
- PeterisP 3y agoI think the parent post is making a very valid point that even in _popular circles_ he's relatively unknown, as his fan base may be large, very intense and vocal on social media but is still tiny fraction of the general public, the vast majority of whom have never heard of this artist but would know various older mainstream artists. "Many millions" is a lot when compared to my popularity, but insignificant when compared to actually popular artists. Like, HN is not a forum where art critics would be overrepresented, and it would be somewhat reasonable reflection "popular circles" and even one that favors an artist which, according to the article, draws heavily on younger and more app-using population than the general one. If we'd have a poll right here about artists people can name, do you really think that he would come out on top? Or even be in top 10?
- PeterisP 3y agoThe article is really nice, with a fresh perspective on how we-the-public (or, rather, segments of the public with very different worldview) perceive creations and creators, and how that seems changed recently because of the incentives driven by social media. But perhaps similar interplay of the triangle of artist-fans-critic was already there a century or two ago, just on a smaller scale ?
- ipaddr 3y agoIf you need to say the world's most popular artist in place of a name in a title then you probably are not that famous. Isn't Banksy the most well known artist these days?
- catchnear4321 3y agothe nature of popularity is part of the point being made by the author. yes, banksy is the most easily recognized, commercially successful modern art commodity object producer.
- throw0101a 3y ago> Isn't Banksy the most well known artist these days? That's so 2010s. semi-/s Elvis and the Beatles used to be some of the most well-known musical artists, yet how many people born more recently would be familiar with them. "Every generation throws a hero up the pop charts." — Paul Simon, "The Boy in the Bubble"
- tgv 3y agoIn my daughter's generation (early 2000s): practically everyone.
- throwaway290 3y agoMost of Beatles fans I encounter are half my age. I don't know what's going on, I think Beatles are quite boring and very shallow but maybe they were on to something.
- scythe 3y agoI think Bill Watterson probably has a pretty hefty cultural cache as well although he's as reclusive as they get.
- cookiengineer 3y agoIt's kind of a justified title if people generally only know the brand, not the creators behind them these days. And from a critics' perspective that makes a huge difference, as pointed out in the article.
- Affric 3y agoThis is a fascinating story. HN is (very deliberately) my only social media other than what my friends send me. I am not saying anything you don't already know by saying that parasocial relationships are so evil because they get the time that formerly would have gone into your real human relationships but don't give you anywhere near the payoff. In many ways the genie is out of the bottle/Pandora's box is open but the attention economy might just be the most insidious technology ever invented. How empty are these people attacking the author?
- spacecadet 3y agoAmen. Time to dismantle it. The environment will thank us too!
- Mistletoe 3y agoMy girlfriend's niece is in her 20s and talks incessantly about people she has never known or will never meet. She's a walking US magazine. It's disturbing that she treats PR releases like holy texts. These ARE the people in her life and they don't know she exists.
- whatshisface 3y agoThe phenomenon you're describing is hardly limited to parasocial relationships. Some people talk about sports teams, others about company stocks they have no valuable information on, others about drama in their subcultures, others about world news... we are about to start getting huge amounts of discussion around election polling in states none of your friends live in. "Do I have any power over anything related to this information?" has almost no psychological significance. I do not know whether TV show plots belong in this list, but they might.
- Mistletoe 3y agoI’d say the difference is you can’t be friends with a sports team or stocks and let it replace your interpersonal relationships.
- 3y ago
- billybuckwheat 3y agoI've seen this kind of thin-skinned, childish behaviour far too many times in the past. One instances, from years ago, really stands out. A well-known language learning blogger posted a review of a learning site (created by another blogger, with whom he had several disagreements). The review was generally positive, but the other blogger took undue offense to some of the criticisms in the review (which were laid out politely and accurately). He not only posted a snarky "review" of blog from whence the review sprang but his followers jumped in, castigating the reviewer in various online forums. While I never expected corners of the internet to be a revival of Enlightenment-era salons, I'd hoped that they wouldn't be virtual pile ons. I'm naive ...
