Offtopic: modern art

[nctnico]

Just something I want to share:
Recentely I was waiting at the airport with my youngest son. At some point he asked 'what is that doing there?' while pointing at some folded metal hanging from the ceiling. I told him that is was an artwork which -with some fantasy- looked like a bunch of airplanes which had crashed into each other (nice piece for an airport BTW). A few minutes later he pointed at something else. I told him that it was a clock wrapped in plastic so it wouldn't get dirty from construction work.

[T3sl4co1l]

In my opinion, Modern Art peaked circa 1900, give or take a handful of decades.  Postmodern, Dada and so on are double abstract -- art for the sake of art critics, not for direct or implied expression.

Tim

[6E5]

I know I'm going to get bombarded by angry objections, but I personally think modern art is rubbish and pre 20'th century art is overpriced.

[T3sl4co1l]

Oh, I should probably edit that, to say abstract art, not modern necessarily.

[Kjelt]

When I visited the National Gallery in London over 10 years ago I was astonished: there was a whole class of 6 years old children given art lessons (they were at 19th century pointillism). If all countries would teach their children art we would probably not have this topic.

On the other hand [rant mode on] I am kinda sick that in our country there is no numerus fixus on art education and there are a lot and I mean a lot of people that say they are artists but create stuff nobody wants/buys/needs and the government has to pay for their livelyhood. I know that there are a lot of artists in history that were not recognized in their time but somewhere there needs to be a line drawn.[rant mode off]

[Marco]

I don't expect the general population to learn assembly for ancient processors so they can appreciate the elegance of a nice piece of 6502 programming ... why should I learn art history exactly?

[hamster_nz]

I don't expect the general population to learn assembly for ancient processors so they can appreciate the elegance of a nice piece of 6502 programming ... why should I learn art history exactly?

I'm sure the answer will be "it enriches your life" - but in a different way to learning programming and founding WhatsApp could.

[dfmischler]

When my wife was finishing her Masters degree in the evenings, I killed a bit of time at the local art museum across the street from the college.  It was mostly modern art, some of which was interesting.  In my opinion, the best piece in the whole museum was a statue of Artemis.  The pictures don't do it justice.  About twenty years later, the morons who ran the museum decided to sell it, and other true masterpieces, because it "didn't fit the museum's mission."  So they kept the IMO trashy stuff by Jackson Pollock and Andy Warhol, and got rid of the true masterpieces.  That has poisoned my opinion of "modern art".  I have not been in that museum since.

[AlfBaz]

I feel there are 2 main problems with art these days
It requires a certain mind set to be enjoyed which is difficult to find in this fast paced, overly competitive and overly stimulated world.
Secondly astists are forced out to the fringes by the overuse of art in advertising

[Kjelt]

When my wife was finishing her Masters degree in the evenings, I killed a bit of time at the local art museum across the street from the college.  It was mostly modern art, some of which was interesting.  In my opinion, the best piece in the whole museum was a statue of Artemis.  The pictures don't do it justice.  About twenty years later, the morons who ran the museum decided to sell it, and other true masterpieces, because it "didn't fit the museum's mission."  So they kept the IMO trashy stuff by Jackson Pollock and Andy Warhol, and got rid of the true masterpieces.  That has poisoned my opinion of "modern art".  I have not been in that museum since.

Well museums are specializing in some theme or some art period. It would be a huge museum if they have bronzes from the roman era and Warhols, I can understand that they would make choices, unfortunately the wrong one for your taste.

[FrankBuss]

There should be more electronics art, like this:

[bookaboo]

I think the cleaner is the real artist.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-26270260

[GeoffS]

Not sure if this qualifies as modern art, the Honeywell Animals.
We used to have the original of the kangaroo at work (Honeywell-Bull)
http://www.computerhistory.org/atchm/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/honeywell_bbdo_sm.pdf

[rdl]

Ha ha! The cleaning lady obviously had no trouble telling what the "art" actually was, and dealt with it accordingly. 

I think the cleaner is the real artist.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-26270260

[jucole]

There should be more electronics art, like this:

lol,  i really like that!

I studied art for 6 years, although I still work in design I do have a new hobby of electronics which I really enjoy.  I haven't done much art for years but I did do a couple of the new icons on this forum. 


edit: I just noticed in the picture the output feed is all wrong because the chips aren't on!

[rexxar]

I find it really annoying when so-called "artists" do something like pour milk on the floor, and say it's some socioeconomic commentary of the evils of capitalism or something equally absurd and irrelevant.

No, that's not art. You poured milk on the floor, now clean it up you twat.

[lemmegraphdat]

Art is the expression of an experience. What kind of experience is expressed as a bit of wire and some nails on a wall?

[pickle9000]

Sniffy art?

http://www.cbc.ca/archives/categories/arts-entertainment/visual-arts/artists-busted-censorship-in-canada/squishing-sniffy.html

[AlfBaz]

I find it really annoying when so-called "artists" do something like pour milk on the floor, and say it's some socioeconomic commentary of the evils of capitalism or something equally absurd and irrelevant.

No, that's not art. You poured milk on the floor, now clean it up you twat.

