Two year old abstract artist

[a_unique_person]

Yes, actually, they did. The story of The Shaggs preceded the popularity of the albums, and is directly responsible for it. The music went nowhere, and pretty much fell of the map for over 5 years. It wasn't until the '80s with the peak of the pos-Punk hipster scene that the Shaggs actually gained popularity. Articles in major music publications such as Rolling Stone started hailing it as an "avant-garde" classic, and trendoids who wanted to prove their underground credentials started listening to it, or at least claiming to. The Shaggs' popularity didn't really take off until the '90s, and the rise of postmodern slacker fandom indulging in low-quality music, art, and entertainment in an ironic, self-aware manner intended to demonstrate one's detachment from the earnest, unpretended affection from things which were considered too "mainstream", "capitalist", "corporate", or, like, whatever.

Can't see too much difference between "The Shaggs" and "Velvet Underground" myself.

Zappa is a genius, but I could never understand what he liked about Beefheart. Couldn't wait for someone to steal "Troutmask Replica" off me soon enough.

 

[Cavemonster]

Okay Kevin, let's look at the claim that is central to your argument

a) They know they are defending worthless tripe,

It can be broken down into two assumptions
1) Modern art is "worthless"
2) Those who purport to enjoy it and value it, in fact do not.

Since we are talking about millions of people here, this is a fairly significant claim. Since we are on a skeptics board, I would like to see your evidence that every one of the millions who enjoy and support modern and contemporary non-representational work are lying.

 

[quarky]

Two-year old as artist?
Why not.
Its an artsy concept.


I wonder if the market will get flooded?

I'm holding out for the art of an 18 month old baby.
Two year olds can become jaded.

 

[tomwaits]

Two-year old as artist?
Why not.
Its an artsy concept.


I wonder if the market will get flooded?

I'm holding out for the art of an 18 month old baby.
Two year olds can become jaded.

lol. A two-year old doing art is itself a sort of performance art. Kind of meta-art, if you can dig it.

 

[JoeyDonuts]

And then sometimes, a true artist can get inspired by the nonsensical babblings of his son...and then write a mildly amusing (or headache-inducing) song called "Ya-Yo Gack."

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Okay Kevin, let's look at the claim that is central to your argument



It can be broken down into two assumptions
1) Modern art is "worthless"
2) Those who purport to enjoy it and value it, in fact do not.

Since we are talking about millions of people here, this is a fairly significant claim. Since we are on a skeptics board, I would like to see your evidence that every one of the millions who enjoy and support modern and contemporary non-representational work are lying.

Barring advanced brain-scanning technology we can't tell whether someone enjoys something.

However there have been many instances of people smuggling rubbish into modern art displays (old sneakers, urinals etc) which were not detectable by their lack of artistic qualities, instances of modern art being hung upside-down or sideways which were not detectable by their lack of artistic qualities, and an incident (which was previously discussed on this board) where an artist submitted a sculpture on a stand to a gallery - the two pieces got separated and the "art experts" involved decided that the stand had artistic merit and so they displayed it, while the sculpture did not and so they did not display it.

This incident of a toddler making "art" that supposed art experts cannot tell from the "art" produced by adults is just one more sorry example.

These examples demonstrate that so-called "art experts" cannot distinguish modern art from random junk under blinded conditions. No more than a homeopath can tell homeopathic medicine from stock pills, or a psychic reader can do more than guess at an object's history without cold or hot reading opportunities.

That takes care of #1. Not all modern art is worthless, but enough modern art is worthless that random junk from the rubbish tip or a two-year-old's scrawls cannot be differentiated from modern art.

As for #2, I don't think it's possible to lie to yourself about what you aesthetically appreciate. Maybe I'm wrong about that. But anyone who rhapsodises about something which cannot be differentiated under blinded conditions from garbage, yet does not rhapsodise about garbage is faking it in my humble opinion. That or they are so exquisitely gullible that they would swoon over literally any old garbage the minute you put it in a frame or a display case, in which case they may merely be very stupid.

Maybe I am too charitable, but I think most art-woos know on some level that they are worshipping rubbish, and do not actually aesthetically appreciate the rubbish in question, but they play along because of the Emperor's New Clothes effect. They don't want to play the role of the child saying "That guy's nude, and that so-called art over there is indistinguishable from something a monkey would make". I think the outright scoundrels who know they are talking pure crap and do it for the money are the minority, although they are probably the majority at the professional level.

