3 ms·

An awful lot of art, and especially modern art, has its meaning and merit in the context of when and why it was created - there's a reason people talk about art

An awful lot of art, and especially modern art, has its meaning and merit in the context of when and why it was created - there's a reason people talk about art as a conversation, because very often what you're seeing in a piece or a movement is a response to other pieces or other movements, or are expressed specifically with constraints ("what can we show with just one color? what can we show without form? how can we use these new materials expressively?"). A great many people seem to confuse artistic merit with technical difficulty and specifically with realism or complexity, at which point we peaked at Vermeer and it's all been downhill from there.

fluoridation 2y ago
Personally, I'm not interested in that conversation, any more than I'm interested in suddenly lurking in a random subreddit. It's a community I'm not a part of and which doesn't interest me. If you took a dump on a canvas and hung it on a gallery to make fun of a guy who said no one would ever do that, well I'm glad you had fun and all, but it's still shit on a wall. I won't deny that in some cases works can be interested because of their context, but generally speaking, to me, a piece has to stand on its own regardless of who made it or when or how. Mozart's scat letters don't become good by virtue of having been written by him (although they do become funnier).
- roughly 2y ago
  I'm not asking you to care, I'm asking you to recognize you don't understand what you're looking at. You can say "I don't find the work compelling", but to say it lacks artistic merit is just silly.
  - fluoridation 2y ago
    But it's not silly, though. You're asking me to either judge the work on the same grounds as you do, or to abstain from opining if I can't, but I have no reason to do that. I can confidently say "You painted a can of soup on a white background. You didn't try. Your work has little artistic merit." I don't see any reason why I shouldn't say that.
    - roughly 2y ago
      > I can confidently say The confidence is the problem. You don't understand what you're looking at, you don't understand what the artist was doing, you don't understand why they were doing it, you don't understand the constraints they were or were not operating under and why they may or may not have picked those constraints. It's like looking at a Picasso and saying "well that's the shittiest bull I've ever seen." What you're doing is like watching a boxing match and saying "it's very lazy that these people aren't using their legs" or "I don't understand why that person won, they didn't even knock the other person out!". There's a thing that's happening here that you've not bothered to learn enough about to understand whether or not the participant is accomplishing their goals, because you haven't bothered to learn what their goals are or what accomplishing them would look like. Again, it's totally fine to say "I don't like this," or "I don't understand this" (although I'm getting the sense I'm unlikely to hear _that_ from you), but to say "this lacks artistic merit" - you absolutely do not have the knowledge, background, or apparent interest in the topic to have any idea whether or not that statement is true.
      - fluoridation 2y ago
        You're trying to convince me to be less confident in my assertions by confidently telling me what I do or don't understand, and what I need to understand in order to reach conclusions. >What you're doing is like watching a boxing match and saying "it's very lazy that these people aren't using their legs" or "I don't understand why that person won, they didn't even knock the other person out!". There's a thing that's happening here that you've not bothered to learn enough about to understand whether or not the participant is accomplishing their goals But, you see, art is not a game. There are no rules. If you paint me a portrait of myself with your feet and you make me look like my mother, I'm not going to be impressed that you managed to paint my mother with your feet. I'm to ask you why you didn't use your hands, you dolt! If you handicap yourself to the point you make something bad, then it's only fair the results are judged on their own merits, isn't it? If you wanted to use your feet to entertain yourself then any criticism you receive for it shouldn't matter, because the activity fulfilled its purpose to you, the same way boxers don't care about the criticism they receive from people who think they should also use their legs. I don't care about their goals. Their goals are for themselves. I don't need to know them to judge the quality of the result. >"I don't understand this" (although I'm getting the sense I'm unlikely to hear _that_ from you) I'm honest enough to say I don't get the point of the soup can. That doesn't stop me from saying it's low-effort. I see better art on Twitter every day, even though most of it probably has less of a message.
- tetha 2y ago
  This is such an infuriatingly dismissive and abrasive answer, even with not being part of that community. All metal is just trivial guitar play and angry shouts right? Paintings are just the correct application of colors and other materials. - edit - And yes, I have talked to artists about absolutely trivial paintings. During that I learned how.. nontrivial putting poop on canvas may be - /edit - Sometimes it's better to accept you're not part of a conversation and to either shut up, or ask a very confused "But why?"
  - fluoridation 2y ago
    Good, I'm glad you find it infuriating. It likewise annoys me when I see people praise low-effort garbage, so I see it as only fair. >And yes, I have talked to artists about absolutely trivial paintings. During that I learned how.. nontrivial putting poop on canvas may be And I've talked to artists who have told me they agreed with me, and that they think pseudo-artistic shitposts devalue the work they put into their own pieces.
    - ChainOfFools 2y ago
      I too confused art with craft for quite a long time. it's another framing of the difference between being interested in why versus being interested in how.
      - fluoridation 2y ago
        As I said on a different sibling comment, I don't agree that I'm confusing the two. That said, I do think craft is an integral part of art.
    - romwell 2y ago
      >Good, I'm glad you find it infuriating If you came here to infuriate other people (or think it's good that it happens), you have come to the wrong place. Please reconsider.

