Does anyone get art?

I think you'd need to study a lot about art to get anything out of the more esoteric stuff that's out there.

I liken it to how some directors will make a smart, mainstream film that a ton of people can appreciate; and then they'll make a weird ass movie that just comes across as nonsensically bizarre to most people. Clearly, if the first film is communicating something deliberate then the second either also is, or communication isn't the point.

Now, with all that out of the way, I'd never be interested in studying art just so I can understand what's so great about big, red rectangle.
 
Modern Art is like anything else...Its a matter of taste. I happen to love some of it, dislike some as well. I don't care for performance art, and extreme avant Garde like paintings made with period blood. But I love Mondrian, Picasso, Klimt, Dali, Hopper, etc
 
I Am Legion said:
Modern Art is like anything else...Its a matter of taste. I happen to love some of it, dislike some as well. I don't care for performance art, and extreme avant Garde like paintings made with period blood. But I love Mondrian, Picasso, Klimt, Dali, Hopper, etc
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That's not 'Modern art' but 'Expressionist art,' 'abstract art' and 'surrealist art.' Although 'contemporary art' seems to be some sort of mish mash of all of the above.

I will agree their is a bunch of bad mimetic cliché modern art just as their is a bunch of bad trolling.
 
Jack Stevonovich said:
Here's how I figured it out.

I was shown this image taken in 1917 of the godfather of Modern Art, Marcel Duchamp's, piece titled The Fountain and asked
"Why is this art?"
duchamp-fountaine.jpg
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Dude invented the urinal. Hespect!
 
Liquid Smoke said:
LMAO Salty Kong does not care to backup his claims!
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It started around 1917 when Marcel Duchamp submitted The Fountain into an art show. Their might be an earlier piece that was some sort of industrially designed hat rack or coat rack or something. In his series of ready mades.

You have to understand that the work is intended to trigger you but their is a point to it but it requires you to think.

One point being why is the work of representational artists more art than the work of industrial designers who are literally designing our reality?
 
Jack Stevonovich said:
It started around 1917 when Marcel Duchamp submitted The Fountain into an art show. Their might be an earlier piece that was some sort of industrially designed hat rack or coat rack or something. In his series of ready mades.

You have to understand that the work is intended to trigger you but their is a point to it but it requires you to think.

One point being why is the work of representational artists more art than the work of industrial designers who are literally designing our reality?
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I agree completely. Thing is it took major balls to do this in 1917. It takes none today. These folks are just sucking up to the establishment not taking a stand against it.
 
Lol @ you guys who think you're more intelligent or educated than everyone else because you think you understand modern art on a higher level. Our education was used to make money and make the world go round while your education was spent dissecting the mental anguish the painter must have had going on in his head when he made a single red stroke on a white canvas.
 
Jack Stevonovich said:
At the time everyone was making representational paintings and such with perhaps some early forays into abstraction and Marcel Duchamp entered that urinal into the art show as his piece then someone took a photo of it. Marcel Duchamp was already an established and talented figurative artist at the time with some of the earliest forays into abstraction which meant he was already way ahead of the curve when he did this.
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He was low on cash and out of ideas.
 
moreorless87 said:
You could argue its a little different in that sense as music along classical lines has remained popular in film soundtracks, John Williams is arguably the most recognised musician of the late 20th century in terms of outlout.

Again though I think that really tells you whats happened, traditional art forms have lost there larger scale appeal to newer ones such as cinema or photography, II'd agree there have been very few realistic paintings that have gained much widespread cultural weight post WW2(Hoppers Nighthawks is latter than American Gothic) but there are obviously a hell of a lot of photographs that have.
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Same can be said for a decline in painting in general. Paintings seem to occupy a strange space more in commercial art galleries (looks nice next to the sofa in expensive homes type market) than more contemporary art gallery type markets. Except for street art like Banksy most folks wold be hard pressed to name a contemporary painter. However, like you said photography and cinema have blossomed as well as more recent forms like installation. Sculpture seems really strong at the moment also.
 
