Why Is Modern Art So Bad?

[odibrom]

... and deepening the idea of art not being about the object, allow me to risk a comprehensive (I hope) definition of art.

Art is a metaphor within a given social context. As so, it is most relevant in a specific period of time and space of the human cultures (plural). It has, however, the ability to outlive its context and to grow beyond its limits, absorbing and transforming other social contexts. As a metaphor, it is not necessarily about the social context where it is born, but rather about whatever the author feels on... anything.

These sentences explain why art is sometimes difficult to understand and also why some objects are universally considered as so.

What say you?

 

[TedEH]

but please explain where have I spoke about "artistic value" related to a lit painting?

Is that not what you mean when you say a painting doesn't exist without light? Because clearly that's not *literally* true. Like I said, things don't stop existing when you stop perceiving them.

Please, also develop your idea of how you think/know colors work.

It may not be your intention, but this kinda just comes off as condescending. I know how color works well enough. I understand the idea of how we technically are just perceiving the different wavelengths of light as they hit our eyes - but the light is (in my opinion) just the transmitter of the information, not the information itself. I just assign the value of "which part of this is the art" to the item that causes the light to take that form, not the light itself. To me, it doesn't become art at the point that you perceive it as such- it already was. It's a difference of opinion/interpretation, and there's arguably not much real-world basis to either argue for or against either interpretation. It's as vague as the definition of art in itself.

Yes, I'll give you that I could have presented my opinion in a less argumentative way. I don't think you're "wrong", I just don't share your definition of what makes art.
In terms of not following you I'll admit I had no idea what you meant by "the color/object of a painting is another dimension".

I think our big difference of opinion lies in where we interpret something to go from being not-art to being art. Your focus is on the experience, and my focus is on the creation or the expression. Sort of like, to you, you're saying "art is in the meaning of what I experience", whereas I'm saying "art is in the process and the expression as much (or possibly moreso) than in the experience on the receiving end".

Another way to say it maybe is that you're defining art as "this becomes art when I experience it as such".
And I've defined it as "this becomes art when someone has created it as such."

In that sense, I call a painting art because it was the painters expression, but I don't call a nice looking view art because as an atheist I don't consider it to have been anyone's expression. Someone else might look at a nice view and say that this is art to them because they've defined art by their experience. Neither is wrong per se.

 

[Hollowway]

This is true because you can, from an academic point of view, teach how to paint, draw and make a sculpture but none can teach you how to make a masterpiece.
There is no scientific,logical or rational process which lead something to be considered art or a masterpiece.
Forcing an explanation or a philosphycal meaning doesn't automatically make something art: some of the most famous mastepieces have been made with apparently no meaning and for quite futile reasons ( Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel because he signed a contract with the Pope).
Someone could say that even a 10 years old kid could paint better than Picasso:
View attachment 60233
But Picasso at 16 yo made this:
View attachment 60234

Sum: skill + no meaning doesnt mean art
no skill + meaning doesn't mean art
no skill + no meaning doesn't mean art

So what does "art" mean? I hoestly don't know and I think none knows. Probably the day we'll figure out what it means , art will stop to exist.

Wow, that realism one is really good! I had no idea Picasso could do that sort of work! It reminds me of when I saw Steve Lukather tearing it up, and I had always assumed from his playing in Toto that he didn't have serious chops.

 

[odibrom]

@TedEH going from a painting to it being art or having artistic value is a big lip of faith and I did not write that.

Let's go back a lot, before the word art comes into play with man made objects. Also, lets speak a little about light, energy and communication.

I've read somewhere that any form of energy can be used to generate communication from entity A to entity B. Light is a manifestation of energy, it exists, for us humans, between the Infra Red and Ultra Violet frequencies of the electromagnetic spectrum. Other animals sense different intervals. It's curious that the limits of the human visible spectrum of light have names of colors... That's because all visible colors for humans exist between the Reds and Violets, it also means that color is light... and without any light within this limited interval, there is no color... for us humans.

There are multiple forms of communicating with light, but those can be resumed to basically 2: one removes light frequencies while the other adds light frequencies, which are then named as subtractive or additive (there is also an hybrid mode, but is difficult to explain and doesn't add to the conversation). The subtractive mode is related to print and paint, and drawing, writing and so on. The Additive mode is related to almost all forms of screens, TVs, datashows, PCs, Cinema, etc. Nevertheless, color is light and without a light source, there is no color. This also means that we only see reflections of light over most common objects as these do not emit light. We see a red object because it is reflecting a spectrum of Red frequencies and absorbing all others. This means that it must be lit with some sort of light. If we see it red under white light then its pigments are reflecting the red color. If we change the light color, we'll see something different... and this is why white is the sum of all colors at the same intensity...

... then...

All communications imply the existence of a few elements: an origin, a "path", a code and a target. Any break or deformation in this system means that the message does not meet its objective. If one is to communicate something with colors, light is the path and without it there can be no communication nor message. As you read these words, there is light being emitted from your screen to your eyes, if the your screen dies before you read it, this message also dies for you, it becomes non existent for you, you cannot access it.

...

These are the rules that bind art, any form of art. Art is, foremost, an open communication, to anyone with open mind to accept it as so. Without an open mind there can be no understanding of the message's code within the art object. Those who consider modern art as crap are at least failing to read the code of said communication, or can simply not be the intended final target, it doesn't mean that the art object is crap nor that the viewer is stupid or close minded.

For someone to read a painting, there must be some light used as medium. This doesn't transform the painting into an art object per se, maybe only if when the lights go off the image persists in the viewer's memory and...

