• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Most Overrated Artists...

Cavemonster said:
ID,
Have you spent time with a large Pollock in person, or are you going from images on the internet and in books?

Also, which of the definitions of art listed above mentions that something be depicted, that any content exist at all? I can't seem to find it.
Click to expand...

The Art Museum of Ft. Lauderdale has some. There's all sorts of art events here in Miami, and I attend them frequently.

So yes, I have. Was there supposed to be some magic rays shooting out of it to make me think "Wow, that chaotic mass of crap required skill and deliberation?"
 
ImaginalDisc said:
That's an incredibly vague and useless definition. But, let's accept it for the moment for the sake of argument. Can one reproduce artfully? Can we shift through genes and make a person we want to be our inheritor? Can we raise children one way and not another, making deliberate choices and working with our materials to make something? Can we choose how to survive, whether to roam arid wastes on camel back or build stone edifices in temperate climes, shaping our own method of survival?

If anything besides survival and reproduction is art, including politics, war, and education, why aren't survival and reproduction art? On what basis is the distinction made?
Click to expand...

The aspects of survival and reproduction that aren't neccessary, that grow from other drives can be art.

Eating is needed for survival, but wedding cakes are art.
 
Why does art have to be impressive?

I'm not particularly impressed with a lot of the old painters, but that doesn't stop it from being art.

One of the points of Pollock's action painting is precisely that it isn't chaotic. It isn't just paint thrown on a canvas.
 
ImaginalDisc said:
The Art Museum of Ft. Lauderdale has some. There's all sorts of art events here in Miami, and I attend them frequently.

So yes, I have. Was there supposed to be some magic rays shooting out of it to make me think "Wow, that chaotic mass of crap required skill and deliberation?"
Click to expand...

No magic rays. If you had only listened to a crappy compressed recording of Bach played as a cellphone ringtone, I would suggest you see a live performance. That doesn't guarantee you'll love it, but you do have to acknowledge the difference.

Again, someone made something, purposefully, from which many people derive aesthetic pleasure. Do you believe people are lying about their enjoyment?

Is "crap" something objectively measurable that this work possesses? Or are you just refering to the absence of your personal enjoyment?
 
Cavemonster said:
Again, someone made something, purposefully, from which many people derive aesthetic pleasure. Do you believe people are lying about their enjoyment?
Click to expand...

No, but I believe Pollock lied, perhaps also to himself, about the "technique" involved in splattering paint.
 
CFLarsen said:
Why does art have to be impressive?

I'm not particularly impressed with a lot of the old painters, but that doesn't stop it from being art.

One of the points of Pollock's action painting is precisely that it isn't chaotic. It isn't just paint thrown on a canvas.
Click to expand...

A technique which looks exactly like an accident?
 
Cavemonster said:
I personally like Scott McCloud's definition, which is quite popular right now.
Click to expand...

Scott McCloud said:
"Art ... is any human activity that doesn't grow out of either of our species two basic instincts: survival and reproduction."
Click to expand...

Is religion art, then? I know there's a danger in taking his definition too literally, but would sports and games then be considered art? Certainly chess isn't necessary for my survival or for reproduction (in fact, enjoying playing chess might actually run counter to reproduction :D)

This almost is bordering on tautology. So it brings me back to an earlier question I asked that nobody seemed to answer: is art a discipline?

It seems to me that we're flirting with the idea of basically saying that anything and everything is art.
 
ImaginalDisc said:
No, but I believe Pollock lied, perhaps also to himself, about the "technique" involved in splattering paint.
Click to expand...

1) Evidence.

2) So?

Let's imagine, he was a hack. I'm not arguing that crappy work by charlatans doesn't exist. I personally take nothing away from actual single color canvases, target paintings, or a lot of things championed by Clement Greenberg

Labeling it as non-art shuts down the discussion, is useless. But understanding that it is in the same field as the pieces we like allows us to explore the difference thoughtfully. Knowing it is art, but unsucessful art or lazy art or bad art allows us to ask, what specifically makes the good pictures rise above.

I love Rothko.

I think Ad Reinhardt is a waste of time, though fascinating the way a side show might be.

Why is this? We can talk about it, but it becomes difficult to do so if one of them is labled as unworthy of discussion.
 
Last edited:
Sefarst said:
Is religion art, then? I know there's a danger in taking his definition too literally, but would sports and games then be considered art? Certainly chess isn't necessary for my survival or for reproduction (in fact, enjoying playing chess might actually run counter to reproduction :D)

This almost is bordering on tautology. So it brings me back to an earlier question I asked that nobody seemed to answer: is art a discipline?

It seems to me that we're flirting with the idea of basically saying that anything and everything is art.
Click to expand...

It's useful to further delineate, that a sub-section exists labeled "Fine art" what we're talking about here, that can be defined by it's association with certain types of institutions and by the production of something meant to be consumed by an audience as a mental experience.
 
LawnOven said:
No need to get testy, I'm more interested in the first part anyways.

I didn't really care to comment on Pollock, but since you brought it up, Pollocks paintings most certainly did require a certain amount of skill and imagination. So, well I guess I think you're wrong about that.

You said that art must 'convey' something, maybe I didn't understand what you meant by that. Could you explain what you meant?
Click to expand...

Let me argue by analogy a second. I asked this question earlier in chat.

