I so 100% disagree with you. Art in itself in a form of communication. "I don't get art" is not an admission of failure but only a personal opinion. Just because mass media loves a piece, it does not mean it is cool. One critic can just acclaim a piece for fun, and the rest follows. Art is so subjective. For instance you don't get Van Gogh even though I think he is a genius in color. I think his distorted realities are breathtaking and I would spend hours looking at his paintings. But I can never say you are a failure. Just Van Gogh's painting don't connect with you. Also what you like is modern art, not contemporary art. Modern art included the abstract expressionism movement which I assume you love. What the article is referring to is contemporary art. Many contemporary art pieces, in my opinion, are stuck in the abstract expressionism period. They never inherited the concept only the image. In other words, many works are vulgar for the sake or being vulgar. Many artists become artists for the idea of being an artist, the idea of being carefree. I remember when I was in CMU, a lot of the art students just love parties, drugs, and sex. The professor love works about vulgar sex. If you can somehow relate sex and drugs to your art work, then everyone loves it. I remember one girl did a whole show on blowjobs and it was a blast. And another girl painting two old women naked in the bathroom, one hold her hand in a hand job position, another one opening her mouth. She then cut a perfect round hole in the hand and the mouth area, essentially two glory holes. The professor loved it. The students loved it. It was displayed in the CMU hall way for weeks. This vulgar art movement is quite popular now days. Many many students just party all day and pile a bunch of trash together before review and bullshit about the work. And their review will go great. The entire school knows that if you can make something no one understands and write a 2 page essay explanation it, then your work is deep. If your project does not relate to the meaning of life in a form no one understands, then it must be shitty. When has art comes to reading pages of explanations? To me, an art piece is a failure when it cannot express its concept and when it is not aesthetically pleasing. Of course the second part is very subjective to personal taste. You know Van Gogh's point of perspective in art but you might not appreciate it. Perhaps because I went to a design school, took plenty of art studios, been through the importance of bullshitting, I sincerely believe that there are plenty of shit in contemporary art scene. Shit that barely have a concept and artist don't have ANY skills to carry out their concept. So they make very ugly, vulgar, disgusting, twisted pieces to bring a reaction from the viewer. Then they bullshit about their pieces because they are very good writers. For some reason I don't understand, it is much easier to succeed in NYC art world from creating something ugly and disgusting then creating an aesthetically pleasing art piece. I don't enjoy spending my time to figure out the bullshit behind the shit. Anyways my point is art is highly subjective. Something I might think is shit and cannot even be considered as art you might adore and hang it on your wall. And vice versa.
>Just because mass media loves a piece, it does not mean it is cool. Nowhere did I say otherwise. >Also what you like is modern art, not contemporary art. And nowhere did I say this. > Modern art included the abstract expressionism movement which I assume you love. And nowhere did I give you the first reason to assume this. >Many contemporary art pieces, in my opinion, are stuck in the abstract expressionism period. And nowhere did I even use the term "contemporary." You 100% disagree with something. It sure isn't me.
Sorry I meant I 99.9% disagree with you, specifically on
"So, to me, "I don't get art" is an admission of failure, not a brag. If there's something that a whole bunch of people think is awesome, you owe it to yourself at least to figure out what they think is so cool." Just because everyone else loves a piece, it does not mean it is cool. I assumed that include mass media, but my mistake. When you say "I don't get art", I assumed the phrase came from the article, which is referring to Contemporary Art. So when you refer to "I don't get art", I assume you mean Contemporary Art. However, I apologize for assuming you are referring to the article when you left your comment under the article using the exact same words. I assumed you like Modern Art because you named a bunch of artists you like under the Modern Art era, mostly Abstract Expressionism period, but none under Contemporary Art. What I am saying is "I don't get art" in not an admission of failure, just a personal opinion. The rest is just an explanation.
