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“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 pop

“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 ago
Kinda the point of the two articles.
- gizajob 3y ago
  I 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 ago
    They'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 ago
      He 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.
  - Affric 3y ago
    The point of the original review is actually that it's his tik tok fame and video format that is what creates the audience and not the art itself. His fans have little interest in the actual art, it's the vicarious and voyeuristic aspect that his fortune is built off, the art is incidental. Yeah, the painting is boring, safe, well trodden material (and he's not good at hands!) but the phenomenon is social media. The hype machine. The parasocial relationships.
    - et-al 3y ago
      > it's the vicarious and voyeuristic aspect that his fortune is built off, the art is incidental Seems like Rodriguez is more of a performance artist.
      - esperent 3y ago
        Many extremely famous artists are also performance artists. Dali, Picasso, Warhol, Hirst, Banksy. All of them made some kind of performance to go alongside the art, whether it's crazy personality, or controversy, or nobody knowing what you look like, it's a performance. You need to get people talking about you and the art will only get you so far, in many cases. Great as, for example, Dali's art is, would he have been as famous without the mustache and pet anteater? Of course there's plenty of counterexamples where the art alone was enough for fame. Esther and Van Gogh come to mind.
        gilleain 3y ago
        Right, but Picasso's performance was of _himself_ alongside his art. This guy is making a performance out of the act of making the art, and then people's real-time reaction to that art.
      - gizajob 3y ago
        Yet his performance is identical to that performed by countless other people on TikTok. Anti-performance and anti-art for the age of the anti-social.
coldcode 3y ago
I'm an artist and I've never heard of him until now, but then again I am not into TikTok. Drawing people in public is pretty basic stuff for people who get a degree in art; it's not anything new or original. He is clearly very good at gaining an audience which is a good skill, and his portraits seem very skillful from what I can see. Realism is a very minor type of art since photography exists; outside of TikTok it's not a big market. But dealing with criticism is also a necessary skill which he seems to lack. One person is an artist; the other 8B people are critics.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- AlbertCory 3y ago
  From what I hear of TikTok (or can't avoid hearing), people also become huge influencers for putting up basic cooking tips. Remember, these are middle schoolers, at least mentally.
  - worthless-trash 3y ago
    Thats one of the things that people forget about social media. It is mostly a younger, inexperienced people who get entertained by new things that people haven't seen before. Its not their fault, they just have not lived enough yet.
throw0101a 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. "You're one of today's lucky 10,000": * https://xkcd.com/1053/ https://xkcd.com/1053/ :) See also the Theory of Chinese (Indian) Indifference: No matter how famous you are, not matter how notable your accomplishments, a billion Chinese (Indians) have never heard of you and couldn't care less.
- gizajob 3y ago
  Either one of the lucky 10,000 or one of a smaller number pointing out that he’s not the world’s most popular painter. “World’s most popular” painter amongst the demographic of American TikTok users under the age of 35.
  - throw0101a 3y ago
    > Either one of the lucky 10,000 or one of a smaller number pointing out that he’s not the world’s most popular painter. Is there anyone else (alive?) today whose art is being enjoyed regularly by more people than this fellow?
    - gizajob 3y ago
      You’d have to say “painting”. I’d say the art of Taylor Swift would probably be enjoyed more regularly and wholeheartedly if we’re talking about the entire class of artists. If we’re talking about the entire class of content creators on TikTok, then I don’t have the stats.
    - defrost 3y ago
      The unsung hero that oversees the google "graphic of the day" ? That { individual | art collective } get the eyeballs but not the name recognition.
    - btilly 3y ago
      Hayao Miyazaki comes to mind. Think "Studio Ghibli" if you don't know who I mean. And if you don't know that, watch some of his movies.
atoav 3y ago
I have a MA in art and am currently on a commision that selects a painting professor for one of the prolific central european art schools. I have never heard of the guy. There is a lot of art that is basically just crafts. Technically skilled and beautiful to many people who have been to a museum once or twice (and there are many of those!) — people are baffled by the fact that someone can paint realistically — ignoring a rich art history that should make clear that doing just that is the bare minimum and clearly not the point of good art. But in the end all those works are more or less uninteresting beyond that. They lack the stuff that makes Mona Lisa's smile famous, the stuff that Hopper has in his pictures, the crows over the fields in Van Goghs paintings, Yves Kleins blue etc. If your art lacks the art while delivering technical skill it will still remain ultimately hollow. And if your ownly impact your art makes on the world is fighting your critics you should wonder why you are doing it.
- hoffs 3y ago
  It's kinda clickbait, but at the start of an article it's laid out as this: > He is, by some measures, the most famous artist in the world, with many millions of social media followers
  - atoav 3y ago
    Yeah this is what I mean. And I am certainly not a snob that thinks only what the upper class or academics see as art is actual art. In fact bad taste in art is equally common in the upper class. Just have a look at how Silvio Berlusconi's heirs are struggling to sell the stuff he considered art for example. Being known doesn't mean you are exemplary of what you are doing. If you have a famous youtube tutorial channel for javascript, you might be one of the most widely known javascript programmers — but that doesn't automatically mean you are the "best" (or even a half-way decent) programmer. It still might mean that you are a stellar teacher and an exceptional communicator, which worth a lot, but if you confuse yourself for something that you are not this is where the problems start. To the general public that guy might be what they think a good Javascript-Dev looks like, but ultimatly he isn't. I had to think of Bob Ross: A legendary communicator, a good ambassador for the arts and a good human being, but I wouldn't buy his art if I found it at a thrift store. But Bob Ross knew that his skill was being a communicator for the arts and didn't confuse himself with the painters who managed to get their works into the big art instutions.
jeroenhd 3y ago
Perhaps the fact you've never heard of him is why this is such an explosive situation. An art critic sees "just some guy who is very skilled at painting" but literally millions of people see him as "the best modern painter" because the state of nuanced art isn't exactly at the forefront of society's interests. The art world as participating artists see it isn't the art world the rest of the world sees. These Tiktok people are to art what televised wrestling is to martial arts: very skilled people performing impressive feats designed for entertainment more than anything.
mihaaly 3y ago
He seems to be a talented speed drawer, street performer. Probably the best of those seen in touristy spots. Art? ... probably. Or definitely, according to the nervous masses furious about the uninterested or unfriendly parts of the world. I'll decide later if I am ashamed of not knowing him and still not that much interested. It was an interesting 15 minutes of my life I spent on this phenomenon though.
- gizajob 3y ago
  His drawing of Courtney Cox in particular possesses a whiff of the street caricaturist.
armandososa 3y ago
Well, one could be faily musically inclined and never have listened to "despacito" on the height of its fame. And I think that in this case,the critic was kind of a dick in his critic. In a very knowledgeable and eloquent manner he implies that if (from his perspective) the painter is not very good nor the art he produces, then the only explanation is that all the people who enjoys his art are gullible simpletons who don't know art. He has every right to have this opinion, of course, but he shouldn't be surprised if the gullible simpletons in question loudly disagree.