fluoridation 2y ago

Personally, I'm not interested in that conversation, any more than I'm interested in suddenly lurking in a random subreddit. It's a community I'm not a part of and which doesn't interest me. If you took a dump on a canvas and hung it on a gallery to make fun of a guy who said no one would ever do that, well I'm glad you had fun and all, but it's still shit on a wall. I won't deny that in some cases works can be interested because of their context, but generally speaking, to me, a piece has to stand on its own regardless of who made it or when or how. Mozart's scat letters don't become good by virtue of having been written by him (although they do become funnier).

roughly 2y ago
I'm not asking you to care, I'm asking you to recognize you don't understand what you're looking at. You can say "I don't find the work compelling", but to say it lacks artistic merit is just silly.
- fluoridation 2y ago
  But it's not silly, though. You're asking me to either judge the work on the same grounds as you do, or to abstain from opining if I can't, but I have no reason to do that. I can confidently say "You painted a can of soup on a white background. You didn't try. Your work has little artistic merit." I don't see any reason why I shouldn't say that.
  - roughly 2y ago
    > I can confidently say The confidence is the problem. You don't understand what you're looking at, you don't understand what the artist was doing, you don't understand why they were doing it, you don't understand the constraints they were or were not operating under and why they may or may not have picked those constraints. It's like looking at a Picasso and saying "well that's the shittiest bull I've ever seen." What you're doing is like watching a boxing match and saying "it's very lazy that these people aren't using their legs" or "I don't understand why that person won, they didn't even knock the other person out!". There's a thing that's happening here that you've not bothered to learn enough about to understand whether or not the participant is accomplishing their goals, because you haven't bothered to learn what their goals are or what accomplishing them would look like. Again, it's totally fine to say "I don't like this," or "I don't understand this" (although I'm getting the sense I'm unlikely to hear _that_ from you), but to say "this lacks artistic merit" - you absolutely do not have the knowledge, background, or apparent interest in the topic to have any idea whether or not that statement is true.
    - fluoridation 2y ago
      You're trying to convince me to be less confident in my assertions by confidently telling me what I do or don't understand, and what I need to understand in order to reach conclusions. >What you're doing is like watching a boxing match and saying "it's very lazy that these people aren't using their legs" or "I don't understand why that person won, they didn't even knock the other person out!". There's a thing that's happening here that you've not bothered to learn enough about to understand whether or not the participant is accomplishing their goals But, you see, art is not a game. There are no rules. If you paint me a portrait of myself with your feet and you make me look like my mother, I'm not going to be impressed that you managed to paint my mother with your feet. I'm to ask you why you didn't use your hands, you dolt! If you handicap yourself to the point you make something bad, then it's only fair the results are judged on their own merits, isn't it? If you wanted to use your feet to entertain yourself then any criticism you receive for it shouldn't matter, because the activity fulfilled its purpose to you, the same way boxers don't care about the criticism they receive from people who think they should also use their legs. I don't care about their goals. Their goals are for themselves. I don't need to know them to judge the quality of the result. >"I don't understand this" (although I'm getting the sense I'm unlikely to hear _that_ from you) I'm honest enough to say I don't get the point of the soup can. That doesn't stop me from saying it's low-effort. I see better art on Twitter every day, even though most of it probably has less of a message.
tetha 2y ago
This is such an infuriatingly dismissive and abrasive answer, even with not being part of that community. All metal is just trivial guitar play and angry shouts right? Paintings are just the correct application of colors and other materials. - edit - And yes, I have talked to artists about absolutely trivial paintings. During that I learned how.. nontrivial putting poop on canvas may be - /edit - Sometimes it's better to accept you're not part of a conversation and to either shut up, or ask a very confused "But why?"
- fluoridation 2y ago
  Good, I'm glad you find it infuriating. It likewise annoys me when I see people praise low-effort garbage, so I see it as only fair. >And yes, I have talked to artists about absolutely trivial paintings. During that I learned how.. nontrivial putting poop on canvas may be And I've talked to artists who have told me they agreed with me, and that they think pseudo-artistic shitposts devalue the work they put into their own pieces.
  - ChainOfFools 2y ago
    I too confused art with craft for quite a long time. it's another framing of the difference between being interested in why versus being interested in how.
    - fluoridation 2y ago
      As I said on a different sibling comment, I don't agree that I'm confusing the two. That said, I do think craft is an integral part of art.
  - romwell 2y ago
    >Good, I'm glad you find it infuriating If you came here to infuriate other people (or think it's good that it happens), you have come to the wrong place. Please reconsider.