 

[Cavemonster]

Kevin,
Thank you for replying. I won't deny that some pretty terrible work exists, but I think you're generalizing in a huge way. Abstract, Modern, Non-representational and Contemporary art covers a huge amount of ground, and the experts, (Just like the scientists who fell for Project Alpha) are human and varied. From high school art teachers, to small gallery owners and museum directors, the establishment has a range of qualifications and opinions.

I'd like to use one piece as a jumping off point.
This is Cloud Gate in Chicago.
Is this likely to be mistaken for trash? The work of a child? If it were accidentally placed upside down, would that be proof that it is without value? If you can't answer yes to any of these questions, is this piece included in your view of the modern art scam?

It's a huge funky mirror thing. It's fun. People of the city and tourists love it, I assure you. They don't need to read a description of what it's supposed to mean. It is also a large and very expensive piece of non-representational art. Is it a scam?

Edit: Here's the google images page to see a lot of great views of the piece.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Kevin,
Thank you for replying. I won't deny that some pretty terrible work exists, but I think you're generalizing in a huge way. Abstract, Modern, Non-representational and Contemporary art covers a huge amount of ground, and the experts, (Just like the scientists who fell for Project Alpha) are human and varied. From high school art teachers, to small gallery owners and museum directors, the establishment has a range of qualifications and opinions.

I'd like to use one piece as a jumping off point.
This is Cloud Gate in Chicago.
Is this likely to be mistaken for trash? The work of a child? If it were accidentally placed upside down, would that be proof that it is without value? If you can't answer yes to any of these questions, is this piece included in your view of the modern art scam?[/URL]

No, no, no and, therefore, no.

If an "artwork" is indistinguishable from random junk, monkey painting, elephant painting or toddler painting and someone is presenting it as being better than random junk (or whatever), particularly if they are presenting it as being worth significant amounts of money, that's a scam.

If an artwork is distinguishable from random junk but is also clearly the work of someone with lousy technical skills and no ability to produce a pleasant or effective piece (artists like Davida Allen leap to mind) then in my view presenting it as valuable is also a scam.

If an artwork is clearly distinguishable from junk or scrawl, and clearly the result of significant technical skill, then I've no predefined view of its merits and I'm even happy to accept that there may be multiple, equally valid appraisals of such works of art.

If modern art was all distinguishable from rubbish, and anyone who tried to pass off rubbish as art was laughed out of the gallery, I'd have no beef with it.

Before anyone starts a semantic debate, I've no interest in getting into a discussion about what counts as modern art versus postmodern art versus foo. I'm using the term to refer generally to post-Picasso impostures masquerading as art.

With regard to your other point, it's a woo-woo tactic I've seen before to throw supposed art experts off the boat when they let a urinal or whatever slip into a display. "Oh dear me", they say, "If they made such a mistake obviously they weren't a real art expert. A real art expert would never be fooled like that, and I'm sure such people exist, although I could never name one, or determine ahead of time whether an art expert is real or not". The fact is they can't explain even with hindsight how you are supposed to tell the difference between a pair of old sneakers in a box labelled "Exploration Of Infinite Time And Space #217" and scam art, and that's because they cannot do so.

 

[Damien Evans]

And then sometimes, a true artist can get inspired by the nonsensical babblings of his son...and then write a mildly amusing (or headache-inducing) song called "Ya-Yo Gack."

THat reminds me of this:


The lyrics come from the feverish babblings of Neil Finns son while he had the flu.

 

[quarky]

What about supposedly great art of the past that was mostly religious paintings? The craft was there, but it lacked any artistic vision. Its odd that so many near perfect counterfeit works have made their way into museums. They obviously depicted a great deal of skill, yet are rejected as art because of the lack of anything resembling vision.

 

[tomwaits]

What about supposedly great art of the past that was mostly religious paintings? The craft was there, but it lacked any artistic vision. Its odd that so many near perfect counterfeit works have made their way into museums. They obviously depicted a great deal of skill, yet are rejected as art because of the lack of anything resembling vision.

