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The OP point was not about art being mere satisfaction for art nerds, but that there may be an effort to appreciate it. That's true of most art forms. It just h

by cdavid 14y ago

The OP point was not about art being mere satisfaction for art nerds, but that there may be an effort to appreciate it. That's true of most art forms. It just happens that which effort depends partly on the person. It seems that for some reason, people are put off by what's around modern and contemporary art (the social aspects of people participating in it, etc…). Nothing prevents you from going beyond that, appreciate what you like, and expand your taste to new things. The whole "my five year old can do that" argument is a bit tired. That's similar to the arguments that music using electronics is not art, etc… By itself, why should the amount of efforts necessary to produce something matter at all ? Besides, a lots of people engaging in "garbage looking art" were actually very skilled from a traditional POV, but went a way where they would not use it conventionally. Note also that similar issues arise for older art forms: it is fair to say that most people are put off by classic zen gardens (e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryōan-ji http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryōan-ji). There is much less social proof at work there, and yet, couldn't you make the same argument about them ? Would you dismiss them as easily ? Regarding Rothko or Klein, some people really like his art, without claiming to be particularly knowledgeable about art. Don't forget also that the famous stuff is generally a limited period of an artist production. Rothko did not just pain rectangles, Pollock dripping period was relatively short, etc...

bane 14y ago
Re:Rothko Except Rothko was a lousy artist before he hit on the black on black rectangle thing. A study of his development as an artist shows somebody who is almost talent free. I think the point is that much of modern art is so self referential that it has become almost devoid of any sort of external meaning. This is easy to observe. Sit for a few hours in the modern art wing of your local free public museum and observe as the man on the street barely holds back snickers and gafaws at the absurdity of some of the work. I'm reminded of a tour through the Vatican art collection, perhaps one of the finest in the world. The crowds were bunched around some of the great statuary and paintings (even ones they didn't formerly know). Near the end of the tour, the viewer is thrust into the modern art collection. The crowds suddenly stop bunching and most people can't wait to get through it. This seems on its face backwards. What should be more relevant to the modern viewer, statues of a dead religion in a language nobody natively speaks or religious art made by their peers and contemporaries?
- mkr-hn 14y ago
  Contemporaries for sure, but probably not peers. The world that created that art is far removed from the world of the visitors. Art has its bubbles too. Here's an example: http://forum.deviantart.com/devart/suggestions/1745568/ http://forum.deviantart.com/devart/suggestions/1745568/ I'm sure 99% of HN knows about J/K navigation and appreciates when websites implement it. But it's unknown outside the world of software development. There's a bubble at ConceptArt.org, CGSociety, and every other place where people gather to talk about something. Art bubbles and tech bubbles have a similar problem: convincing people in other bubbles that what you value has value. The art in the article makes more sense when you see it as the product of a bubble. You would need to peer inside the bubble with a guidebook to know what you're looking at.
  - bane 14y ago
    But I think there's another term for these bubbles, "echo chamber". They exist in every shared activity if no new input is brought in to keep the family from getting incestuous. The more I think about the concept of the "meme" as an analogue to genes, the more I see parallels.
- slurgfest 14y ago
  The old statues are more relevant to many people because it is so amazing that they have been preserved and it gives them a window into old things, and because old things achieve a sort of special-object status especially in connection with religion (relics...) Moreover, the old things have already been through ruthless filtering, and the things which remain tend to have more inherent interest than the average recently-created thing.
  - _feda_ 14y ago
    They are beautiful too, in the classical sense, and beauty in the classical, natural sense is the most well-established and accessible kind in art.
- _feda_ 14y ago
  "Except Rothko was a lousy artist before he hit on the black on black rectangle thing. A study of his development as an artist shows somebody who is almost talent free." I accept that you think he was almost talentless, but he wasn't. I think he was a great talent long before he became well known for the typical rothko stuff, and it wasn't just talent in the modern sense but also in the craft sense, when he was a figurative painter especially of new york scenes (try googling his painting of the new york subway). Your anecdote about the vatican collection is a good one. But it doesn't mean that modern art is worthless, or even suggest that it is. There's a lot of subtlety in rothko's brushwork that most people don't pick up on. Really they're large, complex pictures but on a different level from most painting. I saw about 20 of his paintings in the turner/rothko exhibition in London about three years ago, and seeing them in a space that suits them brings out their impressive quality, and it became hard to see them as "just rectangles" or however you want to put it.
leif 14y ago
http://www.nbcnewyork.com/the-scene/events/Pre-Schooler--123145488.html http://www.nbcnewyork.com/the-scene/events/Pre-Schooler--123... Not saying "some five year olds can do that" or even that the argument is ever meaningful. Just a cute video. Too bad she'll either die of the chemicals or spend the rest of her life hiding from the fame of the past while trying to define herself, or worst, spend the rest of her life trying to retrieve the joy and vision of her former self.

