To me, art is whatever makes me feel something. So a painting, no matter how well done, wouldn't be art unless I felt something looking at it. In that sense, what is art to me isn't art to others, and if you follow that thought, nothing and everything is art. As for specific artists, there is only one painting by Pollock that makes me feel anything, and the rest is just doodles to me. I love artists like Munch and Salvador Dali, because I feel a lot looking at their paintings, and neither of them paint realistically.
I do like Evard Munch as well. Dali's works are interesting to me, but don't "speak" to me. Have you seen the short film "Un Chien Andalou," by Salvador Dali and Luis Bunuel?
Ah, An Andalusian Dog. That's a mindfuck, huh? I like the movie, but I have no idea what's going on. Except that everyone dies. Been a while since I've seen it now, but I was really into it a few years ago when I was in my art phase.
Was that the one where they cut an eye open at the beginning of the film, and then later in the film a guy is feeling up a woman's boobs? I can't remember which Dali film it was that I saw, but I think that may be the one? Either way, very, very odd. I do like Dali as an artist on canvas (ie Melting Clocks, Meditative Rose). On film? Yeah, notsomuch....
Dali and Bunuel decided there would be no imagine to help give the viewer a rational explanation of the movie. I think it was meant as a kind of inkblot test. Your interpretation reveals something about your psyche.
Yeah, but even back in cavemen area they had little clay woman that were big and fat. It still looked like something. A kindergarten finger paint project isn't art. I'm sorry. It just isn't. And when Kindergartens do it, when they are kids yes it's art. When they are grown people with more skill, no. They have done nothing, but splotch some paint on the god damn canvas. I get nothing from that. All I get is "Uh Oh 5 year old got ahold of the paint". It isn't art.
You're missing the point. The artists of the past century have, in a sense, moved beyond the simple idea of recreating things as realistically as possible -- that's already been done, and humans are now capable (with the proper skills and training) of creating works of art so realistic as to be hardly distinguishable from a photograph. It still takes a great deal of talent, imagination and creativity... but all the groundbreaking work has been done, and in the end the truly innovative artist is left to either duplicate, or to do something entirely different. Such as moving into the abstract. Do you like it? Obviously not. I don't much care for the way it looks either. Nor does my girlfriend, who is one of the most capable artists I know personally. Nor do a great number of people I know, really. But I can at least respect what is being attempted, especially since I know I've done enough of the same in the past with my writing, generally creating mostly incomprehensible dribblings of what I'd hesitate to even call stream of consciousness. It's not easy to take the abstract from one's own mind and apply it to a medium that others can see. Much less so that they can understand and relate to. In some cases I'd wager it's all but impossible. But at least there are people out there with the balls to try. Don't just deride it as "kindergarten paintings"; first learn to paint as well as the majority of them can in the traditional sense, then try your hand at expressing the most abstract of concepts in the same medium. See how well you make out. Look at it this way, if you like -- the abstract/modern/whatever art of the last hundred years is just like those little clay caveman figurines: the first steps in something that could, given time and enough creative minds, become just as highly developed in its own way as traditional art. In the meantime, do what I do -- look at the art I like, ignore the rest, but never mock what I'm incapable or unwilling to comprehend.
There is such a thing as freedom of expression. They can call whatever they want art. And you're perfectly free to call it crap. Maybe that makes you shallow, and maybe it makes them pretentious. Potayto potahto.
Re: the starving dog. I don't know anything about this case, but it may have been simply that this dog was starving in the street, and thousands of people walked by every day and didn't care, or even notice the dog. So the artist put the dog in an art gallery and suddenly EVERYBODY notices the dog and is outraged at the treatment of the dog. You didn't see the dog before. The artist made you see the dog, and made him mean something to you. That was probably what the artist intended. Maybe the next time you pass a starving dog in the street, you might see him and offer him some food. Maybe that's what art is - it makes you see something you ignored before, and care about something you didn't care about before. I don't want to discuss the ethics of what the artist did, but it seems like he made you see the dog.
I've been agreeing with you through this whole thread, until then. Personally I don't think I have to be good at something to judge that something. For instance, I don't make movies, but I know Leprechaun: Back 2 Tha Hood isn't a good movie, and I think I'm allowed to say that. What about music, guys? How do you feel about sampling? Or rap, country, ect. I fking hate all of it. Haha.
THIS. My god, I hate when people do that. When people claim that something they painted/drew/etc "represents" something but in reality doesn't represent it at all, it's like a simple picture or a line or something stupid... if you want to "represent" something and send a message, there are better and more clever ways. Who the hell would think that's okay?
