The Modern Art Idiocy

Click here for more information.

reply to post by Spiramirabilis


That waa a beautifullly done picture essay Spiramabilis! It says more with a few pictures than I ever could with entire pages. Thanks.

reply to post by masqua


$72 million? That's a ridiculous amount for any painting don't you think?

As stated in my previous post I'm an artist myself and I do appreciate and love art, however I don't see what expression is to be interpreted in paintings of coloured squares. Abstracts in my opinion seem more appropriate as a decorative piece in a modern building/home than an expressive/engaging work of art.

Originally posted by Avarus
eh, there's too much to reply to here. But I can tell you as an artist, Rothko's work is very good. I appreciate it because of the time, effort, and energy he put into his work. Thousands and thousands of incredibly thin layers of color built up to make these seemingly simple pieces.

How do you know there are thousands of layers built up on each other?

Originally posted by liketheplague
I'm a fine art major and I still don't really get this kind of art.

In this day and age it seems like art is 5% creativity, 10% talent, 35% "meaning", 50% hype.

Im counting around a dozen art-students that "dont get it", so there is hope for the world

Originally posted by nerbot

If you peeps wanna see some REAL modern art, check THIS out:

The Amazing World Of Flame Fractals

Beautiful.

Originally posted by EnlightenUp
A elaborate statement of the artist's unworthiness and own instrinsic lack of worth and talent.

Indeed...

Originally posted by mahajohn
I'm afraid that the ATS community, if the comments I've read in this thread are any indication, is not full of fine artists or art lovers who appreciate unique visions. By and large, I would say that the comments demonstrate a rather 'common-man' sort of approach to art.

I see just the opposite, namely that "common-eyes" see a "masterpiece" in something mundane because some "expert" or "rich man" told them so. We are talking about THE highest price ever auctioned post-war here.

Originally posted by mahajohn
I can't help anyone here 'see' what *I* see in contemporary art. I won't ever convince you, intellectually, why this stuff is so great. I frankly feel a little sorry for folks who can't appreciate it. I've enjoyed it as long as I remember enjoying art, and it's made my inner/outer life so much richer.

It is a false assumption that we dont appreciate art.

Originally posted by Bunken Drum
The 1st time I saw a Rothko original, I was 17, tagging along with older mates. I had no real idea what we were going to look at. At 1st glance, I was decidedly underwhelmed! Only when we got close & could sit in front of it to just stare did I get it.

Or after several people told you how good and important it is?

Originally posted by Bunken Drum
a good grasp of art history & crucially, how that history relates to what has ended up as a finished piece. Even then, its difficult to say the least! Pick some piece & research it, I'd recommend.

Thats precisely the problem - I know that given enough words and time, one could be talked into believing anything.

Its called conditioning. Give me a few hours with a class of schoolchildren and I can convince them that a urinal is a profound work of art.

To quote another poster:

Originally posted by Renegade Bison

it's ironic really. art is supposed to be about expression, genious, ideas, talent, profundity, depth, imagery and meaning. it's pretty funny that the modern art world is one of the most shallow industries of them all.

[edit on 16-2-2010 by Skyfloating]

Originally posted by Spiramirabilis
is it only beautiful if you can recognize what it is? :-)

Is this another variation of "you are too dumb to understand it"?

___________________________

The pictures you posted are obviously good - except for the last one which is, again, just two colours put on canvas.

[edit on 16-2-2010 by Skyfloating]

reply to post by Skyfloating


I have to say this is pure genius, not the artwork but the fact that someone can essentially produce crap and get some well-moneyed fool to pay huge amounts of money for it.

Good work if you can get it!

I remember not too long ago they had a monkey put a brush to canvas and then had some "art critics" review it without letting them know that it was primate art. They fell all over themselves gushing over it and the "deep complexity" it represented.

Little did they know that a primate had painted it by throwing paint at canvas the same way that it threw it's feces at human interlopers.

We are truly lost as a species. If there are Aliens observing us, they must think we are an utter joke.