- zzzeek 3y agoI have a thin skin so I solve this problem by making sure everything I produce is so perfect and wonderful that no one would ever have a negative comment
- 3np 3y agoglances at atomically growing unfinished-projects directory Me too, friend.
- whatshisface 3y agoI give that a three out of five stars, poignant message but you're going without punctuation.
- ezconnect 3y agoI too strive to make things perfect that no one can negatively comment on it, that's why I haven't finished anything.
- OrvalWintermute 3y ago[flagged]
- yieldcrv 3y agoYeah it’s very immature, masquerading as level headed and informative about parasocial relationships guiding the art world let’s just ignore them
- justanotherjoe 3y agoabsolutely agree. Author was definitely setting himself up to be surprised.
- vunderba 3y agoIt's so simultaneously baffling and repulsive to me that a celebrity can so easily weaponize their throngs of parasocial adoring masses and point them like a mob cannon at somebody. It's unfortunate how tribalism / pack mentality quickly leads to control and manipulation.
- mindslight 3y agoAt least this one isn't running for president?
- trimethylpurine 3y agoYet?
- hindsightbias 3y agoHe should do a review of Linux.
- networkchad 3y ago[dead]
- langsoul-com 3y agoI wonder if tiktok is just one big hood culture. Where everyone is trying to defending their reputation. As any attack, no matter how minor is an attack on their honour. Definitely feels like it based on that painters reaction.
- whatshisface 3y agoIf you etch away anyone's social norms you will get the same person, because everybody is the same. This might not be exactly true because of personality differences, but it is exactly true when the population is big enough for all personalities to be represented.
- me_again 3y agoI don't think that makes any sense.
- whatshisface 3y agoIf the selection criteria for two groups of people is "anybody" and the rules imposed on them are, "do whatever comes naturally in the absence of institutions or accepted culture," the things you see the groups doing will be almost exactly the same.
- fennecfoxy 3y agoYou say hood culture but it's just human culture/human nature. We're all animals at the end of the day! TikTok is all about clout generation, if you're a content producer then you're used to positive feedback & I'm pretty sure TikTok's dark patterns will definitely involve promoting positive comments on your videos and burying negative ones. They want you to have that Oxytocin feelgood rush again & again because...then you keep using their app! They've already been found to do things like show Ukraine videos to Ukrainians but hide them from Russians, whereas Russians are shown cute cat videos and fake news about Ukraine. Pretty sure their dark patterns will include exactly that: find your demographic and push more of what you like, hide negativity and boost positivity within your bubble. Although most social media platforms are guilty of this; it's how they work. What makes TikTok different? Well they've very clearly targeted a much younger demographic, I remember back in what 2017-2018 or so? Stickers with the TikTok logo but nothing else slapped onto utility poles, atms, etc in a guerrilla marketing move designed to capture a certain demographic. But it's also largely short form content - dopamine hit, dopamine hit, dopamine hit. But it makes me wonder if it trains users to react with no long term attachment. See this dude's video, send a hate/death threat message, pop back into TikTok and move on to the next funi feelgood video. Does consumption of shortform content have an effect on attention span/apathy?
- matteoraso 3y agoHere's the original review of the painter: https://news.artnet.com/opinion/devon-rodriguez-painter-tiktok-underground-2373157 https://news.artnet.com/opinion/devon-rodriguez-painter-tikt...
- marcod 3y agoThe first issue is that it's too long, so none of his ticky-tocky-tribe even read it. Joking aside, the review doesn't feel over the top or unfair and given that any review is an opinion piece, it's the reaction that was way over the top.
- Sharlin 3y agoI doubt any of his tribespeople would have read it anyway. After all, it was not in the form of aTikTok or Instagram post.
