Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Sculptor1]

The primary aim of modern art is the collection of money.

That's not the primary aim of modern artists—although some of them are/were good at self-marketing.
For example, Gerhard Richter's abstract paintings cost a fortune, but he surely didn't become an artist in order to become rich.

It is the aim of most modern artists, and all who play the game of fame and marketing.
Modern art is created in Paris and NewYork, by people who have little or no understanding, or appreciation of the crafsmanship of art.
Art made without craft is just the physical expression of mental excrement.
Dragging something out of a dumpster and putting a frame on it is not art. It does not matter if you pretend it is the deepest expression of your innermost anxiety and some ******** about representation of "man's inhumanity to man", or "the identity crisis of the modern world". It is remains a framed ****.

[Sculptor1]

Gerhard Richter's....

Explosion in a paint factory.
Not original, not skillful.
Not artistic.

[Sculptor1]

Gerhard Richter's

Not even "abstract"

[Gertie]

The more I think about/talk to people who are "doing art", the more I realize that for most of such people it's just an easy way to discriminate people with no reason.
Let's say there's a guy who let's say draws. He does it for some time and consider himself to be doing "art".
But why? Isn't that person just do what other people do? Every person has been drawing something at some point, some more, some less, but everybody can draw something, just like every person breathes air. There's no criteria to identify if someone "can draw" and someone "can't".
So the person who claims to be "an artist" is different from other people just by his decision to put himself above other people, and find people who would buy into it.

Or here's another more relevant example.
There's a guy named Don Buchla who kinda invented modular synthesizers back in the 60s and was going around playing it on festivals and such.
Nowadays people BUY synthesizers from the company Don Buchla left, turns knobs, push buttons on them and consider it "modern experimental art" or even compare themselves to Don Buchla.
But there's nothing new in it. Like, why would you call it "doing art" if you just copy what other people do and have been doing for 50+ years? After all, to do what Don Buchla did is not to grab a newest instrument from the shop(which was an electroguitar in the 60s I guess) and play with it. It's to make something new.

And the ambiguity of "art" basically allows people to do nothing and claim you do something, even we ignore what exactly that is.

There are professional artists who make their living from creating and selling their art, and that has under-pinned a conception of what art is or can be. But art is hard to define, to fix its definition depends on a consensus around preferred criteria (historically defined by the preferences of patronage/the market place). But art has progressed by pushing those boundaries. Now it's pretty much whatever someone decides it is for themselves. From sticking your daughter's crayon picture on the wall, to sticking a bit of chewed gum on the wall, to whatever tickles your fancy.

I think this implicitly acknowledges a type of ''death of the author'' approach to art, which treats the appreciation and meaning of art as a two-way process, an act of expression and an act of finding meaning in it. And what can be so special about art is that it can communicate something which is otherwise hard to capture and express in a literal or definitive way. That can range from the Old Masters who imbued their commisions with something which resonates universally, somebody writing ''Fountain'' on a urinal, or your kid's stick picture.

I like that approach to art. It's inclusive and doesn't get to be defined by those with the money or clout. It leaves it to you to dig through the clutter and find the gems which shine to you. Not all of that clutter will become the future art history 'canon' curated and conserved by museums and taught about, and there's still a role for the discrimination necessary for preserving a future canon which contextualises art history and gives public access to particularly significant or admired pieces, but that's not all art has to be.

[Consul]

Gerhard Richter's....
Explosion in a paint factory.
Not original, not skillful.
Not artistic.

You're wrong, his work is original, skillful, and artistic! You may not like his abstract paintings, but he is doubtless one of the greatest living painters.
By the way, you might like his non-abstract, photo-realistic paintings. For example, google Gerhard Richter Betty!
(I wanted to post a picture of it here, but non-premium members are no longer allowed to post images!)

[Sculptor1]

Gerhard Richter's....
Explosion in a paint factory.
Not original, not skillful.
Not artistic.

You're wrong, his work is original, skillful, and artistic! You may not like his abstract paintings, but he is doubtless one of the greatest living painters.
By the way, you might like his non-abstract, photo-realistic paintings. For example, google Gerhard Richter Betty!
(I wanted to post a picture of it here, but non-premium members are no longer allowed to post images!)