by cdavid 14y ago

bane 14y ago

Re:Rothko Except Rothko was a lousy artist before he hit on the black on black rectangle thing. A study of his development as an artist shows somebody who is almost talent free. I think the point is that much of modern art is so self referential that it has become almost devoid of any sort of external meaning. This is easy to observe. Sit for a few hours in the modern art wing of your local free public museum and observe as the man on the street barely holds back snickers and gafaws at the absurdity of some of the work. I'm reminded of a tour through the Vatican art collection, perhaps one of the finest in the world. The crowds were bunched around some of the great statuary and paintings (even ones they didn't formerly know). Near the end of the tour, the viewer is thrust into the modern art collection. The crowds suddenly stop bunching and most people can't wait to get through it. This seems on its face backwards. What should be more relevant to the modern viewer, statues of a dead religion in a language nobody natively speaks or religious art made by their peers and contemporaries?

mkr-hn 14y ago
Contemporaries for sure, but probably not peers. The world that created that art is far removed from the world of the visitors. Art has its bubbles too. Here's an example: http://forum.deviantart.com/devart/suggestions/1745568/ http://forum.deviantart.com/devart/suggestions/1745568/ I'm sure 99% of HN knows about J/K navigation and appreciates when websites implement it. But it's unknown outside the world of software development. There's a bubble at ConceptArt.org, CGSociety, and every other place where people gather to talk about something. Art bubbles and tech bubbles have a similar problem: convincing people in other bubbles that what you value has value. The art in the article makes more sense when you see it as the product of a bubble. You would need to peer inside the bubble with a guidebook to know what you're looking at.
- bane 14y ago
  But I think there's another term for these bubbles, "echo chamber". They exist in every shared activity if no new input is brought in to keep the family from getting incestuous. The more I think about the concept of the "meme" as an analogue to genes, the more I see parallels.
slurgfest 14y ago
The old statues are more relevant to many people because it is so amazing that they have been preserved and it gives them a window into old things, and because old things achieve a sort of special-object status especially in connection with religion (relics...) Moreover, the old things have already been through ruthless filtering, and the things which remain tend to have more inherent interest than the average recently-created thing.
- _feda_ 14y ago
  They are beautiful too, in the classical sense, and beauty in the classical, natural sense is the most well-established and accessible kind in art.
_feda_ 14y ago
"Except Rothko was a lousy artist before he hit on the black on black rectangle thing. A study of his development as an artist shows somebody who is almost talent free." I accept that you think he was almost talentless, but he wasn't. I think he was a great talent long before he became well known for the typical rothko stuff, and it wasn't just talent in the modern sense but also in the craft sense, when he was a figurative painter especially of new york scenes (try googling his painting of the new york subway). Your anecdote about the vatican collection is a good one. But it doesn't mean that modern art is worthless, or even suggest that it is. There's a lot of subtlety in rothko's brushwork that most people don't pick up on. Really they're large, complex pictures but on a different level from most painting. I saw about 20 of his paintings in the turner/rothko exhibition in London about three years ago, and seeing them in a space that suits them brings out their impressive quality, and it became hard to see them as "just rectangles" or however you want to put it.

leif 14y ago

http://www.nbcnewyork.com/the-scene/events/Pre-Schooler--123145488.html http://www.nbcnewyork.com/the-scene/events/Pre-Schooler--123... Not saying "some five year olds can do that" or even that the argument is ever meaningful. Just a cute video. Too bad she'll either die of the chemicals or spend the rest of her life hiding from the fame of the past while trying to define herself, or worst, spend the rest of her life trying to retrieve the joy and vision of her former self.