- DoreenMichele 3y agoThis is a really nice piece and very thoughtful and professional. I'm pleasantly surprised as things with titles of this sort are much more typically someone playing the victim card under circumstances where it's not possible to sort out who is "the guilty party" and who is "the real victim." I actually clicked into it expecting to feel like "Why is this on the front page of HN?" and I don't feel that way at all. In fact, the only way I can understand Rodriguez’s incredibly thin-skinned reaction to my article is that he has managed to rise to this status of apex visibility without any kind of critical writing about him at all. It’s all just been feel-good profiles, so that the first critical word feels like a huge crisis. That’s a relatively new kind of situation for an artist to be in, and worth analyzing. In addition to this, he more or less makes the point that Rodriquez is so famous because he cultivates a personal relationship to his audience or a "faux personal" -- a parasocial one -- and his fans are more invested in that than in his art per se. This is the opposite of how it usually goes in traditional art circles. Usually, the art comes first and then people become interested in the artist. It's interesting to me because I've spent a lot of years trying to sort out how to have a "relationship to the public" -- a constructive one, a professional one. Women on the internet tend to attract a lot of drama and I've spent a lot of time trying to sort things out in a way that makes sense to me so I can try to get that down to a dull roar and I have found it helpful to see male-coded behavior as being about being raised to have "a real career," which boils down to a professional relationship to the public, to people who are not family and friends, and female-coded behavior as about personal relationships. How do you make that professional versus personal distinction that this article touches on? How do you get people interested in your work instead of interested in some faux "personal" relationship to a woman they really don't know well but want to imagine they do for reasons I have trouble grasping? And so this piece parallels some of my observations about gender issues. I think women get raised to have personal relationships and don't get raised to have professional lives and when we go online, we talk and behave in a way that is very personal. Other people hunger for that, want more of it, actively encourage women to do more of that and no one tells us "Honey, that's unprofessional" and if they do we tend to feel like "You're just a sexist pig trying to gatekeep me out!" and not like "Oh. I didn't realize doing X was a problem." So it's interesting to me to see this piece and I enjoyed it a lot more than I expected. I really expected this to be another internet "he said/she said" kind of thing and I'm blown away that it's not that at all and we need more of this type of analysis of how and why things sometimes go sideways on the internet. It's our only hope of having fewer such incidents.
- totallywrong 3y agoSocial media is now what people discuss in real life. Traditional news now report on what happens on social media. It's sickening, honestly.
- creakingstairs 3y agoKorean news agencies have been caught multiple times posting something inflammatory on social media just to report on it and cause outrage. The media have become literal outrage building machines. I assume it isn’t limited to Korea and happens all around the world :(
- OfSanguineFire 3y agoThe tabloid press sparking developments that it can then cover, is decades old at least. Things like giving cash to a celebrity who is well-known for drug or alcohol addiction, so that the tabloid can then write about the crazy bender that he goes on with that money.
- creakingstairs 3y agoHuh I didn't know about that. But it seems like those old tabloid shenanigans at least took some effort for the press :p
- soraminazuki 3y agoIs that worth the risk though? There's more than enough inflammatory stories out there that it's hardly necessary to invent one.
- dools 3y agoOT but the work of James Harrington (linked from the original review) is beautiful https://www.jamesharrington.net/the-subway https://www.jamesharrington.net/the-subway
- nicolas_t 3y agoYup, I really enjoyed looking through this gallery. Was a nice detour from the middle of the article :)
- tayo42 3y agoPretty interesting. I find this idea on the internet that you can't be critical about anything annoying. I actually only run into this in online comment sections. People show up and start asking "why do you care", like we shouldn't be thinking about our actions and others and how they impact that world? Also an interesting instance where marketing is why he is popular. I don't think the paintings and drawings stand on their own. I think most can achieve this level of skill with some dedication. Agree with the point about what sells is the whole package of reaction videos. Is it really art or just a new form of commercials to get followers.