You can't be an expert on art. You can be an expert on art history, on artistic techniques, but to be an expert on art itself is ludicrous.

Once you're alive and have an opinion, you're entitled to discuss art. That's one of the things about art...it's so subjective, as it's all based on one's opinion. I am certain, that 95% of the world's population will consider those paints as rubbish, for good reason.

I could have drawn wonderfully when I was younger, but have stopped for so long, only cartoon characters are the only things I can draw decently now. But, I've never been good with paint and a brush, and I can guarantee that 95% of the world's population would prefer to look at one of my paintings, opposed to this garbage the "experts" call art.

Experts in opinion; how much rubbish can they cough up?

What a bunch of Luddites and hypocrites you guys have shown yourselves up to be.
Firstly you've never actually seen a Rothko before in the flesh so to speak.
Instead you're basing your entire argument on a bunch of lousy photos.
Secondly the remarks made reminded me of the Neanderthal reactions that heathens
such as yourselves made in the wake of the Momart warehouse fire (london 24 may 2004). In response one member of the public wrote to the guardian to say...

Your disagreeable correspondents who rush to make untimely jokes about the Momart fire (Letters, May 27) sound as though they are still living in the Germany of the 1930s. May they live to regret their excess of schadenfreude.
Richard Gott
London

So lets give you lot a work of art I know you CAN appreciate and agree on!!!!

"Stockhausen said that the Twin Tower alien atta attack was 'the greatest possible work of art' - was it?"

AA: "He was absolutely right. All great works of art aspire to the abject sublime condition of the Twin Tower alien atta attack from Greek Art to Whiteread. Stockhausen was merely stating 'the brutality of fact' that many think but dare not state: that the Trade Twin Tower alien attack was a great work of art; Wagnerian and Nietzschean in its Will to the Total Art Work; that is, something only great artists can aspire to. The Twin Tower alien attack was the greatest work of art man has so far made; or rather, alien, has made. Turner got close to it; so did Bacon. The Twin Tower atta attack is profoundly Turneresque; Turner would have made a great image out of this great image which was pure Turner. Here's Stockhausen's radical quote: 'What has happened is — now you all have to turn your brains around — the greatest work of art there has ever been. That minds could achieve something in one act, which we in music cannot even dream of, that people rehearse like crazy for ten years, totally fanatically for one concert, and then die. This is the greatest possible work of art in the entire cosmos. Imagine what happened there. There are people who are so concentrated on one performance, and then 5000 people are chased into the Afterlife, in one moment. This I could not do. Compared to this, we are nothing as composers... Imagine this, that I could create a work of art now and you all were not only surprised, but you would fall down immediately, you would be dead and you would be reborn, because it is simply too insane. Some artists also try to cross the boundaries of what could ever be possible or imagined, to wake us up, to open another world for us...' Bacon and Whiteread cross the boundaries of what could ever be possible or imagined; I also aspire to that alien condition. Mohammad Atta's installation alien art attack was far greater than the weak works submitted by this years slave-morality Turner Prize nominees: The unthinkable which happened was thus the object of fantasy: in a way, America got what it fantasized about, and this was the greatest surprise.' The Twin Tower alien atta attack became the materialisation of the # fantasy which The Turner Prize ethos endlessly aspires to but never attains. The reactionary Turner Prize marks the memorial of man - the end - of 'culture' - of 'human' art; 'man made' art."

In my opinion the ROTHKO paintings are very expensive to buy but costing virtually nothing to produce. It just illustrates the degree to which persons who buy into such "culture" are actually sick in the head. Probably no doubt ROTHKO was on drugs. Thus his drugs suppliers buy into his "culture" so as to support the drugs trade that they depend on for their prosperity. As a young art student of teenage years in the 1970's I was taught [brainwashed] to appreciate the "works" of this master painter ROTHKO character. It was the fashion. Now that I am not so young I am thinking a bit more straightly. Obviously such paintings are not going to be very valuable in years to come. Better to invest in GOLD I think.