Affric 3y ago

Kinda the point of the two articles.

gizajob 3y ago
I 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 ago
  They'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 ago
    He 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.
- Affric 3y ago
  The point of the original review is actually that it's his tik tok fame and video format that is what creates the audience and not the art itself. His fans have little interest in the actual art, it's the vicarious and voyeuristic aspect that his fortune is built off, the art is incidental. Yeah, the painting is boring, safe, well trodden material (and he's not good at hands!) but the phenomenon is social media. The hype machine. The parasocial relationships.
  - et-al 3y ago
    > it's the vicarious and voyeuristic aspect that his fortune is built off, the art is incidental Seems like Rodriguez is more of a performance artist.
    - esperent 3y ago
      Many extremely famous artists are also performance artists. Dali, Picasso, Warhol, Hirst, Banksy. All of them made some kind of performance to go alongside the art, whether it's crazy personality, or controversy, or nobody knowing what you look like, it's a performance. You need to get people talking about you and the art will only get you so far, in many cases. Great as, for example, Dali's art is, would he have been as famous without the mustache and pet anteater? Of course there's plenty of counterexamples where the art alone was enough for fame. Esther and Van Gogh come to mind.
      - gilleain 3y ago
        Right, but Picasso's performance was of _himself_ alongside his art. This guy is making a performance out of the act of making the art, and then people's real-time reaction to that art.
    - gizajob 3y ago
      Yet his performance is identical to that performed by countless other people on TikTok. Anti-performance and anti-art for the age of the anti-social.

coldcode 3y ago

I'm an artist and I've never heard of him until now, but then again I am not into TikTok. Drawing people in public is pretty basic stuff for people who get a degree in art; it's not anything new or original. He is clearly very good at gaining an audience which is a good skill, and his portraits seem very skillful from what I can see. Realism is a very minor type of art since photography exists; outside of TikTok it's not a big market. But dealing with criticism is also a necessary skill which he seems to lack. One person is an artist; the other 8B people are critics.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
AlbertCory 3y ago
From what I hear of TikTok (or can't avoid hearing), people also become huge influencers for putting up basic cooking tips. Remember, these are middle schoolers, at least mentally.
- worthless-trash 3y ago
  Thats one of the things that people forget about social media. It is mostly a younger, inexperienced people who get entertained by new things that people haven't seen before. Its not their fault, they just have not lived enough yet.