- 15457345234 3y ago> we shouldn't be thinking about our actions and others and how they impact that world? Yeah they're trying pretty hard to discourage that
- zoogeny 3y ago> if one of the things you are selling is likability and good vibes, cheering on this kind of vicious reaction every time you get a review you don’t like is probably not a sustainable career path. This is completely false. I might even say that it is wishful thinking. Some kind of "long arc of history bends towards justice" make-believe. The contrary is almost certainly true: picking fights with well-selected made up enemies is an effective way to promote a brand that is based on virtue. It transforms an inactive/passive audience into an active participant in a movement. I would bet many of the people attacking this art critic wrote their first comment in defense of this artist. He subtly said "I need your help" and his audience reacted. The art critic noted the manufactured TikTok videos, obviously planned by a media savvy PR team. Perhaps he isn't cynical enough to believe it, but this sustained and coordinated attack against him may well have been planned and orchestrated.
- DoreenMichele 3y agoIf this is actually the first time he's been criticized, the critic may be correct. If he starts getting more criticism and always reacts like a drama queen who has been terribly wronged and behaves very unprofessionally, the people who were fans because he was "nice" may start disappearing. And that could hurt his bottom line. People there for the drama may not be paying customers. They may essentially be internet trolls.
- gilleain 3y agoThat's what the critic suggests, yes: > In fact, the only way I can understand Rodriguez’s incredibly thin-skinned reaction to my article is that he has managed to rise to this status of apex visibility without any kind of critical writing about him at all. edit: oops I see in your other comment you quoted that part! What's more amazing to me is that the artist doesn't even seem to understand what a critic _does_ - like what is the critic doing? He's not "gatekeeping" (what gate? the artist is famous, getting rich, and has a gallery show!) and not jealous or a 'hater'. Like I understand that artists traditionally dislike critics, for obvious reasons, but usually they know the purpose of criticism. As the author says he is trying to both put the art in context of other art and to consider how social media figures into the art.
- gorgoiler 3y agoI’m sure the author, Ben Davis, must have had an inclination as to what he was going up against with Rodriguez but even if he didn’t, kudos for sticking it out with the fascinating followup. When your subject is as famous for their tough street narrative as they are for their work then you can’t be too surprised if they feel obliged to react all hood in public. It’s a missed opportunity for Rodriguez though when he could have played his “stay humble my dude” card while… being actually humble. Is he a thug or not? Pick a lane. The problem with existence as performance art is that we will never know if Rodriguez’ lashing out was genuine, or just another part of his rags-to-riches outsider story. At this level, his posts could just as well be coming from his PR team as from him at which point the furore and performance is definitely taking over from anything this guy does with a pencil. Is Rodriguez’ level of naivety and lack of self reflection evidence of this being his genuine self, or of his PR team’s perfectly formed ideal of how the Rodriguez phenomenon ought to be projecting itself?
- anon84873628 3y agoThe author perhaps implies, but doesn't outright state, what seems obvious to me: Rodriguez got defensive and spread FUD about the critic because he was worried about being exposed as a phony. (At least as far as the surprise setups and "where does my talent really lie" aspect). Pretty simple and straightforward. Most of those adoring followers probably know it in the back of their minds too, so defending him helps defend the shared illusion. And using anti-gatekeeping as the righteous rallying cry is especially brilliant & effective. A good internet mob needs that SJW aspect.
- defanor 3y agoThe article is hidden with CSS (and apparently later shown with JS, but not shown at all if JS is disabled, and there is no indication of that), but disabling CSS or switching to reader mode helps.
- rdtsc 3y agoBen Davis should create his own art show, posting all the hate messages he got. He can call it “Conversations with Devon and his followers” It can include an installation where a performer demonstrates all the threats on a Ben Davis effigy. “And here we have the performer shooting a flamethrower at a small model of Davis’ house as per hate message received on $date from ShadyFan23 on Facebook”.
- Sharlin 3y agoAn aside, but I doubt that he got many hate messages literally via Facebook. After all only boomers (defined as anyone over 30) use Facebook these days.
- Tade0 3y agoConsidering the likely quality of those - or actually the lack of it - I would wish to have J.T. Sexkik (of "pregananant" fame) read some of them.