More so, art is not the message, the author, the act of creation, the path, the code nor the target. Art is what is left after all those are gone. It can exist in the individual expression of the author, it can exist inside the path or the message's code for example. The object that triggers the art feeling can be anything within the communication workflow. Also add to the mix that the author is simultaneously a target of himself and creating something that reaches the boundaries of art is creating some sort of a feedback loop that grows inside him... therefore, art is an experience that manifests itself through many forms, it is a "binder medium", it "adds" or builds to anything.

So when does an object becomes a work of art? When it is accepted as so. Accepted by whom? By someone else besides the author...

 

[TedEH]

^ I understand everything you said. I just disagree with parts of it. Like I said in my last post, I think we have very different interpretations of what art is. To me it is the expression, and to you it is the experience. To me the artistic value lies in the origin or the message, whereas you've described the artistic value to lie within the transmission and reception in the target. Without reconciling the differences between those two, we're not likely to agree on the details that stem from that core difference. We've each attributed the value of art to a different part of the process.

Such as:

So when does an object becomes a work of art? When it is accepted as so. Accepted by whom? By someone else besides the author...

In my opinion, art is art as soon as it is expressed. And it definitely doesn't require an audience outside of it's author. If someone makes a painting, is it not art if they don't show it to someone else?

 

[odibrom]

(...)
In my opinion, art is art as soon as it is expressed. And it definitely doesn't require an audience outside of it's author. If someone makes a painting, is it not art if they don't show it to someone else?

That is exactly the point, it isn't. Art is a cultural phenomenon and therefore needs more than one person to acknowledge it as so (one person is not culture in my books)... please pay attention that I did not say that the author's expression is excluded. One (the author also) can recognize art in the author's gestures, performance, expression, as well as in the work's message, context or even concept. Your definition of art seams to be limited to the author's expression or am I reading it wrong? The thing is, it's not (only) up to the author to determine what is or what is not art.

Also remember that in many performative arts there are several levels os artistic value. Most of the time, the author is not the performer, so one needs to understand the different elements do evaluate correctly, there is the author's expression versus the interpreter input... There are also many expressions in visual arts where the author is not the person who executes the work (huge sized sculptures, for example), where there simply is no gesture from the author in the final piece. What if the work of art is conceptualized by 3 or 4 persons and executed by 100s - architecture, maybe...? Does this makes sense now? Yes, art may start at the author's gesture, but that doesn't mean it is art. There are also lots of instances where the author does not intent to do art with something, but it becomes so after a few years gone by.

Don't get me wrong, without extraordinary performance (either intellectually or physically performed) of some people so that the object becomes out of the ordinary and gets people to admire it as something unique, there would be no art. Yes, art starts at the author's intent to communicate, but it is not immediate...

 

[TedEH]

We have very clearly defined art as something entirely different, and that's fine. Like I said, our disagreements are something I don't think we could reconcile without agreeing on the fundamental differences in how we define what art is in the first place.

please pay attention that I did not say that the author's expression is excluded.

Did you not say exactly that?

So when does an object becomes a work of art? When it is accepted as so [...] By someone else besides the author...

I also appreciate this line:

What if the work of art is conceptualized by 3 or 4 persons and executed by 100s - architecture, maybe...?

This describes what I do for a living very well. A handful of designers whose work is technically executed by a large team rather than by their own hand. I disagree that there's no "gesture from the author" in that work though (depending on what you mean by "gesture", they way you pick your works often makes your statements really vague).

If someone conceptualizes it, but another person executes it, which one is the artist? Is it the designer? Is it the performer? Or is it both? I would argue it's both, but for different reasons.

 

[KnightBrolaire]

Wow, that realism one is really good! I had no idea Picasso could do that sort of work! It reminds me of when I saw Steve Lukather tearing it up, and I had always assumed from his playing in Toto that he didn't have serious chops.

Picasso was an excellent draftsman:

 

[odibrom]

(...)

Did you not say exactly that?

No, I did not, again, a little later on I wrote that art can be triggered by any of the communication elements. Some love the tone of a guitar while others will love the phrasing of said guitar player, while others will only understand the concept in which the music resides and care less for all those minor things... What I think you are not understanding is that I think that it is not up to the author to define what is or not art, but to the audience (culture). A man or woman is called an artist after being recognized as so. The opposite is the so called maestro... (the one with lots of patents in guitars and so on, you know whom I'm talking about). An artist couldn't care less about words or labels, an artist cares about what he /she does. It's the culture that calls art to what a creative person do. Sometimes, when one such as Picasso, grows above all others, anything he writes or sneezes is automatically called art.

I think you're only focusing on the creation part of the problem. I think there's way more than just that, and that it is far more complex.

 

[TedEH]

What I think you are not understanding

I'm understanding everything you've said. I'm disagreeing though. Big difference. Don't assume that someone who disagrees with you is only because they don't understand what you're saying.

And you're right -> I am focusing on the creation part. I've said *multiple times* that this is how I define art, and that it's different from how you have defined art. We disagree, can we move on?

 

[stams]

I have never seen anything interesting in the modern art

 

[bostjan]

I have never seen anything interesting in the modern art

Tell me more. What sort of art do you like?

To me, it's all totally subjective. I think any person could be totally justified in looking at a piece of art, no matter how well received by other people, and say "meh."

As musicians, we deal with it all of the time. I make an album; people say "meh" to it; we all move on to making more albums and saying "meh" to more new music.

 

[fps]

What, all of it? There's always been a glut of bad art.

 

[Yul Brynner]

I blame those damned millenials and they're free online pornography!

 

[wankerness]

They are?!??!

 

[DudeManBrother]

I blame those damned millenials and they're free online pornography!

I literally laughed out loud and choked on a pestachio