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Art above all is a dialogue, and most of that dialogue is "what is art?". For a long time art was pictorial in the western world but as communication between cultures emerged with colonialism artist were influenced by the art of other cultures. African art heavily influenced the notion of abstraction in modern art such as Picasso's take on cubism. Duchamp challenged the current notions of art in that he believed in art, the act of the artist as a creator, being centered around the thought and the intention behind the work of art instead of the pictorial or just what you see. In a way art became more like philosophy in that it extended the boundaries of human thought. Duchamp was way ahead of his time and is a precursor to what is called postmodernism. What most people here are calling Modern art is usually referred to as High Modernism and is considered the peak of Modernism, where it reached the completion of abstraction, for what is more abstract than a canvas painted a solid color? It was the end goal, complete abstraction, but is also considered the death of painting and pictorialism. It is funny that folks say I love Renior, or Picasso, or Dali when at their time the mainstream was calling them shit artists and saying "this isn't art."
 
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Luminosity said:
Art above all is a dialogue, and most of that dialogue is "what is art?". For a long time art was pictorial in the western world but as communication between cultures emerged with colonialism artist were influenced by the art of other cultures. African art heavily influenced the notion of abstraction in modern art such as Picasso's take on cubism. Duchamp challenged the current notions of art in that he believed in art, the act of the artist as a creator, being centered around the thought and the intention behind the work of art instead of the pictorial or just what you see. In a way art became more like philosophy in that it extended the boundaries of human thought. Duchamp was way ahead of his time and is a precursor to what is called postmodernism. What most people here are calling Modern art is usually referred to as High Modernism and is considered the peak of Modernism, were it reached the completion of abstraction, for what is more abstract than a canvas painted a solid color? It was the end goal, complete abstraction, but is also considered the death of painting and pictorialism. It is funny that folks say I love Renior, or Picasso, or Dali when at their time the mainstream was calling them shit artists and saying "this isn't art."
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You could ask yourself though does all "dialog" carry equal worth? personally I would say that "what is art" is a question that has been dwelt on far too much, maybe worthy of discussion but thaty discussion has been drawn out for decades because it provides cheap media attension and justification for carrying on creating a certain kind of work who's merits are otherwise questionable.

Beyond that I think the question also becomes who is art having a dialog with and to what end? a small group of very wealthy/educated people making very on the nose social/political points to each other via art is something I can see many questioning the worth of. Personally I think the dismissal of romanticism/pictorialism is the dismissal of much of human nature, removing much of the emotional response to art in favour of purely intellectualising it. Meanwhile other forms such as photography and cinema that haven't done this have taken its place as the art forms that have cultural relevance.

I wouldn't relate impressionism or even some post impressionism directly to modern art personally, I mean the former took some time to be accepted but not THAT long and by the time of Picasso and Dali those artists were very significant cultural figures in their lifetimes. Within modern art I don't think nearly the same is true, you maybe have someone like Banksy but I think he's very atypical in style where as many of the most praised modern artists are totally unknown to 99% of the public.
 
Not all art is meant to be understood. A lot of pattern-based abstract art often has very little underlying meaning.

Android Jones is my favorite contemporary artist. His stuff isn't easy to understand but there is deep meaning.

android-jones.jpg
 
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I am your real dad said:
Modern artist are "artists" though.

They are Con artist, but still artists.
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I am your real dad said:
Modern artist are "artists" though.

They are Con artist, but still artists.
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Some kind of are but as I said that is what Duchamp was implying over 100 years ago about the concept of art itself.

The idea that the concept of art is bullshit implies that art is propaganda and therefore is always a con or a substitute in place of reality. Which is again intended to trigger one into questioning the status quo on who decides what art is. That is built into the idea of modern art itself. There are probably a ton of things you take for granted that are derived from the revolution in consciousness that occurred because of that idea.
 
Jack Stevonovich said:
Some kind of are but as I said that is what Duchamp was implying over 100 years ago about the concept of art itself.

The idea that the concept of art is bullshit implies that art is propaganda and therefore is always a con or a substitute in place of reality. Which is again intended to trigger one into questioning the status quo on who decides what art is. That is built into the idea of modern art itself. There are probably a ton of things you take for granted that are derived from the revolution in consciousness that occurred because of that idea.
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Well,
I will decide what art I like
And you decide what you like

Because in the end it does not matter,
for at the end we die.

But we can have discussions and be friends in the meantime.
 
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