- RadixDLT 3y agothose paintings seems controversial
- neom 3y agoIn film school we had this super kind dude who was generally very popular among our class (I liked him a lot too). He would always get raving reviewers in our critique and criticism (C&C) class. Frankly, I always found his work to be very mediocre but he was just such a sweet guy nobody gave him any straight feedback. One day he brought in a film to our C&C class that was so poorly white balanced I couldn't not say something. So I stuck up my hand and told him "the white balance is so poorly executed on this everyone looks like they're suffering from a severe case of jaundice. It's all I can focus on and it's not helping your film". I think it was the first time he had gotten direct feedback and he started to cry and left the room. Boy did I ever get it from the rest of the class. People really laid into me, folks wouldn't talk to me for a week after etc. It was so annoying because everyone loved him and nobody wanted to hurt his feelings. After I went to see our C&C class prof for a 1:1 and I explained the situation, he said in your career you're going to have to give a lot of feedback, and it's going to be hard to know how everyone will react to it. Some people will start a war, some people will improve, but to tilt it the scale against war... always start by finding something good and talking about that first. I've used that advice going forward and I suspect it's served me well.
- nicbou 3y agoI don't think it applies here, but it helps to praise in public and criticise in private. You must give people every opportunity to save face. It's also good to tone down your criticism and pick the right words. Directness does not work well in every situation.
- neom 3y agoI agree, actually in reading the original review by Ben and I think it was a very fair and balanced bit, heck it's hardly even an art review I found it's a social commentary more generally. Just the whole situation spurred that thought about feedback and criticism, and how you never know how people will react - so I thought I'd share it.
- denton-scratch 3y ago> criticise in private That seems to be at odds with the purpose of an art critic.
- 23B1 3y agoDudes like this have been painting mediocre portraits for tourists in NYC forever. This dude is just the first to effectively use social media to promote his otherwise forgettable illustrations. If he can toughen up (or shrug it off) and continue to develop as a human and an artist – and manage to hold on to his sizable audience while he's doing it – he could make his mark.
- ShadowBanThis01 3y agoThe fawning and sucking-up in the comments on this guy's videos are absolutely pathetic. And, needless to say, he disgraced himself with his hissy fit and lashing out at a guy who didn't attack him at all. The normalization of infantilism continues.
- randomcarbloke 3y agoBen's right in one way I'd never heard of Devon but would know of him by "the guy who draws people on the subway" On the other hand, I don't think the art world should take this new wave seriously...doodling for attention isn't art.
- criddell 3y ago> doodling for attention isn’t art Sure it is. Maybe you don’t like it, but if the work (and the context it’s presented in) is compelling, it’s art.
- randomcarbloke 3y agoit's not that I don't like it, it's a skill, and it's cute and if you stretch the definition that far you can include Hallmark christmas cards et al as art if you want, but as a proud elitist, it simply isn't, and you can throw social media poets in too.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- iamsaitam 3y ago"The most popular painter in the world".. what?! Clickbait title.
- OKImABoomer 3y ago> He is, by some measures, the most famous artist in the world, with many millions of social media followers. "Some measures" being a key phrase here. As is always the case with counts of followers, subscribers, watchers, likers, commenters, views, etc. there's rarely if ever any mention of the relative value of a single unit of the above, and perhaps more importantly the cost of any single follow, subscription, watch, like, comment or view and its relative value. The social media platforms where these things are posted are practically cost-free for a viewer, save for perhaps paying for a subscription to replace advertising, but without any real cost to view or follow it's impossible to determine the value that a viewer places in the thing-to-be-viewed. I wonder what percentage of the millions of followers would pay $1 a month for ongoing access to view Rodriguez' work, and of those how many would keep that payment going. This is nothing to say about the actual quality of Rodriguez' art of course, just musings on the value placed in things that are practically costless to a viewer.