Religious paintings = lack of vision? To many of those artists, their religion was THE source of inspiration. Unless you are arguing that since they only did it for money, that makes it invalid. I would disagree with that notion.

 

[Lithrael]

Religious paintings = lack of vision?

I believe he meant a perfect copy of one is seen as having no vision, relevant to the question of whether something pleasing and technically accomplished is, based on those two merits alone, considered art.

ETA: If vision is a criterion he wants to discuss then much ancient art gets redlined as mere craft. The vast majority of Egyptian art was produced to such established guidelines that one could easily call it craft.

 

[volatile]

Religious paintings = lack of vision? To many of those artists, their religion was THE source of inspiration.

You're quite wrong, I'm afraid. The source of inspiration was the patron - indeed, the word "artist" as currently understood is a comparatively recent invention, and many theorists of the Renaissance place the spark of creative genesis of Renaissance art firmly with the money men, not the craftsmen.

Renaissance paintings aren't simply works of devotional genius. They are, most often, pieces of political propaganda.

 

[joobz]

I think paint splotchy art is nice. It's a reasonably inexpensive thing to make and hang in a room to break up a dull wall. I'd never pay an artist to do it for me though.

 

[quarky]

In the realm of stone-cutting, the craft ended and the artist started with curved lines.
It was implied that the 'artist' had already mastered the 'craft' of cutting predictable shapes.

"Art" was by definition, an extension of 'craft'.
Craftsmanship, however, comes first. Art springs from that.


(Well, it used to.)

 

[luchog]

I'm aware of the Shaggs' history, but I'm not sure what it has to do with the music itself. You are basically saying that there is a difference because Zappa/Beefheart were trying to make that odd sound, whereas the Shaggs did it unintentionally. Does that really matter? In the past, I might have said yes. But I can isolate the album and just listen and enjoy it without thinking of its origin or influence. Doesn't that make it art?

No, I"m saying that there's a difference between the Shaggs and Zappa/Beefheart because The Shaggs sound like any random bunch of schoolkids playing around without having the slightest clue what they're doing; and the song lyrics are the sort of thing churned out in thousands of grammar school poetry classes.

Zappa and Beefheart produced sounds that are clearly musical, with identifiable rhythms, progressions, melodic structures, harmonies, counter-harmonies, and dissonance, and a clear derivation from Jazz, Baroque, Classical, and Romantic styles. Lyrically, the songs of Zappa and Beefheart range from biting and humourous satirical observations of prevailing cultural attitudes and stereotypes, traditional human themes, surrealist dream logic, and stream of consciousness wanderings. They create unique works that are often challenging, and don't always work (in fact, some fail miserably); but which, when they do work, produce a result which engages the listener on several different levels at once.

There is absolutely no equivalence between "The Black Page", "Her Eyes Are a Blue Million Miles", "Bobbie Brown", or "Bat Chain Puller"; and the childishness of "My Pal Foot-Foot" or "Things I wonder".

 

[luchog]

However there have been many instances of people smuggling rubbish into modern art displays (old sneakers, urinals etc) which were not detectable by their lack of artistic qualities, instances of modern art being hung upside-down or sideways which were not detectable by their lack of artistic qualities, and an incident (which was previously discussed on this board) where an artist submitted a sculpture on a stand to a gallery - the two pieces got separated and the "art experts" involved decided that the stand had artistic merit and so they displayed it, while the sculpture did not and so they did not display it.

One of my personal favorites, which IIRC has already been mentioned in the thread, was the classic Disumbrationist School exibition. Work that was created to be as deliberately bad and worthless as possible, and which received positive critiques from the so-called intelligensia. It was never unmasked as a hoax, and ended only when the creator got tired of maintaining the sham.

 

[luchog]

You're quite wrong, I'm afraid. The source of inspiration was the patron - indeed, the word "artist" as currently understood is a comparatively recent invention, and many theorists of the Renaissance place the spark of creative genesis of Renaissance art firmly with the money men, not the craftsmen.

This is very wrong. There was a lot of "corporate" art produced at that time, and later; and much of it was bland, bad art. But very few of the truly great artists made a significant living from their work. Most of them died in poverty, although a few managed to latch onto a wealthy patron and maintain a decent standard of living.

Renaissance paintings aren't simply works of devotional genius. They are, most often, pieces of political propaganda.