throw0101a 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. "You're one of today's lucky 10,000": * https://xkcd.com/1053/ https://xkcd.com/1053/ :) See also the Theory of Chinese (Indian) Indifference: No matter how famous you are, not matter how notable your accomplishments, a billion Chinese (Indians) have never heard of you and couldn't care less.

gizajob 3y ago
Either one of the lucky 10,000 or one of a smaller number pointing out that he’s not the world’s most popular painter. “World’s most popular” painter amongst the demographic of American TikTok users under the age of 35.
- throw0101a 3y ago
  > Either one of the lucky 10,000 or one of a smaller number pointing out that he’s not the world’s most popular painter. Is there anyone else (alive?) today whose art is being enjoyed regularly by more people than this fellow?
  - gizajob 3y ago
    You’d have to say “painting”. I’d say the art of Taylor Swift would probably be enjoyed more regularly and wholeheartedly if we’re talking about the entire class of artists. If we’re talking about the entire class of content creators on TikTok, then I don’t have the stats.
  - defrost 3y ago
    The unsung hero that oversees the google "graphic of the day" ? That { individual | art collective } get the eyeballs but not the name recognition.
  - btilly 3y ago
    Hayao Miyazaki comes to mind. Think "Studio Ghibli" if you don't know who I mean. And if you don't know that, watch some of his movies.

atoav 3y ago

I have a MA in art and am currently on a commision that selects a painting professor for one of the prolific central european art schools. I have never heard of the guy. There is a lot of art that is basically just crafts. Technically skilled and beautiful to many people who have been to a museum once or twice (and there are many of those!) — people are baffled by the fact that someone can paint realistically — ignoring a rich art history that should make clear that doing just that is the bare minimum and clearly not the point of good art. But in the end all those works are more or less uninteresting beyond that. They lack the stuff that makes Mona Lisa's smile famous, the stuff that Hopper has in his pictures, the crows over the fields in Van Goghs paintings, Yves Kleins blue etc. If your art lacks the art while delivering technical skill it will still remain ultimately hollow. And if your ownly impact your art makes on the world is fighting your critics you should wonder why you are doing it.

hoffs 3y ago
It's kinda clickbait, but at the start of an article it's laid out as this: > He is, by some measures, the most famous artist in the world, with many millions of social media followers
- atoav 3y ago
  Yeah this is what I mean. And I am certainly not a snob that thinks only what the upper class or academics see as art is actual art. In fact bad taste in art is equally common in the upper class. Just have a look at how Silvio Berlusconi's heirs are struggling to sell the stuff he considered art for example. Being known doesn't mean you are exemplary of what you are doing. If you have a famous youtube tutorial channel for javascript, you might be one of the most widely known javascript programmers — but that doesn't automatically mean you are the "best" (or even a half-way decent) programmer. It still might mean that you are a stellar teacher and an exceptional communicator, which worth a lot, but if you confuse yourself for something that you are not this is where the problems start. To the general public that guy might be what they think a good Javascript-Dev looks like, but ultimatly he isn't. I had to think of Bob Ross: A legendary communicator, a good ambassador for the arts and a good human being, but I wouldn't buy his art if I found it at a thrift store. But Bob Ross knew that his skill was being a communicator for the arts and didn't confuse himself with the painters who managed to get their works into the big art instutions.

jeroenhd 3y ago

Perhaps the fact you've never heard of him is why this is such an explosive situation. An art critic sees "just some guy who is very skilled at painting" but literally millions of people see him as "the best modern painter" because the state of nuanced art isn't exactly at the forefront of society's interests. The art world as participating artists see it isn't the art world the rest of the world sees. These Tiktok people are to art what televised wrestling is to martial arts: very skilled people performing impressive feats designed for entertainment more than anything.

mihaaly 3y ago

He seems to be a talented speed drawer, street performer. Probably the best of those seen in touristy spots. Art? ... probably. Or definitely, according to the nervous masses furious about the uninterested or unfriendly parts of the world. I'll decide later if I am ashamed of not knowing him and still not that much interested. It was an interesting 15 minutes of my life I spent on this phenomenon though.

gizajob 3y ago
His drawing of Courtney Cox in particular possesses a whiff of the street caricaturist.

armandososa 3y ago

Well, one could be faily musically inclined and never have listened to "despacito" on the height of its fame. And I think that in this case,the critic was kind of a dick in his critic. In a very knowledgeable and eloquent manner he implies that if (from his perspective) the painter is not very good nor the art he produces, then the only explanation is that all the people who enjoys his art are gullible simpletons who don't know art. He has every right to have this opinion, of course, but he shouldn't be surprised if the gullible simpletons in question loudly disagree.