- jeroenhd 3y agoBeing known for anything by millions of people is a perfectly valid indication of popularity. If I had to pay a dollar a month to keep seeing Van Gogh paintings, or Andy Warhol, or any artist for that matter. I don't care about art and I doubt the vast majority of humanity would consider spending money on access to any particular artist's work, excluding bands and such. The art world professional artists and art critics see isn't the art world most people see. Some look at a banana taped to a wall and see a strong message about the state of the art industry, or see the peanut butter floor as a daring exercise in discovering the boundaries of art, but I just see pretentious idiots scamming rich people into giving them money. There's a lot of value to art, but that value isn't necessarily based on what the art industry considers valuable.
- asylteltine 3y ago[dead]
- tjbiddle 3y agoSkimmed the initial review. Doesn't even look remotely bad. Sure, some negativity - but nothing terrible. Never heard of Devon before, his stuff looks good, but sounds like the artist and the fans need their ego checked. Hardly news worthy
- boppo1 3y agoPainter here. Rodriguez gained his popularity from staged videos that seem to indicate he drew people on the subway. To any serious figure/portrait artist it is immediately clear he copied the drawings from photographs. I'm not saying it's impossible to make good drawings on the subway. But the line qualities of his drawings indicate multi-hour techniques that are popular among amateurs. I can't deny his success, but he's a grifter more than a draughtsman.
- silent_cal 3y agoCan you go into more detail about this? As in how do you know? I'm an amateur artist myself and was amazed he could get these portraits done so quickly. But I wouldn't rule out that he just learned to do it quickly personally.
- boppo1 3y agoI can, but it's not straightforward so I'll have to do so this evening or tomorrow morning when I have a keyboard. Check back for a separate comment. Edit: An example of a person who could have actually done this 'for real' was Kim Jung Gi. Until I get back, go take a look at his work, the line-only pen drawings in particular (or one-color brush pen stuff) and compare it to how Rodriguez's stuff looks. KJG has a 'decisiveness' of line[0] that comes from clarity of 'drawing thought'. Rodriguez has mark-making[0] that is consistent with a novice painstakingly copying a photo. [0] 'mark making' is an umbrella term for the quality of the marks that make up a drawing/painting, separate from whatever they depict.
- boppo1 3y ago[edit] some links seem broken, will maybe fix later. Hopefully the overall gist is clear.[/edit] Sorry for the delay, turned out busier than I expected! Apologies if this is a bit meandering. The main point I'm making here is that Rodriguez claims to 'draw from life' i.e. directly observing his subjects, and I believe he actually works from photographs. The dead giveaway is that there's a certain look that "talented-amateur" drawings from photographs have that drawings from life do not. This 'look' can be overcome[0] by people with lots of life-drawing experience, but I digress. The thing about photographs is that the image mapping from 3d space to 2d space, as well as the recording of light/dark relationships has all been done already by the camera. When you draw from life, you have to make lots of decisions and carefully organize all of the visual information yourself. When you copy a photograph, you only worry about how dark each x-y position is. There's a bit more to it, but the short of it is that there's a distinct 'look' that you can easily recognize if you have a lot of experience drawing from life (or you've looked at a lot of old paintings made prior to cameras[1]). To help you better see this 'look', google "hyperrealism drawings". It's a bunch of artists all drawing the same thing: high contrast, high detail (often somewhat wonky) photograph copies. There's very little of the individual artists' 'identities' coming through because they're not making any decisions, they're just copying the information recorded by the camera. The wonkiness happens because the way the camera recorded the organization of lights & darks is different than what a human would actually percieve. Another giveaway is the lighting on Devon's drawings. People who are drawing from life basically never have a light source pointed at the subject directly from their point of observation. However, in lots of drawings from photographs, that's exactly the way the subject is lit because the main light source was the flash from the camera. If you scroll down his page a bit, there's a woman with red hair holding a painting of herself. Throughtout the entire video as he is "painting", you can see that they are lit from her left. However, in the final painting that you can see in the thumbnail, the strongest light is from her right, with a fill light on the other side. It's obviously some sort of studio lighting. The painting clearly does not match the light of the scene he is allegedly painting from. It does seem like he's actually making the painting on location, but the space between them seems concealed. I would wager there's a photo there that he's copying (I admit I did not watch the whole video to