Once more, with feeling: >If there's something that a whole bunch of people think is awesome, you owe it to yourself at least to figure out what they think is so cool. I think it's telling that I wrote Twelve.Fucking.Paragraphs (at thenewgreen's invitation, despite my suspicion that this detroit-area circlejerk would come apart at the seams - last fucking time he talks me into this shit) that were essentially a plea for empathy, for understanding, for analysis (self and otherwise) and got no less than four responses that boil down to "no fuck you if I don't like art it's because it sucks and it's my right to say that it sucks so fuck you." Yeah. It is. Hate the fuck out of art. See if I give a shit. But since we all live on this planet, it's worth spending a little time trying to wear someone else's skin for a minute to determine if you can figure out what they see that you don't. The article is a typical Vice take on "everything sucks except the things we think are cool which, by the way, are too cool for you." I do not find this sort of analysis illuminating. I tried to say so, in as polite a form as possible, and got A) a rant about how apple and rich people suck B) grief for not fellating Van Gogh C) a gonzo-ass condemnation of art students for not studying enough D) grief for not fellating Wes Anderson "I don't get art" is an admission of failure. "I don't LIKE art" is a personal opinion. And that's the last I have to say about the subject.
1. Just thought you would enjoy the read, will cease to "shout-out". 2. Pretty sure b_b is the only Detroiter in this thread and I can safely say that prior to Hubski, I didn't know a single soul in this thread, including him. You may call it a "Circle-jerk", but it's not a regionally specific one. I did enjoy your primary 12 paragraph response -it made sense to me. The Wes Anderson comment was in reference to a conversation months ago that we had here. I'll try to dig it up but right now I have a baby with the flu on my hands, time is short and I am exhausted. I'm guessing you can empathize. IMO, you make a valid point that if the masses see some appeal in something and you at first don't, it's worth asking the question, "what, if anything, did I miss"?I think it's telling that I wrote Twelve.Fucking.Paragraphs (at thenewgreen's invitation, despite my suspicion that this detroit-area circlejerk would come apart at the seams - last fucking time he talks me into this shit)
That is precisely why I made a clear distinction between Modern art and Contemporary art. How do I get it through your head that the article is referring to CONTEMPORARY ART, what the author really means is "I don't get Contemporary art". It is similar to you not getting Van Gogh's Post Impressionism, but getting Klein's Abstract Expressionism. You are taking this one phrase way out of its context and writing a whole argument about it. I am trying to put that phrase into its context. I am saying specifically "I don't get art" in the Contemporary art scene is not an admission of failure. Hence why I wrote about the art schools. Again you are putting my explanations way out of context. (Also just FYI, you don't study in art school, you draw, you paint, you create. It's not called studying. My parents keep asking me hows studying, and I can't get through their head either that I don't study) I'm trying to explain why people don't get Contemporary art. That is because there's nothing to get. It is taught in schools to make something vulgar enough to cause an reaction from the public or make something no one understands. It is the current trend. Exhibitions that either disgust the viewers or make people wonder why is this cool attract the public. The article is a take on," just because everyone thinks staring at woman screaming at the screen for an hour is cool, it doesn't mean I have to think it is deep" Here is the scenario in a lot of cases. An artist create a piece that no one understands, including the artist himself. A gallery hangs up the piece on the wall. One person comes over and look at it, doesn't get it. So he stands there and wonder what does it mean. Another person sees the first person so concentrated on this painting and think there must be something deep to this painting. So more and more people follows, thinking this piece I don't understand so there must be something deep and cool. This is the "whole bunch of people think is awesome", do you owe it to yourself to join the crowd? How is it a failure when there's is nothing to get? When the piece is shit to begin with? Do you want to follow the crowd and try to understand the meaning of life behind the shit? And I know this because I know people who create this kind of shit in studio and talks about it, and people like you who thinks you owe it to yourself to understand the concept behind the shit because people around you are doing the same thing. (Again I am referring to CONTEMPORARY ART, just like the article IS)
Re: the ref to modern vs contemporary, perhaps zomberry meant "Modern", not "modern", the movement, not the time period, which Kandinsky, and Klimt all fall under. The capital makes all the difference, although I'm not sure about the ref to abstract expressionism, which I think perhaps is a little later movement than Klimt and Kandinsky.
I didn't know there's a difference between Modern Art and modern art. I think both refers to the the time period. Modern art is not really a movement. I remember taking an art history class called modern art, which basically covers art work from 1800 until 1970s. Abstract expressionism is included in the modern art period, which originated with Kandinsky. The idea got introduced in the USA, and started the New York School of Art. The imagery associated with abstract expressionism basically continues until now, but I think in a degenerative way. Klimt is just from a whole different movement apart from all the obsession with abstraction. Everything after 1970s is called Contemporary Art or Post Modern Art. I think Contemporary Art is not a movement either, it is more of a time period. What I have against is Contemporary Art, which I think most of them have nothing to get.