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I don't "get" art

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Re: I don't "get" art

#101

Post by lmm »

MultiRRomero wrote: post #88

note: if you read one part of this, read the last paragraph. "I paint objects as I think them not as I see them." - Pablo Picasso "Art is what you can get away with." - Andy Warhol I do not buy the "this isn't art, I can do this. art requires skill" train of thought. firstly, if we appreciate skill then we are not appreciating art. we are appreciating a craft. to appreciate art we must appreciate creativity. who's th…

>is photorealistic painting (when a painting looks as though it were a photograph) the best art? because it contains the best skill at imitating reality?

Imitating reality is not the only skill. I can look at e.g. Seurat and see that it takes more skill to produce something that looks like that than to do a photorealistic version of the same scene.

>Lastly, here's an interesting spin on modern art: it has a greater effect on you than regular art does. You've probably had a lot of conversations about modern art but little about real art. And it has a greater emotional effect on people (generally anger or disdain) than regular art, which usually leads to boredom

Sounds exactly like trolls on the internet.

Re: I don't "get" art

#102

Post by ars »

mturmon wrote: post #97
starship wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well...then they can get a bigger plaque. Remember I'm responding to the person above who was saying there was a very straight-forward explanation and way to understand art based on X, Y, Z, A & B. If that explanation is so straight-forward, they can probably fit it in a couple of paragraphs. Regardless, I think saying "well its reeeeally complicated, so we're just not going to explain ourselves at all" is pretty ind…

The plaques also get in the way of a viewer's own response to the work. Pretty soon people are reading their way through the museum. Also, for most contemporary art, there is not even a critical consensus about the work. Most artists hate to describe what their work is about. They might say what experience inspired them to make the piece, or the feeling they had when they were making it, if you're lucky and caught an…

> The plaques also get in the way of a viewer's own response to the work

That might not be a bad thing if the response is: "That's garbage", which is my response to most "art".

Re: I don't "get" art

#103

Post by b0rsuk »

cynicalkane wrote: post #58
wpietri wrote: post #48

I'm not going to deny that there's a lot of crappy art out there. However, this article is such bullshit that I suspect the writer is just trolling. For those who are nodding along with this article, consider the Obfuscated C contest: http://www.ioccc.org/ That's art. But it's art that most people in the world can't begin to appreciate. You need years of coding experience to really get it. You need context. When hack…

I think modern art is what happens when your "understanding art" circuits get into a feedback loop of some kind, there's something going haywire in there. Modern art is the mental equivalent of an allergic reaction. So we get these famous artists who made things like big canvases of entirely purple, and we say it's art because art critics sneezed out a bunch of reasons why it's art. Laypeople look at Rothko and wonde…

And that's why I dislike "art" - because too often the only thing that makes something art is a label. Without it, it would be a skippable youtube video. His comment about the photo of a woman sitting in a chair is spot on. Nobody would give it five seconds if it was in somebody's summer collection, because it does look like a boring holiday photo. The article's author may have cherry picked, but it's true that art lacks fundamental safeguards against crap. If you have a reputation, you can post almost everything in the art thread.

I value aesthetics more than art. It's much better defined. Not everything that looks nice is an art, but in worst case you're left with something that looks nice ;-).

Re: I don't "get" art

#104

Post by olavk »

bfrs wrote: post #54
wpietri wrote: post #48

I'm not going to deny that there's a lot of crappy art out there. However, this article is such bullshit that I suspect the writer is just trolling. For those who are nodding along with this article, consider the Obfuscated C contest: http://www.ioccc.org/ That's art. But it's art that most people in the world can't begin to appreciate. You need years of coding experience to really get it. You need context. When hack…

Obligatory references: If it needs a long sermon to proclaim it's art, it's probably bullshit [1] Modern Art - A Skeptical View [2] [1] http://www3.sympatico.ca/manideli/Artsp.htm [2] http://www3.sympatico.ca/manideli/

Are you saying that true art needs to be immediately understandable without requiring some background knowledge? This is not true for e.g renaissance art either. It usually uses a host of obscure (to modern people) symbols to communicate.

Re: I don't "get" art

#105

Post by metaphorical »

bluekeybox wrote: post #45
metaphorical wrote: post #17

Most contemporary artists works need to be appreciated as a whole, not as isolated pieces. The author here looks at trees but misses the forest. Most people look at art as if they are portfolio pieces in dribbble.com. (Hmm, I like this icon, Hmm, I don't like that color). But art does not merely reproduce the beauty of forms, instead, it gives language to the "soul" so that it may speak. Protip: Keep an open mind.

> Most contemporary artists works need to be appreciated as a whole, not as isolated pieces In other words, demonstrating one's affinity (or non-affinity) to a particular group becomes more important than demonstrating individual skills/virtuosity. Nietzsche (whom so many contemporary artists adore, btw) would have some harsh words on such herd mentality.

I was referring to the critiques in the article (e.g. dismissing the works one by one, instead of looking at the retrospective as a whole.)

