Are Jackson Pollock's Paintings Art?

I never much cared for it either. I guess for the time they had some originality. Nobody had thought of doing that before. If I did the same thing today people would say it lacks originality, so I guess what makes them valuable is that it was a new idea.

Figure out something that nobody else has done yet, and maybe that's your ticket.

Even if I had to skill to make a statue after the style of Michelangelo and with equal skill, people would probably say it's too derivative. If it's been done before, not many people will be impressed.
 
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Gawdzilla Sama said:
That would be Bollock's body of work.
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That is not an answer. It is at best an unsupported conclusion.

The main problem is if it is possible to rationally explain what art is? What if art is an irrational experience? Both the positive and negative experience? What if art involves in part some form of cognitive and emotional relativism?

So how do you rationally decide between different irrational emotions?
 
GlennB said:
Is Tracey Emin's "My bed" art? It eventually sold for £2.5m
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Not in my view........remember my "craft or skill" test? However, her drawings around the wall of the same Turner prize exhibit were most certainly art. Not very good art, IMV, but art nonetheless. However, I won't be arguing with people who have a different take on the definition of art, because my definition is personal to me, and I have no problem with someone else having a different definition which is personal to them. What I simply don't understand is how someone can get so hot-under-the-collar with other people's definition of art, or other people's taste, as Gawdzilla Sama is doing in this thread.
 
MikeG said:
Not in my view........remember my "craft or skill" test? However, her drawings around the wall of the same Turner prize exhibit were most certainly art. Not very good art, IMV, but art nonetheless. However, I won't be arguing with people who have a different take on the definition of art, because my definition is personal to me, and I have no problem with someone else having a different definition which is personal to them. What I simply don't understand is how someone can get so hot-under-the-collar with other people's definition of art, or other people's taste, as Gawdzilla Sama is doing in this thread.
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This is broadly my view - push me and I'll say bad things about rap and hip-hop but don't particularly wan to rant about it.

Some years back I supported an AS student who was doing an FE art course. He did some Pollock-esque stuff dribbling acrylics onto a canvas on the floor. The tutor encouraged him to do large works, choose the best sections and cut them out for his finished work. I kind of saw this as "finding something good in random dribblings" and not really art. I wonder how many works Pollock threw away in a similar spirit?
 
Segnosaur said:
You need to realize a couple of things:

- Statements like that make people assume fans of modern art are "snobs"

- While you are running around saying "most people have terrible taste in art", they are saying the same thing about you. And you are in the minority.

- Why exactly did you jump right to paintings of Elvis that the "unwashed masses" would want? Did you ever consider that most people would actually be content with a middle ground? i.e. not cheesy like "Elvis on Velvet", but not the type that appeals only to a small minority (like Pollack paintings)? Paintings by artists like Renoir are ones that A: can be appreciated by many of the more discerning painters, and B: would probably be acceptable to a majority of the "unwashed masses".
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Hate to tell you this Segi, but being an atheist, already puts you in the snob category.

Embrace the Snob!

Be!

Be the Snob!!!
 
Gawdzilla Sama said:
While it's true that a tornado can't hit a junk yard and produce a 747, it's quite possible that a twister could hit a greasy spoon diner, a paint store, and a brothel in quick succession and produce what could be passed off as an "undiscovered Jackson Pollock."
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No, it really isn't.

Fudbucker said:
If I did train a chimp to imitate Pollock's style are you sure you could tell the difference?
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Yes.

Fudbucker said:
What if I programmed a computer to use an RNG to drip and drizzle a bunch of paint around in the manner Pollack did? Would that be art? Again, do you think you could tell the difference?
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Yes, you could.

If you think Pollock just threw paint around randomly, then you haven't really looked at any of Pollock's paintings. I suggest going to a gallery and actually seeing one, as Lionking suggested, rather than looking at images on the internet.
 
Tommy Jeppesen said:
That is not an answer. It is at best an unsupported conclusion.

The main problem is if it is possible to rationally explain what art is? What if art is an irrational experience? Both the positive and negative experience? What if art involves in part some form of cognitive and emotional relativism?

So how do you rationally decide between different irrational emotions?
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Poor guys. Can't define art, but demand that things be called "art". So very weird. What next? Some dumbass puts a urinal on it's back and signs it, to the acclaim of the "art" world?

Oh, wait...
 
Foolmewunz said:
I don't find it a problem. I find it entertaining. You don't like Rothko, Pollock, Morris Louis, et al.... gotcha. It's taste. It has nothing to do with whether something is "art".

Stay tuned fans. After the break, we'll have the poster who cites the famous story of the upside down abstract in the museum. And later in the show, discussions of Piss Christ, the urinals in the gallery exhibition, and Dung Madonna.
(We've been this route a dozen times already.)
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Gawdzilla Sama said:
Poor guys. Can't define art, but demand that things be called "art". So very weird. What next? Some dumbass puts a urinal on it's back and signs it, to the acclaim of the "art" world?

Oh, wait...
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We're getting there.

Gawdzilla Sama said:
You mean the ad homs were the best available rebuttal? Seriously?
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In a thread full of ad homs? I thought they were de rigeur? You've spent the entire thread obliquely telling anyone who doesn't agree with your taste in art that they are idiots and have been suckered. Most people at least grace their pronouncements with "I know it when I see it". That's all your posts come to. You can't see it as art so anyone else who does is an idiot. We get it. We disagree (except those two people whose tastes are also in their ass who agree with you).
 
Foolmewunz said:
We're getting there.
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Sadly, we've been there since WWI
In a thread full of ad homs? I thought they were de rigeur? You've spent the entire thread obliquely telling anyone who doesn't agree with your taste in art that they are idiots and have been suckered. Most people at least grace their pronouncements with "I know it when I see it". That's all your posts come to. You can't see it as art so anyone else who does is an idiot. We get it. We disagree (except those two people whose tastes are also in their ass who agree with you).
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I was referring to the post I replied to. Try to follow the thread.

However, you seem to think it's insulting to point out that you've been suckered by a massive hype. For an atheist this position is really bizarre.
 
MikeG said:
I said skill OR craft :)

Craft in actually physically making the images. Laying out the canvas and applying the paint. A lot of so-called art these days doesn't even involve that basic.
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True but compare to the art of craft of realist master of the renaissance... Many of us see pollock's work (and many other modern artist) as something a child would do given paint and throw it on a canvas. The only difference is that the artist can "pretend" he had an idea behind the painting and attach more money to it.
 
Aepervius said:
True but compare to the art of craft of realist master of the renaissance... Many of us see pollock's work (and many other modern artist) as something a child would do given paint and throw it on a canvas. The only difference is that the artist can "pretend" he had an idea behind the painting and attach more money to it.
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Bingo. "Virgin of the Rocks" didn't have to have cigarette butts glued to it.
 
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