If you intend to speak, but only a wordless, incomprehensible croak emanates from your throat, have you spoken?

If you submit a piece of trash picked off the street in an attempt to hoax the art community into accepting something as art, and it's lauded, is there something amiss?
 
Perhaps a little something to put things in perspective:

http://www.museumofbadart.org/

I find this one particularly memorable...
p-pop-portrait-1-lucy.jpg
 
As an aside, I remember reading some time ago, that Pollock's works were developed from Native American* Sand Art/Paintings. Or so he claimed.

* Actually I think it was called Indian Sand Art; which shows how long ago I read it!:eek:
 
Interesting discussion. I just thought I'd add my own personal experience. My mother is an artist, and she paints "abstract landscape" as she calls it. Her work does have some form to it, but also quite a bit of "splatter", as some would call it. I am sure people might look at some of her paintings and dismiss them as random splattering of colour over the top of half-finished landscape paintings or whatever.

However, having been privy to her creating many of her works over long periods of time, I can assure you there is "method to her madness" and there is absolutely nothing random about those "splatters".

I have no problem with someone not liking an artist's work - I personally detest most of that modern art. However you should really investigate the artist's methods a little before you dismiss their work as "no better than accidental". You might think that. You might even think you yourself could produce something much the same with little effort. In my experience you're probably completely wrong.

As for prices... art has value for a wide variety of reasons. At the most basic level, art is a decorative object that people find appealing to the eye. They buy them to decorate their homes and give them character. When a given artist becomes popular enough, their work takes on additional prestige, and owning an original work, while decorating your house, also serves as a distinct and unique status symbol. (Why did my girlfriend's father spend a fortune on a 2007 Ford Mustang when my 1996 Nissan Pulsar serves essentially the exact same purpose for a fraction of the price?). This gives the work a boost in value.

When the artist dies the value of the work increases even more because it becomes a limited asset - rarity pushes prices up. Because of its nature, art only increases in value over time, so this also makes it an investment, boosting its value further.

That's why art generates such extraordinary prices. Now, I think the main thing pushing those boundaries happens to be the "status symbol" aspect. Art is particularly popular as a status symbol amongst the wealthy, and the wealthy have more money to spend on status symbols, so that drives art prices sky high.

All of this is, in my opinion, perfectly valid valuation, and occurs with a multitude of objects, not just art.

I'd also like to strongly reiterate a point that someone made earlier, which is that art does not exist in a bubble. Art occurs in movements, and those movements are products of their time, and can have a resounding impact on the culture into which they are created. Art works are a window into human history. That gives them special value. The only difference now is that people realise this, and so value art now as an investment in human culture for the future (in the past art was seldom valued in its day, and most artists were poor).
 
Oh, thanks a bunch, Prof! That's put an image in my head that will need a LOT of alcohol to shift. :boggled:

Oh, and I've just remembered; the info re Pollack and sand painting came from an old BBC2 documentary I watched.
 
Cavemonster said:
It's useful to further delineate, that a sub-section exists labeled "Fine art" what we're talking about here, that can be defined by it's association with certain types of institutions and by the production of something meant to be consumed by an audience as a mental experience.
Click to expand...

But then we're basically at the point where everything is art. The only difference is the some things are labeled "Fine Art" and others just "art". Football becomes art, religion is art, and so on. It's charming, it's poetic, but I just don't buy it.

Is there really a difference between a house painter and, say, a minimalist? Someone mentioned the computer program Aaron earlier, referring to its creations as art. Is it really meaningful to call algorithms executed by a computer program art?

We get to a point where woo enters the picture. In my opinion, the art world is full of woo, mostly because these watered down ideas of what constitutes art are thrown around recklessly. It's harmless, but you begin to have people filming plastic bags blowing in the wind (ala American Beauty) and hanging empty picture frames on windows to capture the "art of nature." I feel like you eventually get vapid self-aggrandizers masquerading as "geniuses" and that famous aura of art world pretentiousness appears. The problem, IMO, is that there really aren't any standards in art. If you can convince X number of people that your chaos-on-canvas is "deep," congratulations, you're "brilliant." Similar to the earlier discussion of quantum art, the art world tends to capitalize on grandiose, vague, and sometimes completely nonsensical words and descriptions. But people hear it and have their minds blown. Again, maybe I just don't get it, but I'm detecting the pungent aroma of ripe woo.
 
ImaginalDisc said:
Let me argue by analogy a second. I asked this question earlier in chat.

If you intend to speak, but only a wordless, incomprehensible croak emanates from your throat, have you spoken?
Click to expand...

I think the perspective in your analogy is a little off. It supposes the artist is the one doing the croaking and believes their croaking has no meaning.

ImaginalDisc said:
If you submit a piece of trash picked off the street in an attempt to hoax the art community into accepting something as art, and it's lauded, is there something amiss?
Click to expand...

I don't know maybe you should try it, if its so easy to trick people into believing you are an artistic genius, then you should let me in on the secret please!

Seems like usually when something of the kind has been pulled off it has been done so by an artist, who already has some sort of reputation for producing valuable artwork or they are famous(valuable in the since that a number of people have decided its worth money). At that point its like paying millions for rock and role memorabilia.

It could be art I guess, if you intended it to be. I'd think it was pretty crappy art.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom