Contemporary "art"
does anybody else thing that most contemporary "art" is bullshit? or the way it is explained, written about.
for example, i have to read this article on this guy, michael asher who doesnt make art, instead he moves around art pieces, and reorganizes museum walls.
I think the reason i hate this kind of art is because snotty critics and collectors can write pages and pages of words that are absolute bullshit have no point or meaning.
"Ashers approach to the material is documentary; his position lacks overt reproach or judgement. The ethical dimensions are implied rather than stated, and yet its quiet candour is startlingly cautionary. As ever, Asher points to our relative inability to evaluate the meaning of museum collections, the totality of which are evident neither by means of what is selected for exhibition or publication nor through a list of what is jettisoned. Both sets of information, Asher seems to suggest, are inadequate. His work as an artist as vital and challenging today as ever is, quite simply and powerfully, productive of new knowledge. In a very direct way Ashers quiet excavations create greater transparency, reacquainting institutions and their audiences with the complexity and contradictions of their custodial operations."
WTF
thoughts.
for example, i have to read this article on this guy, michael asher who doesnt make art, instead he moves around art pieces, and reorganizes museum walls.
I think the reason i hate this kind of art is because snotty critics and collectors can write pages and pages of words that are absolute bullshit have no point or meaning.
"Ashers approach to the material is documentary; his position lacks overt reproach or judgement. The ethical dimensions are implied rather than stated, and yet its quiet candour is startlingly cautionary. As ever, Asher points to our relative inability to evaluate the meaning of museum collections, the totality of which are evident neither by means of what is selected for exhibition or publication nor through a list of what is jettisoned. Both sets of information, Asher seems to suggest, are inadequate. His work as an artist as vital and challenging today as ever is, quite simply and powerfully, productive of new knowledge. In a very direct way Ashers quiet excavations create greater transparency, reacquainting institutions and their audiences with the complexity and contradictions of their custodial operations."
WTF
thoughts.
Replies
I was busy cramming for a quantum physics test and couldn't believe we went to the same school.
I tended to call the articles on their own self indulgent excesses and bullshit, in a very polite and well written way. When I got into my groove, watch out! I especially tore into the digital stuff.
My professor kept a few of my papers for her research.
The quote you posted is a prime example. It is masturbation of the writer while he strokes the artist off at the same time. This in itself is an art form excelled at by critics. 'Ho ho! Look at my big words about the works of blah blah blah. I am sounding smart while saying not much of anything.'
Actually, looking again, it's not even good masturbation. This looks like a Skinemax movie edited for TBS.... too many words, no boobs and full of holes (not the good ones either).
Man, there were some interesting discussions around Jeff Koons and the like in my classes.
Is it art? Is it contemporary or post-modern? Is he really turning the current art world on its ear and starting a new revolution?
Who cares... I just hate having to read 15 pages for you to say you thought it was pretty.
I guess it depends on your definition of art. People make art for different reasons.
I was once hand picked to attend an art thing here at the U of Ottawa when I was in the 8th grade. We couldn't pick what things we did since my school got involved at the 11th hour. Anyways, I ended up spending the morning doing "multimedia art".
This strange old black man with a thick accent showed us something he made that was just a bunch of garbage stuck together. I don't remember much about it except that he had an old wooden brush with black bristles that were bent like it was run over stuck front and center. He talked about this giant, stinking pile of shit for a half hour, like he thought it was the roof of the Sistene Chapel. This guy was so full of shit, and full of himself, like he was some important visionary.
Then he unveils like 60 hubcaps that he <strike>stole</strike> I mean salvaged from somewhere, and a bunch of other random garbage. We are going to make 'multimedia art' with hubcaps.
So I get a hubcap and I just sit there looking at it. Other people around me are painting pictures on it, or attaching garbage. I just say to myself "to hell with this" and dip the whole thing in purple paint. Then I grab some random colors of paint, dip the brush in, and stand up to let it randomly fall into place.
Halfway through this, a guy a few places down who is actually painting something that looks cool, and took some time, patience, and skill to pull off comes over and is amazed at what I am working on. He talks about my expert use of color, and how the last pile of paint I dropped onto it made the other colors stand out.
Okay, so we all finish, and I get picked in the top 3! The guy talks for 10 minutes about how awesome my hubcap is, and how I channeled my inner self, and had the mastery and confidence to just let the paint flow how it wanted to flow. No you fool. I dumped a bunch of paint on some garbage so I could hurry up and go eat my lunch. I was told to stop being so modest.
So I learned that day that a true artists doesn't create something using time and skill. Those guys are suckers. A real artist just needs to be able to point to something and talk for 30 minutes about how it made them feel.
So I got home and hung it on a wall for 3 years and told a bullshit story to anyone who asked about it.
yup
I can totally picture the game artists as the guys with the stripes on their shoulders, yelling "Don't call me an 'artiste' boy I work for a living!"
... when I think of abstract or even some stylized stuff I always think back to the first thing my first art teacher said. "You have to know the rules before you can break them." I think being an artist is mostly that - about seeing the rules of the world around you and bending them to your expressive will. This isn't to say I don't like Pollock and Mondrian, or some weird modern practical design, but I do take negligible issue with it when someone does it randomly without learning to first see, traditionally, as an artist.
That said, for the life of me, I cannot seem to capture "cool." What is the secret ingredient, sunshine and rainbows or something? Or is it just pleasingly intersecting lines, looming forms, dramatic lighting. Seriously, "what is cool" should be a thread in which we all collaborate to determine it is relative and mostly imitation.
