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Of topics like these my father, a lover of all things art and photography, would say: "It doesn't matter if it's bad, and it doesn't matter that anyone can do i

Of topics like these my father, a lover of all things art and photography, would say: "It doesn't matter if it's bad, and it doesn't matter that anyone can do it; he was the one who did it first."

bigstrat2003 2y ago
I don't agree with your dad. Whether something is good (a notoriously loaded question) and whether it's easy for anyone to do themselves matter a great deal. Being the first person to do something abhorrent would not be praiseworthy, nor would being the first to do something uninteresting. Pollock may well have been the first to do what he did, but it is still low effort slop that any three year old could trivially reproduce. Therefore he gets no points for being first, because he didn't do something worth doing to begin with.
- noirbot 2y ago
  This feels unnecessarily harsh - I can understand thinking Pollock shouldn't be as decorated or recognized, but "not worth doing to begin with" seems to cast a judgement on him having created something that feels mean-sprited. It's not as if Pollock was causing harm to others by making his pieces. I have plenty of friends who work out their stresses and needs to create by making things that will never be in a museum or sell for money. They may not even qualify for your approval as "art". Many are equally non-representational - just a mix of colors that struck their mood that day on a canvas. That doesn't mean they're not worth doing for them or maybe for those who care about them and received a piece of their work. I find some of them beautiful for reasons I can't explain. The critique of if Pollock should be canonized as "a great artist" is and should be a different discussion. As far as I know, he wasn't out there trying to get his works in museums. Dismissing something he clearly cared about and had passion for as a complete waste of his life is insane to me. As pointed out elsewhere in this thread, he was decidedly capable of other works that were more representational, but decided that he wanted to express himself in this way. This wasn't some hack with no other skills who got lucky.

Of topics like these my father, a lover of all things art and photography, would say: "It doesn't matter if it's bad, and it doesn't matter that anyone can do it; he was the one who did it first."

bigstrat2003 2y ago

I don't agree with your dad. Whether something is good (a notoriously loaded question) and whether it's easy for anyone to do themselves matter a great deal. Being the first person to do something abhorrent would not be praiseworthy, nor would being the first to do something uninteresting. Pollock may well have been the first to do what he did, but it is still low effort slop that any three year old could trivially reproduce. Therefore he gets no points for being first, because he didn't do something worth doing to begin with.

noirbot 2y ago
This feels unnecessarily harsh - I can understand thinking Pollock shouldn't be as decorated or recognized, but "not worth doing to begin with" seems to cast a judgement on him having created something that feels mean-sprited. It's not as if Pollock was causing harm to others by making his pieces. I have plenty of friends who work out their stresses and needs to create by making things that will never be in a museum or sell for money. They may not even qualify for your approval as "art". Many are equally non-representational - just a mix of colors that struck their mood that day on a canvas. That doesn't mean they're not worth doing for them or maybe for those who care about them and received a piece of their work. I find some of them beautiful for reasons I can't explain. The critique of if Pollock should be canonized as "a great artist" is and should be a different discussion. As far as I know, he wasn't out there trying to get his works in museums. Dismissing something he clearly cared about and had passion for as a complete waste of his life is insane to me. As pointed out elsewhere in this thread, he was decidedly capable of other works that were more representational, but decided that he wanted to express himself in this way. This wasn't some hack with no other skills who got lucky.