confirm). Detail #??? is that the overall look of the drawings gives away that they were made with pencil hatching from a photo, because they look just like the drawings that I made, hatching with a pencil, from photos. Here someone could argue "No, what if Rodriguez really is that incredible? What if he can actually just draw those drawings on a bumpy subway ride, from a moving subject, in 30-40 minutes[2]?" If that were the case, and he had that level of talent, I'd ask why his drawings otherwise look so... bad. Check out this portrait of Matt Damon (pause right at the beginning): https://www.instagram.com/p/Cxgh-yYvlEL/ https://www.instagram.com/p/Cxgh-yYvlEL/. It's a horrible likeness. Without knowing the context that it was a drawing of Matt Damon, would you be confident of the subject's identity? If Rodriguez really was so incredible, why do his drawings look like every other amateur graphite photo copy and not more attractive drawings-from-photos like these: https://www.instagram.com/p/CzHBzZ5Oc0v/?img_index=1 https://www.instagram.com/p/CzHBzZ5Oc0v/?img_index=1 https://www.instagram.com/p/CRJhfVpAXuj/ https://www.instagram.com/p/CRJhfVpAXuj/ Just for good measure, let me also give some examples of people who make drawings/paintings from life: https://www.instagram.com/noelle_gunsay.art/?hl=en https://www.instagram.com/noelle_gunsay.art/?hl=en https://www.instagram.com/kidpaints/?hl=en https://www.instagram.com/kidpaints/?hl=en https://www.instagram.com/p/CYCOI13LEOG/?hl=en https://www.instagram.com/p/CYCOI13LEOG/?hl=en Maybe you can see some of the difference concerning that difference in 'look' between life drawing and photo-copying[3]. There's more solidity, facial features seem more 'locked in' to the head, there's a more careful arrangement of the brightest lights and darkest darks to focus your attention. Whereas in Rodriguez's drawings the lights and darks are all over the place (as they also are in the 'hyperrealist' drawings). Admittedly, the first two are students at GCA where most of the paintings are notably very long poses, 20+ hours. However, the last link is to a Sargent, and iirc his charcoal portraits were 2-4 hour affairs. Sargent was among the ~100 most talented (debatable, but again I digress) to have ever lived and he certainly outclasses Rodriguez. If he takes 4 hours to draw a portrait with charcoal, which is a dramatically faster medium than graphite pencil because you can use it like paint, there's no way Rodriguez is rendering full figures in graphite pencil in ~30-40 minutes (unless he's copying a photograph which isn't moving). [0] This is an example: https://www.instagram.com/p/CPn2Rpls5DP/?hl=en&img_index=1 https://www.instagram.com/p/CPn2Rpls5DP/?hl=en&img_index=1. I watched one of his workshops and he explicitly said "I work from photos now, but I lean on my 10k hours of drawing from life". [1] Someone will certainly read this and cite 'Tim's Vermeer' at me. I strongly disagree with the claims of the film that lenses were 'central' to artists' workflows. A. I have a camera lucida that collects dust because it only gets in the way. B. People like Alex Ramon Hurtado have done extensive research into how past artists painted and lenses were not much more than a novelty. C. David Hockney can barely paint, so when he says something is "impossible without the help of a camera lens" I would assert that he hasn't got a clue what is and isn't possible. [2] I'm guessing an average NYC subway commute time here. But it raises another great point! Devon's videos show that he's 'surprising' these people with drawings, so clearly he hasn't asked them "how long are you going to be riding for?" What happens if the person just gets up after 10 minutes and he's only 20% through the drawing? Does he just get lucky every time? [3] The drawings by Sajad Khaleghi IMO are another exception to the rule, that guy's work is really strong. Wish I could speak/read arabic (or whatever language that is). There are a couple places he slips though, like this one: https://www.instagram.com/p/CzHBzZ5Oc0v/?img_index=4 https://www.instagram.com/p/CzHBzZ5Oc0v/?img_index=4. If you look at how the eyes are set into the skull and the overall shape of the head, there's some clear distortion from the camera. [BONUS] There's a video where he is allegedly setup to paint Jared Leto directly from life. I don't think I've ever seen a video with less sincerity: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cwg7r4ws9px/ https://www.instagram.com/p/Cwg7r4ws9px/. Models don't ever sit for 5 straight hours, they take breaks every 40 minutes (at a maximum). A '5 hour pose' usually happens over the course of 8 hours. An experienced model might go longer, but I have sincere doubts Mr. Leto would be happy to give up an entire day for a portrait of the quality that Rodriguez gives him at the end. (compare the quality of that painting to even the 'sketchier' portraits from the GCA students). ANYWAY, like I said this is a little scattered. There are a lot more clues and indications all over, but I kinda gotta go do stuff instead of writing a thesis on HN. Overall I actually agree a lot with the Artnet critic. Rodriguez should be commended for his success and expertise. However, that expertise is in social media and brand management, not drawing and painting.