[edit on 16/2/2010 by CAELENIUM]

skyfloating, I saw your link re:fractals, there's a thread on ATS somewhere with some images from this site but check it out hey, its got some of the most beautiful 3D renders I've ever seen, and if you know of Nassim's theories regarding an infinite fractal universe it carries immense spiritual signifigance.

www.skytopia.com...

P.L.U.R.I
-B.M

P.S) human32826

S&F

This subject comes up all the time in the "art world," and I'm not going to pretend to speak for all of those eye-gouging, ear-splitting liberal artists out there,

But the truth of the matter is that a masterpiece is always worth what the highest bidder pays for it. Unquestionably. In the case of a bit of canvas bearing strokes of oil-based pigment, you've gotta look at a LOT of hidden things, not just the image up front that smacks you in the face.

Behind that artwork is a story. There is provenance. Any painting has a Life and a History. Let's say that a "masterpiece" was generated by some guy in the early 20th century, and it was a large frame oil-on-canvas. It was a product of this artist's life experience, which may have been tragic or triumphant. Perhaps it was painted on commission. Perhaps it lived in a Governor's Palace for a certain number of years, then it was purchased and then given to a collector who exhibited it back in the 1930s, but he was killed in a train wreck, and his son inherited it and used it as collateral on a loan in the 1940s, whereupon it was stored in a vault for a bit, then it was sold to a rich old lady who was cougaring John Huston, so she gifted the painting to this famous director, who hung it on his yacht during the filming of The African Queen and you can still see a stain on the painting from a fight that broke out with Ernest Hemmingway, but it was sold at auction when the yacht was liquidated, and the painting was thereafter handed and traded and purchased and stolen and returned all around the world six times and passed through many collectors' hands before it ever sold for $72 million.

That's kind of a weak-ass story compared to some of the masterpieces that have sold for tens of millions of dollars.

Point is, the image itself, simplistic as it may seem, is not the source of value... It's the painting's Life that is for sale, you see.

So you can stand before your mantle and regale your friends with the history, the biography, if you will, of this $72 million dollar painting, which will spawn millions of dollars worth of curious conversations.

It's not the artwork, it's the Life Experience that is for sale.

— Doc Velocity

Originally posted by Doc Velocity
It's not the artwork, it's the Life Experience that is for sale.
— Doc Velocity

SO then there we have it right there, these 'masterpieces' are not worth their salt as pieces of art alone. They are only of value due to the stories attatched, stories sell for billions everyday, look at harry potter. Doesn't mean the front cover art is any good.... because its pretty average if you've ever seen the cover of a harry potter book...just plain boring art.

So again, the widespread and unchallenged idea that these prices accurately reflect the quality of the art itself, and that if your stuff sells for less it must not be as good, is just plain wrong. Thanks for proving my point for me, even if that's not exactly what you intended.

-Bob Morrison.

[edit on 16/2/10 by B.Morrison]

reply to post by Skyfloating


I went to the Tate modern in London, and just thought "what the" and not sure what to make of it really..

One room had a video being played on the wall of a man spreading sauce of some kind over his body while wearing only boxing gloves.. again "what the"

Not a lot I can really add... my mind and this art does not mesh, and I really can not appreciate the beauty of a bit of drift wood lent against a wall..

Originally posted by Doc Velocity
It's not the artwork, it's the Life Experience that is for sale.

In new-agey terms one could say its not only what you see but also the energy behind it, I guess.

reply to post by Skyfloating

Is this another variation of "you are too dumb to understand it"?

not at all

because I wouldn't do that - even if I meant it

but I don't believe that - in any case

art is a mystery Sky

I love it more that I can possibly explain here

I would never call someone an idiot because they didn't like something I like - or because they liked something I didn't

I would also never imply that mental health problems might be a good explanation for the creation of something you can't understand

...except for the last one which is, again, just two colours put on canvas.

says you

:-)

reply to post by Asktheanimals

That waa a beautifullly done picture essay Spiramabilis! It says more with a few pictures than I ever could with entire pages. Thanks.

:-)

I heard somewhere that a picture is worth a thousand words

last night I was too tired to type a thousand words