Simply being propaganda doesn't necessarily invalidate it's value as art.

 

[volatile]

This is very wrong. There was a lot of "corporate" art produced at that time,

A lot? The overwhelming majority of Renaissance "art", was "corporate" art, produced under the patronage of the Church or private sponsors, with a guiding religious or political narrative. The notion of the individual creative genius simply did not exist in the way that you've implied. The modoern idea of "an artist" in the way it's being talked about in this thread is certainly post-16th century (See the Wiki entry on artist for quick substantiation. Full academic refs can be supplied should you wish). Read any account of Italian painting in the Renaissance and you'll see. It was even the dominant paradigm in art history until really, really recently to consider the patron the "genius" behind the work (see, for example, Gombrich's Norm and Form) - and even Alberti (who Wiki cites as the first to note "the importance of intellectual skills of the artist rather than the manual skills") rather deliberately calls the patron the "father" of the work and the artist the "mother".

All the "name" Renaissance painters that you've heard of worked in this way. It'd be interesting to learn of one that didn't.

Simply being propaganda doesn't necessarily invalidate it's value as art.

I agree.

 

[Piscivore]

Barring advanced brain-scanning technology we can't tell whether someone enjoys something.

Right, because art is a fundamentally subjective. There is very little objective about art, at all.

However there have been many instances of people smuggling rubbish into modern art displays (old sneakers, urinals etc) which were not detectable by their lack of artistic qualities, instances of modern art being hung upside-down or sideways which were not detectable by their lack of artistic qualities, and an incident (which was previously discussed on this board) where an artist submitted a sculpture on a stand to a gallery - the two pieces got separated and the "art experts" involved decided that the stand had artistic merit and so they displayed it, while the sculpture did not and so they did not display it.

This only matters as a defect of "Art" if there must be an essential, objective "meaning" to all pieces of art. That's just not the case.

This incident of a toddler making "art" that supposed art experts cannot tell from the "art" produced by adults is just one more sorry example.

There may be esthetic value to the work- and yes, it may be "accidental"- regardless of the age, species, or method of its production. I have one of these "smears" my daughter did when she was a toddler that I kept and intend to frame someday for just that reason. It is simply more pleasing thant the multiple other "works she produced in the same period, and moreso even than other works she created more deliberately, later.

These examples demonstrate that so-called "art experts" cannot distinguish modern art from random junk under blinded conditions. No more than a homeopath can tell homeopathic medicine from stock pills, or a psychic reader can do more than guess at an object's history without cold or hot reading opportunities.

Both homeopathic medicines and psychic readings of an objects history are intended and pretend to have objective value- they are meant to "work" or be "correct" no matter who the receiver is. That's not so with art.

The mistake you are making is assuming that Art must have an objective value or meaning. It doesn't.

That takes care of #1. Not all modern art is worthless, but enough modern art is worthless that random junk from the rubbish tip or a two-year-old's scrawls cannot be differentiated from modern art.

That's entirely your subjective opinion. And that's okay. If you don't like it, move on.

As for #2, I don't think it's possible to lie to yourself about what you aesthetically appreciate. Maybe I'm wrong about that.

In my experience, it certainly is possible. I had that happen to me with "Stranger in a Strange Land", as I dicovered quite recently.

But anyone who rhapsodises about something which cannot be differentiated under blinded conditions from garbage, yet does not rhapsodise about garbage is faking it in my humble opinion.

"Garbage" is in the eye of the beholder. It is itself a subjective judgement. If it is esthetically pleasing, its origins are irrelevant. A "blinded" test under those circumstances is laughable- it doesn't prove anything because there is no fundamental objectivity to which one can appeal.

That or they are so exquisitely gullible that they would swoon over literally any old garbage the minute you put it in a frame or a display case, in which case they may merely be very stupid.

Again, that's your subjective opinion.

Maybe I am too charitable, but I think most art-woos know on some level that they are worshipping rubbish, and do not actually aesthetically appreciate the rubbish in question, but they play along because of the Emperor's New Clothes effect.

Esthetic fundamentalism? Your subjective opinion must be the objective truth, therefore they must "really" know they are wrong? This doesn't sound any different that a theist procaliming atheists must be angry at god and are just pretending not to believe.