- dghughes 3y agoI have no idea who the painter guy is or even after prompting Tiktok Subway whatever. All I know for sure is he is a major asshole.
- low_tech_love 3y agoAn artist doesn’t exist in isolation. It’s natural that other people who also see themselves as artists will look at your work critically. If you’re e.g. an engineer, who spent many hours practicing and honing your skills, then you see someone else calling themselves an engineer but you think they don’t deserve the title, you’ll complain (as you should; that’s called “society”). The superficial and childish way he reacted simply confirms the shallowness that the critic pointed out. As for the critic’s role in all of it, it is clearly necessary. There is a misconception that to be a fan you need to be a rabid fan, but these are just the loudest ones. A normal person who is not an internet warrior and stumbles upon his work deserves to know his honesty is contested, so they can make their own assessment of his true skills.
- Mouthfeel 3y ago[dead]
- rekabis 3y agoI have absolutely no clue who this guy is, either. And I’m not exactly isolated from the social media world.
- fennecfoxy 3y agoI mean I'm not that surprised, MIB put it one way: "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." I think TikTok has human elements that are interesting to think about. The short form content/attention span/apathy problem. It took what Vine started and then mixed it with psychological techniques/dark patterns to create what they have now. For example, misinformation has always been a human problem, technology just makes it easier to spread it. But like...but I think it's interesting to look at different forms of content and how digestible they make false information, or hate, or violence. If I speak for 60 minutes on how "zoo animals escaped in Paris during the protests" then people will likely not believe me. If I create a 30s TikTok video with a dark soundtrack people will watch it and move on, then regurgitate the false info later. It's also a clout addiction engine. Humans are social animals and we want to be LIKED. Like SO MUCH. Attention is a drug and TikTok delivers, that has created a storm of content that used to be a "skit" and is now presented as something that "actually happened". And the responses vary from someone watching the short form content and then moving on, believing it happened. To people claiming "well it's obviously scripted, it's a joke, duh". My problem is that skits are generally made obvious that it's a skit - see channels/people who are musicians who "just happen" to constantly play a public piano and then have a "stranger from the public" join them for a duet. It's all clout/attention generation. It's not inherently bad I suppose, but the "this actually happened" style of content makes it especially easy for young people (TikTok's userbase) to eagerly swallow the false information content in between stuff like this. Vine max users: 200M. TikTok current: 1000M! Hmmm. Idk, maybe I'm just getting older lmao. Get off my lawn!
- thewileyone 3y agoIf I heard the name "Devon Rodriguez", I'd ask who that was. I'd recall "Subway Portrait Guy" but only after a moment. Yeah, he's good but he's not great as the reviewer pointed out: he's just popular because his videos showing the reactions are uplifting. Just like Thomas Kinkade paintings were good, but not substantial, and he was so popular you could buy his paintings in the mall in the 90's. Subway Portrait Guy siccing his fans on the reviewer is just thin-skinned.