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Most Overrated Artists...

LibraryLady said:
Jonathan Borofsky who committed this atrocity in Baltimore where I see it nearly every day.
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Good lord, even Touchdown Jesus is at least good for a chuckle.

Since my two favorite love-to-hate topics (Pollack and minimalism) have been covered, I'm gonna say Mark Rothko. Give me a few big canvases, a couple buckets of primary-color barn paint, a size 4 DIY brush, and a few good concentration bong hits and I'll out-produce that huckster in a weekend.

Personally I feel that photorealists are the height of talent in the art world. That and anybody who creates art that is humorous or at least a little cheeky. It's a good bet that it's the stuffiness and hyper-snobbery (with a pinch of downright wierdness) of art criticism that turns most people off to giving a damn.
 
LawnOven said:
Art has to 'convey' something for it to be art? Can't it just be nice, or interesting to look at?

I think so.
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Yep!

Rothko, Klee, Pollock, Picasso, Duchamp, Kandinsky, Miro, .... add names of your own choosing...

To the lowbrows.... How about Morris Louis? Try this one (if you get the smaller version, go for the enlargement).... Not squiggles like Pollock but great huge washes of color/colour.

http://nga.gov.au/International/Catalogue/Images/LRG/36799.jpg


Frankly, I prefer abstract art. Realism and Super-Realism always elicit the same reaction from me that many of the posters here have towards Pollock (and Picasso, GASP!!!)....

That reaction being, "I don't get it". Why would I want to look at a painting that "looks just like a photograph, it's so realistic"? We have cameras for stuff like that, now. We didn't when we were ooohing and aaahing over the Old Masters' ability to paint exactly as in nature.

I mean, that was no mean feat..... 600 years ago! Heck, they'd only discovered perspective a couple of centuries before that. But, we all know that good technicians with a couple of years of tradecraft training can now replicate the world around them, so let's all move on.
 
LawnOven said:
Art has to 'convey' something for it to be art? Can't it just be nice, or interesting to look at?

I think so.
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If so, then the distinction between art and accident becomes even more vague. I like the look of a tree, but is a tree art?
 
Chihuly is the artist who always gets under my skin.
He creates work that takes the laziest possible route to being impressive, great scale, repetitive complexity and largely pure complimentary color palettes. Corporate art masquerading as something interesting.

Imaginal disc
Are you saying that the joy and appreciation that many people get from Pollock are invalid or unreal? It's hard for me to take people seriously who trot out the phrase "That's not art!"

Of course it's art. My 4 year old niece's fingerpaintings are art. The question is whether it's interesting art, whether something worthwhile can be taken from it. The idea that the word "art" only applies to objects that the speaker view as brimming with greatness has done more to set back public discussion and appreciation of art than I can stomach.
 
Cavemonster said:
Imaginal disc
Are you saying that the joy and appreciation that many people get from Pollock are invalid or unreal? It's hard for me to take people seriously who trot out the phrase "That's not art!"
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It's a chaotic mess on a canvas. It depicts nothing. How is it art?

ETA:

Here, look. There have been numerous hoaxers over the years who have become exasterapted with the idiocy art has been reduced to, arguably going back to Dadaism and "found" art. If you can't tell the difference between a satircal stab at your beliefs and a sincire art submission, it's time to admit that the art world is demented.
 
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Why should art have to depict something? I'm not a fan of the "art world," and even less of a fan of modern art as a class, but I can look at Pollock's paintings for hours; they have a powerful attraction to me. That is how they are art.
 
Gregory said:
Why should art have to depict something? I'm not a fan of the "art world," and even less of a fan of modern art as a class, but I can look at Pollock's paintings for hours; they have a powerful attraction to me. That is how they are art.
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And if you were similarly entranced by a pile of paperclips I dropped accidentally, would that also be art?
 
Gregory said:
I think art has to have intent behind it.
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And when numerous art hoaxers have picked up trash off the street, called it "art" and had it sell for large sums of cash after recieving glowing praise despite lacking any intent to create art does that not mean that the modern definition of art is bogus?
 
I don't know what the modern definition of art is, but yes, I think the idea of found art is absurd. I said I'm not a fan of the art world. But if you react to the absurdity of modern art by saying that something isn't art if it doesn't depict something, you're throwing the baby out with the bathwater, IMO.
 
How can it be said that the modern definition of art is bogus, if nobody knows what the definition is?
 
Questions of art requiring intent (whose intent? the artist's?), portrayal, and/or meaning are too vague and subjective. One of my favourite artists is an autonomous computer program / robot called Aaron. Does Aaron have intent? I did a presentation on Aaron at uni several years ago.
Check this thread:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=2391254#post2391254
My presentation can be found here:
http://public.box.net/steve89696 (powerpoint)
http://www.logicalmuse.com/aaron/aaron_the_artist.html (html)
 
I think the generally accepted (unfortunately) definition of art is along the lines of Art is what an artists says is art. Which is why the current shower can get away with all sorts of crap.
 
ImaginalDisc said:
I know what Henry V is about, and so do you. I have no idea what the vast majority of Pollock's. . .canvases are about unless I am told. That is the difference.
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Why would you want a verbal message from a non-verbal medium like painting? Form is a factor, and can be an end in itself.

This will probably not redeem Pollock to you, since the form doesn't speak to you in the first place. Which is fine. But this defining things as "not art" because you don't like them is not productive. You might as well argue that Hungarian poetry can't exist since Hungarian poets apparently aren't using understandable language.

BTW, I'm actually the other way around - I generally cringe when an artist tries too heavy-handedly to get a verbal point across. In that case, just write it, sillly!

ETA: whoops, Didn't see the next page. Sorry. I stand by the point though.
 
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Cavemonster said:
Imaginal disc
Are you saying that the joy and appreciation that many people get from Pollock are invalid or unreal? It's hard for me to take people seriously who trot out the phrase "That's not art!"

Of course it's art. My 4 year old niece's fingerpaintings are art. The question is whether it's interesting art, whether something worthwhile can be taken from it. The idea that the word "art" only applies to objects that the speaker view as brimming with greatness has done more to set back public discussion and appreciation of art than I can stomach.
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Yes, exactly. Just call it "bad art" and move on. Optionally articulate why you think it's bad. No need to get into all sorts of semantic contortions to define it as "not art".

Aitch said:
I think the generally accepted (unfortunately) definition of art is along the lines of Art is what an artists says is art. Which is why the current shower can get away with all sorts of crap.
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I think the positive baggage of the word "art" needs to go. There's nothing special about it, in itself, that precludes it from having a range of characteristics. That is, art can be badly executed, obscure and amateurish just as it can be great, clear and masterful. Let's talk about those distinctions in stead of rebelling against using the word for art we don't like because of the preconception that anything labelled "art" must be on a pedestal of greatness.
 
Who as it who when asked what his latest song was about in an interview replied that if he could easily summarise what the song was about, he wouldn't have needed to write the song?
 
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