It is an absurdity to call this skillful.
It is NOT abstract. For it to be abstract it would have to abstract from some other form. Calling it abstract is an abuse of language.
Yes I do like Betty. Now that IS skillful.

But his colour splashes are just Jackon Biollocks.

[Sy Borg]

The primary aim of modern art is the collection of money.

That's not the primary aim of modern artists—although some of them are/were good at self-marketing.
For example, Gerhard Richter's abstract paintings cost a fortune, but he surely didn't become an artist in order to become rich.

It is the aim of most modern artists, and all who play the game of fame and marketing.
Modern art is created in Paris and NewYork, by people who have little or no understanding, or appreciation of the crafsmanship of art.
Art made without craft is just the physical expression of mental excrement.
Dragging something out of a dumpster and putting a frame on it is not art. It does not matter if you pretend it is the deepest expression of your innermost anxiety and some ******** about representation of "man's inhumanity to man", or "the identity crisis of the modern world". It is remains a framed ****.

I agree. I can go to a modern art exhibit and enjoy the experience, but it's very hit-and-miss, and a fair bit of it is accidental comedy. Still, there are pearls amongst the swine, usually by skilled artists broadening their vistas.

Inspiration can strike the naive artist. Ideally, the filter of taste separates those occasional inspired efforts from the many failed naive experiments. That filter that has always been somewhat lacking in the general public, but the bar has lowered further due to, what I think is a misunderstanding of what postmodernism should be about. The value of postmodernism IMO was the point out the limitations of modernism, not to remove all standards.

[Consul]

It is an absurdity to call this skillful.

No, it's not. If you think you could easily reproduce Richter's abstract paintings, try to do so and you'll see that you can't!

It is NOT abstract. For it to be abstract it would have to abstract from some other form. Calling it abstract is an abuse of language.

No, it's not, because "abstract" in "abstract art" means "characterized by lack of or freedom from representational qualities" (Oxford English Dictionary).

[Sculptor1]

It is an absurdity to call this skillful.

No, it's not. If you think you could easily reproduce Richter's abstract paintings, try to do so and you'll see that you can't!

Been there done that.
What I strive to do is gather the skill to do his life-like stuff.
But what you call the "abstract" stuff is just his cynical way of making money. Because to make explosion in a paint factory only takes an afternoon. But painting something that looks real takes time and effort. And the morons that buy modern art want some **** to match their decore, not somthing they are forced to be moved by ot have to think about.

It is NOT abstract. For it to be abstract it would have to abstract from some other form. Calling it abstract is an abuse of language.

No, it's not, because "abstract" in "abstract art" means "characterized by lack of or freedom from representational qualities" (Oxford English Dictionary).

[Sculptor1]

The primary aim of modern art is the collection of money.

That's not the primary aim of modern artists—although some of them are/were good at self-marketing.
For example, Gerhard Richter's abstract paintings cost a fortune, but he surely didn't become an artist in order to become rich.

It is the aim of most modern artists, and all who play the game of fame and marketing.
Modern art is created in Paris and NewYork, by people who have little or no understanding, or appreciation of the crafsmanship of art.
Art made without craft is just the physical expression of mental excrement.
Dragging something out of a dumpster and putting a frame on it is not art. It does not matter if you pretend it is the deepest expression of your innermost anxiety and some ******** about representation of "man's inhumanity to man", or "the identity crisis of the modern world". It is remains a framed ****.

I agree. I can go to a modern art exhibit and enjoy the experience, but it's very hit-and-miss, and a fair bit of it is accidental comedy. Still, there are pearls amongst the swine, usually by skilled artists broadening their vistas.

Inspiration can strike the naive artist. Ideally, the filter of taste separates those occasional inspired efforts from the many failed naive experiments. That filter that has always been somewhat lacking in the general public, but the bar has lowered further due to, what I think is a misunderstanding of what postmodernism should be about. The value of postmodernism IMO was the point out the limitations of modernism, not to remove all standards.

True enough.
What I can't stand is the posing and the pretending. The "Oh if you dont like it you dont understand it ********".
Like the way Homi K. Bhabha has made a career out of verbal diarreah describing his friend Anish Kapoor's work, with mountains of Post-moderist ********. I once sat through a Q&A with these two. It was embrassing.

The one thing of value modern art has potentially done is to implicitly increase the value of the art of anyone from a child to an old person in a care home spilling paint - but getting something out of it. In real, (not money) terms their art is as valuable as any "great" artist of the day.
But none of it detracts from the skill of craft - and that is where the real art is for me.
There is more artistry in Camille Claudel's marble foot than in a mile of Pollock canvases.

[Sculptor1]

The above asterixes represent a reference to the excrement of male bovine quadrapeds.
I had not realised the the use of such a phrase was likley to cause the gentle folk who contribute to this thread some corruption and distress.

SO back to the thread. Yes. Modern Art is a way of discriminating against people with less money than they have sense, by promoting a frenzy of buy activity amongst those that in fact to have more money than sense and are willing to part with it for reasons of decore, "taste" and personal status.

[Pattern-chaser]

Gerhard Richter's....
Explosion in a paint factory.
Not original, not skillful.
Not artistic.

You're wrong, his work is original, skillful, and artistic!

As I said before,

Art is art because the artist says it is. There is no such thing as 'good' or 'bad' art, but only art that *you* like, or don't like.

As soon as we try to bring 'objective' arguments, or other external arguments to bear, we sink into conflict. These are personal, individual, judgements. Why isn't this obvious to either or both of you?

If you start arguing about whether artist A is a good artist, or whether A is 'better' than artist B, you have lost sight of the art! You are both right, because your judgements are personal ones. Sculptor1 doesn't like Richter, Consul does. There is no contradiction, and no basis for argument. Both judgements are unchallengeably correct.

[Sculptor1]

Gerhard Richter's....
Explosion in a paint factory.
Not original, not skillful.
Not artistic.

You're wrong, his work is original, skillful, and artistic!

As I said before,

Art is art because the artist says it is. There is no such thing as 'good' or 'bad' art, but only art that *you* like, or don't like.

As soon as we try to bring 'objective' arguments, or other external arguments to bear, we sink into conflict. These are personal, individual, judgements. Why isn't this obvious to either or both of you?

If you start arguing about whether artist A is a good artist, or whether A is 'better' than artist B, you have lost sight of the art! You are both right, because your judgements are personal ones. Sculptor1 doesn't like Richter, Consul does. There is no contradiction, and no basis for argument. Both judgements are unchallengeably correct.

True enough.
Except
There are levels fo skill and craftsmanship that can be measured objectively.
Please compare.
the BBC webiste article entitled "New Melania Trump statue in Slovenia gets mixed reviews"
with.. gogling "Bernini Gian Lorenzo, David, 1623 - is a photograph by Everett "

[Sy Borg]

That's not the primary aim of modern artists—although some of them are/were good at self-marketing.
For example, Gerhard Richter's abstract paintings cost a fortune, but he surely didn't become an artist in order to become rich.

It is the aim of most modern artists, and all who play the game of fame and marketing.
Modern art is created in Paris and NewYork, by people who have little or no understanding, or appreciation of the crafsmanship of art.
Art made without craft is just the physical expression of mental excrement.
Dragging something out of a dumpster and putting a frame on it is not art. It does not matter if you pretend it is the deepest expression of your innermost anxiety and some ******** about representation of "man's inhumanity to man", or "the identity crisis of the modern world". It is remains a framed ****.

I agree. I can go to a modern art exhibit and enjoy the experience, but it's very hit-and-miss, and a fair bit of it is accidental comedy. Still, there are pearls amongst the swine, usually by skilled artists broadening their vistas.

Inspiration can strike the naive artist. Ideally, the filter of taste separates those occasional inspired efforts from the many failed naive experiments. That filter that has always been somewhat lacking in the general public, but the bar has lowered further due to, what I think is a misunderstanding of what postmodernism should be about. The value of postmodernism IMO was the point out the limitations of modernism, not to remove all standards.

True enough.
What I can't stand is the posing and the pretending. The "Oh if you dont like it you dont understand it ********".
Like the way Homi K. Bhabha has made a career out of verbal diarreah describing his friend Anish Kapoor's work, with mountains of Post-moderist ********. I once sat through a Q&A with these two. It was embrassing.

The one thing of value modern art has potentially done is to implicitly increase the value of the art of anyone from a child to an old person in a care home spilling paint - but getting something out of it. In real, (not money) terms their art is as valuable as any "great" artist of the day.
But none of it detracts from the skill of craft - and that is where the real art is for me.
There is more artistry in Camille Claudel's marble foot than in a mile of Pollock canvases.