Art is the expression of an experience. What kind of experience is expressed as a bit of wire and some nails on a wall?

if you take drugs a single full-stop on a blank white page will keep you entertained for hours

[EEVblog]

I draw the line at calling something art that is just essentially something anyone could do have put together in a few minutes without any skill.
i.e A black wall is not art.
Nor is a couple of colourful squares like this that is worth $70M:


Nor any of these paintings:
http://www.artsumo.com/blog/post/4

[rexxar]

I draw the line at calling something art that is just essentially something anyone could do have put together in a few minutes without any skill.
i.e A black wall is not art.
Nor is a couple of colourful squares like this that is worth $70M:
(snip)
Nor any of these paintings:
http://www.artsumo.com/blog/post/4

That just makes me mad. Some of those literally look like something I did in middle school. I suppose it's just like audiofools. Thinking price=quality. Just because you paid $2 million for a piece of shit 'painting' doesn't mean it isn't still a piece of shit.

[pickle9000]

I suppose it's a good gig if you can get it.

As for me I find real art fascinating. Have a look at this, watch it until the end.

[Kjelt]

Art is difficult to describe, if you do want to take a first try, one of the important things of art is that it is never done before, it is unique to the artist and it has an impression that is left on other people and better other artists, so it becomes a new art power.

If I may be so bold to make a bridge to electronics, the first iPad was pretty impressive because it was usefull, small, and it was the first usable device made. It changed electronics history.
Now we have hundreds of clones most nowadays even much better then the first, still they do not make that impression again, eg they are not that impressive 

[6E5]

I draw the line at calling something art that is just essentially something anyone could do have put together in a few minutes without any skill.
i.e A black wall is not art.
Nor is a couple of colourful squares like this that is worth $70M:


Nor any of these paintings:
http://www.artsumo.com/blog/post/4

I don't know about that, you can just feel the "angst" and "oppression" that the artist endured to create this. See how this "artist" used his mastery of "dynamic phase interrelation" to create a physical representation of the spiritual karma inside us all.

[Kremmen]

I draw the line at calling something art that is just essentially something anyone could do have put together in a few minutes without any skill.
i.e A black wall is not art.
Nor is a couple of colourful squares like this that is worth $70M:


Nor any of these paintings:
http://www.artsumo.com/blog/post/4

I don't know that this would be "worth" 70 megabucks. Still, the property of art is that it has both worth and value, only one of which has a monetary anchor attached. Not all "art" is worth a lot or very valuable, but some is. And it is not always that art which "laymen" appreciate. Still iguess art is worth whatever someone is willing to pay for it.
Just as a side note, i promise you Dave that you will not replicate that piece in a few minutes, if ever. Whatever anyone of us thinks it is worth, or not.

Liking something and valuing it or not, is a very subjective thing. In that respect one cannot be "wrong" in expressing one's opinion about - well - anything really, but art in this case.

In the classical art the artist attempts to capture reality as accurately as possible. From the archaic Egyptian stiffly posed figures the representative art has progressed via the greeks and romans to  Renaissance and guys like Leonardo da Vinci and Sandro Botticelli to the medieval Dutch masters and their colleagues around the world. This kind of art is easy for everyone to appreciate and review: one can compare it to an attempt at photography using canvas or some other medium; maximal perceived realism was the target. In my opinion this culminates in the works of such artists as Michelangelo Buonarroti and others in Italy, Johannes Vermeer and Rembrandt van Rijn in the Netherlands, and others equally famous and talented - too numerous to iterate here. These are the artists you are "supposed" to appreciate.

The first deviation from maximal reality one can see in the works of the impressionists, expressionists, pointillists and what have you. Guys like Vincent van Gogh, Edouard Manet, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Edgar Degas, Gustave Caillebotte, Marc Chagall, Georges Seurat and what have you. These guys started to create art where the main point was not hyper realism, but the feeling the viewer gets when examining the piece. Take say van Gogh's De sterrennacht (Starry Night) just to name one: What it represents is clear, but also it is clear that the depiciton is not realistic. Instead it evokes a feeling or impression. Nobody has ever suggested that this was because van Gogh was unable to create a better picture - instead it is obvious that this is the point of the whole work.
Then the scene evolves to guys like Pablo Picasso and cubism, by some considered the most important art movement of the 20th century and which is considerably removed from anything the eye can directly see around us. Similar in some respects is the art of Maurits C. Escher whose complex geometric fantasies are out of this world, representative though they are for the most part.
Latest at this stage we are starting to leave behind those whose imagination fails to see art as more than a brush operated camera.

With the evolution into non-representative art we start getting dismissals like the ones here - that "it is nothing, anyone can do it". Sure, not all art is immortal and lots of the cheap and cheerful "abstract art" is just trash. Especially that which is described in high-flying sentences of nonsense but void of any innovation.
Still, artists like Piet Mondrian, Vassily Kandinsky, Joan Miro and the many other abstractionists are just as much artists as anyone before them. They just explore a realm more removed from the everyday. Then there are those who present a harder nut to crack: Yves Klein and Marcel Duchamp come to mind. At this stage we are firmly where someone like Jackson Pollock neatly cleaves the audience in two - to those who appreciate him as innovator and those who think he just happened to accidentally kick the paint bucket.

Maybe what i am saying is that those who haven't studied or familiarized themselves with contemporary art should be allowed their opinion of it. But at the same time the opinion may not be worth a whole lot. After all, opinions are like buttholes; everybody has one.