Are Jackson Pollock's Paintings Art?

MikeG said:
In principle, Gawdzilla, why can't you accept that there are multiple definitions of art? In fact, there are probably as many definitions of art as there are people on the planet, and for a very good reason. That yours differs from mine doesn't make yours more or less valid than mine.

Confusing or conflating "I do or don't like it" with "It is or isn't art" seems to be your problem.
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Where did I refuse to accept that there are multiple definitions of art? I simply pointed out that most of those definitions are completely bull ****.
 
Gawdzilla Sama said:
I like the implication that not liking Pollock automatically makes one a lowbrow. That's school yard bull ****.
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I have enough art credits on my transcript to have what ya might call a "more informed" opionion of art in general. I think Jack The Dipper and his Drunken Dribbling are art. But not craft. The statement upthread about "craft" is actually wrong.

Craftsmanship in art is using tools and techniques in ways that require work, training and practice to achieve results. I don't have time to make the detailed to;dr post I started but I have strong opinion about craft, art and when a work combines or doesn't combine them. Pollock doesn't meet my standards of craft. But his work was revolutionary and confrontational when he made the first one, and that's where art lives.
 
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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angrysoba said:
Yes, it is art even if you or others don't like it.
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Gawdzilla Sama said:
I never said you weren't allowed to like it, I said it was crap. You can like all the crap you want. Millions of people in entertainment industry depend on the liking of crap to keep their jobs.
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No, you didn't. And I never said you did say that, so your post is a weird non-sequitur.
 
Gawdzilla Sama said:
Where did I refuse to accept that there are multiple definitions of art? I simply pointed out that most of those definitions are completely bull ****.
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By complete bull **** you simply mean definitions you don't agree with?
 
Gawdzilla Sama said:
Where did I refuse to accept that there are multiple definitions of art? I simply pointed out that most of those definitions are completely bull ****.
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I would like an explanation for how you know that most of those definitions are completely bull ****?

You do know that we as skeptics are good at knowledge, so I would like to know how you know this. I might even learn something new. :)
 
Putting a velvet rope around a pot hole could be art, if done for a purpose, to make a statement. What is the artist saying? Does the work create conflict or controversy? Or is it just cute? But in any case the rope itself is the "art" not the pothole. When Duchamp hung a urinal in a gallery the juxtaposition and audacity of presentation was the art; gallery around the urinal was more of the artistic statement than the urinal itself.
 
Gawdzilla Sama said:
I like the implication that not liking Pollock automatically makes one a lowbrow. That's school yard bull ****.
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So is proclaiming everyone else's feelings and aesthetic pleasures to be bs.

The definition of art: anything an artist says is art.

Whose an artist? Anyone who tries to see things in a new way.

It's got nothing to do with skills or schools.

Pollock did new art, and it was exciting and fresh. Then the collectors turned modern art into a cash cow, and cynical know nothings blamed the artists and ignored the fact that the events of the time were what made it art. Now, it's a historical curiosity.

When he did it, it was Art. If anyone else did it now, it would just be pointless. The market says there is cash value. As Art, it is just an artefact, like the first plane to fly the Atlantic. As it no longer really takes part in contemporary art, but is just a historical object, the Art has moved on. It can still throw echoes of its past Artness into the minds of educated users.

To others, it's just an annoyance… of course, the degree of annoyance can bring back some of its Art.

I suggest that Gawdzilla is turning Pollock back into Art to the same degree that Gawdzilla objects to the objects.
 
Almo said:
I didn't like Rothko either. Until I stood in front of one. I say this without sarcasm, the guy is a genius. If I were to try to buy a really expensive piece from a real artist to hang in my house, it would probably be a Rothko.
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alfaniner said:
The paintings are REALLY BIG. So, it's art.
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alfaniner is basically calling Almo an idiot, completely ignoring that Almo has just attempted to describe how a work of art affected him in a profound and beautiful way.

alfaniner has never stood in the Rothko room of the Tate and experienced a "spiritual" apotheosis, and he never will.

I'm with Alma.
 
"Life experience" isn't much help in understanding the intellectual notion of "Art" unless your life experience is relevant to art in general or the specific works in particular.
 
Pollock did literally truckloads of work, including all the easel media, sculpture, and even painted porcelain, moving from attempts at representation all the way to 100% abstract. His first recognized successes were not in his final flung-paint mode, but were borderline representational, vaguely symbolic, and, in my magisterial opinion, pretty boring.

It's instructive that when laypeople (any art pros here? no, I didn't think so; 'n I ain't one neither) talk about Pollock, they mean specifically and exclusively his drip-splat stuff. I think that's because it was not just his most famous manner, but also his best.

Best of a generally pretty poor lot? Yes. So bad it's not art? No. But I'm long since weary of that noise "art" that we make in the belief that it means anything.

Try cracking Jackson Pollock: An American Saga, Steven Naifeh and Gregory Whitesmith, Woodward/White, Inc. 1989, ISBN 0-913391-19-0. I'm on page 463 at the moment. It's a good read.
 
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