Yes, the fancier the blurb needed to justify or explain a work, the more likely that the work is incapable of speaking for itself.

I like Pollock's splatter paintings. If the colours are right and there's energy in the splats, they can make pleasing designs. I made a few myself for home, but the prices for them are absurd. However, craft isn't enough for me, and I am not a huge fan of hyper-realism either, despite the incredible technique needed because the imaginative elements are so limited. Hyper-realism can be brilliant as a novelty or a statement but, in the end, you can just take a photo and achieve much the same effect (or better if you photographer uses light cleverly).

It's interesting that most people would agree that art at the top end is outrageously overpriced when there are comparable works languishing in obscurity. Success in the arts seems to be largely about networking. Great contacts and no talent will always do better than no contacts and great talent.

[Sculptor1]

It is the aim of most modern artists, and all who play the game of fame and marketing.
Modern art is created in Paris and NewYork, by people who have little or no understanding, or appreciation of the crafsmanship of art.
Art made without craft is just the physical expression of mental excrement.
Dragging something out of a dumpster and putting a frame on it is not art. It does not matter if you pretend it is the deepest expression of your innermost anxiety and some ******** about representation of "man's inhumanity to man", or "the identity crisis of the modern world". It is remains a framed ****.

I agree. I can go to a modern art exhibit and enjoy the experience, but it's very hit-and-miss, and a fair bit of it is accidental comedy. Still, there are pearls amongst the swine, usually by skilled artists broadening their vistas.

Inspiration can strike the naive artist. Ideally, the filter of taste separates those occasional inspired efforts from the many failed naive experiments. That filter that has always been somewhat lacking in the general public, but the bar has lowered further due to, what I think is a misunderstanding of what postmodernism should be about. The value of postmodernism IMO was the point out the limitations of modernism, not to remove all standards.

True enough.
What I can't stand is the posing and the pretending. The "Oh if you dont like it you dont understand it ********".
Like the way Homi K. Bhabha has made a career out of verbal diarreah describing his friend Anish Kapoor's work, with mountains of Post-moderist ********. I once sat through a Q&A with these two. It was embrassing.

The one thing of value modern art has potentially done is to implicitly increase the value of the art of anyone from a child to an old person in a care home spilling paint - but getting something out of it. In real, (not money) terms their art is as valuable as any "great" artist of the day.
But none of it detracts from the skill of craft - and that is where the real art is for me.
There is more artistry in Camille Claudel's marble foot than in a mile of Pollock canvases.

Yes, the fancier the blurb needed to justify or explain a work, the more likely that the work is incapable of speaking for itself.

I like Pollock's splatter paintings. If the colours are right and there's energy in the splats, they can make pleasing designs. I made a few myself for home, but the prices for them are absurd. However, craft isn't enough for me, and I am not a huge fan of hyper-realism either, despite the incredible technique needed because the imaginative elements are so limited. Hyper-realism can be brilliant as a novelty or a statement but, in the end, you can just take a photo and achieve much the same effect (or better if you photographer uses light cleverly).

It's interesting that most people would agree that art at the top end is outrageously overpriced when there are comparable works languishing in obscurity. Success in the arts seems to be largely about networking. Great contacts and no talent will always do better than no contacts and great talent.

I've made some Pollacks for myself too. I think there is a story there. If two people feel happy with a simple copy in technique that produces a work of art, then you have to wonder at the ridiculous prices for an "original". My own effort was sufficiently different from an y Pollack that I was as happy about the aesthetics as I would about having a Pollack reprint, with the added joy of knowing I did it - and that it actually matched to colour scheme of my leather sofas!!

I did not wish to imply that craft was enough. But as a sculptor who likes to improve there is always something to appraciate in the craft of that art even if the art does not move it - it has value in the same way you can appreciate other crafty object that do not pretent to be art.
I have a saying "art without craft is like sex without love". You can tell when the artist has made an effort.

Another aspect - I hate artists who work with their tongue, and just get other people to realise their ideas- For me real art involves dirty fingernails, and paint spalttered overalls. Physically engaging with the medium is important.

And in your last paragraph we are in accord.