But you raise an interesting point. I'm not sure if groups form because of herd mentality, or if there are parallels in perceiving the modern world. It's hard to say.

If I remember correctly, the early Nietzsche (in Birth of Tradegy) discussed the Dionynsian ideal of an artist -- which in his spiritual ecstasy he turns himself into a work of art. It's a very modern concept, in some sense expressed in Tracey Emin's work.

Re: I don't "get" art

#106

Post by olavk »

cynicalkane wrote: post #58
wpietri wrote: post #48

I'm not going to deny that there's a lot of crappy art out there. However, this article is such bullshit that I suspect the writer is just trolling. For those who are nodding along with this article, consider the Obfuscated C contest: http://www.ioccc.org/ That's art. But it's art that most people in the world can't begin to appreciate. You need years of coding experience to really get it. You need context. When hack…

I think modern art is what happens when your "understanding art" circuits get into a feedback loop of some kind, there's something going haywire in there. Modern art is the mental equivalent of an allergic reaction. So we get these famous artists who made things like big canvases of entirely purple, and we say it's art because art critics sneezed out a bunch of reasons why it's art. Laypeople look at Rothko and wonde…

Who decides what is "the point of art"?

If you don't know the story behind obfuscated C, but only look at the code listing as art, then many people would say "my five-year-old can do that", since it just looks like a bunch of random characters.

It is totally fine not to like art, and not wanting to invest time in understanding it. But there is a difference between not understanding something and proclaiming it "humbug" because you dont understand it.

Re: I don't "get" art

#107

Post by b0rsuk »

carsongross wrote: post #60
potatolicious wrote: post #13

I never got art until I started doing it myself. The internalization of the creative and technical processes of it are, IMO, crucial to "getting" it. And like one might expect, I still only really "get" art that has a close enough analog to the work I do. So... sculpture? Right out. And like others have brought up, art is contextual. One fundamental fallacy I see people make is that all pieces of work need to be conc…

"run far, far away from ones that do." Like Picasso, Dali, Caravaggio and Michelangelo?

Spot on. As much as I dislike arrogant people, some of them are competent. A huge ego is not a good indicator if someone is competent or not. I can endure someone like Dali, because he made works I find very pleasant to look at.

Re: I don't "get" art

#108

Post by olavk »

waterlesscloud wrote: post #84
cynicalkane wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think modern art is what happens when your "understanding art" circuits get into a feedback loop of some kind, there's something going haywire in there. Modern art is the mental equivalent of an allergic reaction. So we get these famous artists who made things like big canvases of entirely purple, and we say it's art because art critics sneezed out a bunch of reasons why it's art. Laypeople look at Rothko and wonde…

But what's really going to bake your noodle later: Is it more sophisticated to have broad acceptance of contemporary art or to call out bad attempts at art that are relying on your need to feel sophisticated for acceptance?

Problem is, you need to have a good understanding of contemporary art before you are able to call out bad attempts.

Re: I don't "get" art

#109

Post by starship »

mturmon wrote: post #97
starship wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well...then they can get a bigger plaque. Remember I'm responding to the person above who was saying there was a very straight-forward explanation and way to understand art based on X, Y, Z, A & B. If that explanation is so straight-forward, they can probably fit it in a couple of paragraphs. Regardless, I think saying "well its reeeeally complicated, so we're just not going to explain ourselves at all" is pretty ind…

The plaques also get in the way of a viewer's own response to the work. Pretty soon people are reading their way through the museum. Also, for most contemporary art, there is not even a critical consensus about the work. Most artists hate to describe what their work is about. They might say what experience inspired them to make the piece, or the feeling they had when they were making it, if you're lucky and caught an…

> Pretty soon people are reading their way through the museum.

Yes. Yes that's exactly what I want to do. I want to spend a day at the museum, and read, i.e. learn, why some things are important and great art, and others aren't.

> for most contemporary art, there is not even a critical consensus about the work.

What? Then how is any decision made as to what art is featured in these exhibits, and what isn't? Remember, for every piece in one of these exhibits, there are 10 artists getting behind on rent who didn't make it in. Someone decides. Who? How?

If you're trying to counter my current argument, which is that this is all arbitrary and picked by some insiders at their whim, you should be aware that you're actually kind of helping my case here...

Re: I don't "get" art

#110

Post by cynicalkane »

mturmon wrote: post #97
starship wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well...then they can get a bigger plaque. Remember I'm responding to the person above who was saying there was a very straight-forward explanation and way to understand art based on X, Y, Z, A & B. If that explanation is so straight-forward, they can probably fit it in a couple of paragraphs. Regardless, I think saying "well its reeeeally complicated, so we're just not going to explain ourselves at all" is pretty ind…

The plaques also get in the way of a viewer's own response to the work. Pretty soon people are reading their way through the museum. Also, for most contemporary art, there is not even a critical consensus about the work. Most artists hate to describe what their work is about. They might say what experience inspired them to make the piece, or the feeling they had when they were making it, if you're lucky and caught an…

So we have to understand the context of modern art, but you're opposed to museums explaining the context of modern art in an accessible way?
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