Yes, this is a common fallacious argument that people indulge in, particularly when it comes to the arts. Imagine applying it to other areas - say a surgeon who has been sued for malpractice and had an inordinate number of people die on the table. If you said "That guy's not a very good surgeon," and someone replied with "Do you think you could do better?" you'd think they were nuts. I don't have to try my hand at painting, or at making movies. I'm not a bleeding painter or filmmaker. But I can still make judgments about what I see.
Exactly. And it comes right after someones given you criticism that you don't particularly agree with.
Whoa, so many things to reply to, don't know where to begin... I get that some people don't want to make the effort to understand abstract art, but it REALLY annoys me when people dismiss the artists as talentless just because they didn't paint a vase of flowers or some shit like that. It would be like if you wrote a novel in Greek, and I said you're talentless just because I don't understand the language. You might not be able to appreciate it at first, but whether you can appreciate it or not, there is meaning, there is intention, and it is art. And I mean, it's not necessarily the fault of the public, because as a curator myself I feel that there is a certain obligation to teach people who come to see the art you show how to understand it and give them the opportunity to respond to it in a meaningful way. But it's a two way street; I've had people come into the gallery I work at and openly laugh when I explain what an artist has tried to do, or why a work has been created the way it has. If you can't be open to that kind of work, I'm not gonna waste my time trying to enlighten you. But I mean, in general, the art world really isn't as unfriendly or inaccessible as a lot of people imagine it to be. Most gallerists or curators or whatever would love the chance to help you understand the work they show. Even the ones who seem super-pretentious are probably just too busy to spend time with you or something...
I hope you're not replying to me, because I agree with almost everything you've said in this thread. I actually appreciate your contributions here, especially helping me, and hopefully other people understand why artists like Jackson Pollack should be respected for what they do, whether you or I like it or not. Some people, including some in this thread, just aren't getting that though, and I guess that's to be expected.
The artist also wasn't feeding it, he was letting it stay chained up and starving to death. That's not art, that's cruelty.
^ is not his point that it is cruel. Just as it's cruel to pass a starving animal on the street regardless.
This is an area where you have to be careful, though. It's easy to say, "that guy's not a very good surgeon," without having all the facts or understanding what actually goes on in an operating room. Where is the man working? What are the conditions like? Are these all high-risk surgeries? How many of the patients LIED about their past medical history (yes...this does happen and you'd be surprised how often) is he taking on patients that no one else would take? There are a lot of factors that influence the outcome. The more information you have, the better equipped you are to make a judgement, but that doesn't have much to do with TASTE. Our feelings about something are neither good, nor bad, they just are. So there's a big difference between making a judgement call and stating an opinion. As a photographer and a painter, I try to understand the ground rules for visual art. Composition and exposure, tonality, contrast of light and of elements, ect...and once I am able to produce work that meets those standards I begin to learn when I can break them in favor something a little more tenuous, that adds tension and makes the viewer ask themselves questions. With a background in visual arts, there's a good chance that my ability to judge a photograph or painting is sound and that determines how much weight to give my opinion of it. If you don't understand what I was trying to do, or don't like it, that doesn't make the picture any more or less artistic. It would be the same with a surgeon. If his colleagues, who understood exactly what was happening in the operating room, were to say, "this man is not a good surgeon," then the weight of their judgment is condemning. If they were to say, "Under these conditions it is a miracle that he's saved so many," then we should take it on their authority. Does that mean one has to be an artist to appreciate art? Good gracious no! Should every Tom, Dick and Harry run around being an art critic and expecting their opinions to hold water? No. Be careful not to deride something simply because you don't understand it. Saying, "I don't like this type of thing," isn't the same as saying, "this is not good," or "this has no value." There is no answer to, "I don't like it." You know what they say. "There is no accounting for taste." And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.
I still don't agree with it, I still don't see it as art, and I would never back a so-called "artist" that could do something like that in the name of "art". Make a documentary about it if you want to get a message across, don't contribute to the dog's misery by chaining it up for days on display and continuing to let it starve.
I don't agree with it either. I don't like it anyway, and art is not something I'm very interested in.
A lot of this sounds like you're saying if someone doesn't like a certain piece of art, then there is some fault with them. I don't agree that the person viewing the art is necessarily unwilling to "make the effort" to understand the art. The viewer isn't necessarily ignorant or lacking in understanding just because they don't like something.