But yeah, game art is more of a trade, enjoyably, like digging into the earth and hefting materials with your hands but using digitized tools to depict a virtual world without the constraints of reality. I guess its bonus is its downfall; there are many game environments burned into my memory that I regret that I will never be able to walk through, in reality.
http://fc03.deviantart.com/fs44/f/2009/113/7/0/Stargazer_by_Elhrrah.png
http://fc06.deviantart.com/fs42/f/2009/109/5/4/Fractured_by_Elhrrah.png
If I tried to use the script right out of the can, I would not have gotten anything like those; I had to strive towards those specific results. Does that mean that its art? To me, yes. If I made those two renders by mashing buttons mindlessly, then no, it wouldn't be. And that is the key distinction; its art, because I approached it as art.
Read: Its all in my head, along with the giant rubber duck.
I'm a bit surprised that an art critic was able to choke that out and not see the irony in them making that statement.
Personally I'm of the opinion that a lot of things can be art. That however does not necessarily mean that all art is good, notable, or deserving of the praise or piles of cash heaped on it.
I went to museum once, as part of an undergrad school trip with a few other art majors, that actually had a square piece of canvas painted entirely with white gesso. That was it. Just white gesso. It also had the usual tag next to it with the artists name, and the price the museum valued the painting at. It was a few million dollars. For a square of canvas painted with white gesso.
The point was brought up that Boss Ross starts most of his shows with either a rectangle or square primed entirely with white gesso or liquid white...then decides that thats too boring and goes on to actually paint something and do some work...as do some thousands of other artists.
That'll be 2Million please.
i read about the guy who paints white square canvases. such a tool. and hes like 70 years old too, youd think he know better.
Irony?
I got into a discussion about contemporary art with my art teacher back in high school; I claimed that since there wasn't much effort in creating such things, it wasn't all that big of a deal. He said that it's not about what you make, but about being the first to make it; like how we honour Columbus for discovering the Americas. When I replied that America was full of gold, I didn't get a reply.
There's this great fake etymology for the Dutch word for art, 'kunst', that it is the superlative of kunnen (=to be able to). There is, of course, no superlative of a verb, but if there would be one, it'd be that. Thus, it's the peak of skill. I do believe that there's a relation between the words kunde, skill, and kunst, art (as there is between artisan and artist).
I wouldn't call our current era of art 'contemporary'. I'd call it Post-Relevant.
Yes, there are many non-objective abstract expressionists such as Illusions pointed out. But since Mondrian did it early 20th century, anyone that RE-does it is just kidding themselves.
But not all of it is crap. It's just whatever you find has powerful meaning.
e.g.:
http://www.meproject.com/khang/globe.html
One of my classmates made a project called 'Globalopoly'. Making a giant Monopoly board, replacing every piece of property with a different atrocity that happened throughout history.
Prices, are generally in human lives.
Very clever. Very provocative. Very powerful.
A lot of new art is made to be "imposing" to everyone. I thought I was pretty clear I was talking about contemporary fine art. The stuff in the Louvre is just old mainstream art which we also like to call fine art.
And any thread that causes me to do that is not for me
anyone can do that, but I guess the 'art' part is that he did it first, or it had some meaning or story behind it or some shit?
whatever.. wasting space! sure, maybe I'm an ass for it.
:thumbup:
QFT
"You can barrow my shamwow it will soak up the tears so no one will know"
"Thanks to my QRay bracelet your face might not be totally disfigured by the airbag"
"It's cool I already died once for your sins... whats another time just for fun"
Of course it would have to come with a complementary new horn that plays la-cucaracha and the General Lee Dixie Horn. Make him also a dent puller and lift off his head to reveal a nail polish type scratch remover paint all for no additional cost.
I try to not be that way, and be more open-minded and undesrtanding and yada yada yada. But it's hard... when fucking stripes on canvases can sell for millions.
That's part of what drives me nuts about it; I SLAVE away trying to get good at creating art, you know, making stuff actually look like something. Learning anatomy, colour theory, forms and silhouettes, composition, you name it (and that's not even counting any technical media I had to learn) and then some beret-wearing ninny with a larger vocabulary than a brain grabs a toilet, throws it in a museum, and ta da! ART! That's right. My years and years of learning to just draw a person that looked like a person... WASTED when ALL I had to do was just take a shit and put it in an exhibit?
See? Anger. However, I DO try to understand some of it... and some I do find thought-provoking and perhaps even worthwhile. I guess. And as much as I hate people making money off gargabe they throw together, I'm quite sure most aren't making such a great living. Anyway, as long as people are into it and call it art, and others agree, I guess it's art. And there's nothing I can do about it except try not to let it bug me
/end rant
And for the record, despite wanting to work as an 'artisan' in the gaming industry, I DO consider myself an artist.
How can you not have anything but respect for their ability to create value?
(thread derail - SUCCESS! )
simplification again i know but ... hey, hang on, what the fuck am i doing in this thread again?
just keep breathing ... breathing is the key ...
also she has a face like she has been chasing parked cars
...and in trade, the big talkers win!
But I can understand the anger caused by having to write about that stuff for school essays and whatnot. But it's always possible to openly disagree with that kind of art and write a good essay on how it all sucks compared to a single Frazetta scribble :P
(sorry if I sound like some kind of stupid know it all. It's just is that this conversation goes since so long ... artist vs artisan is mere horseshit semantics ... and if you enjoy your stuff it's all good... White square on white background canvas painters won't land a job in a game studio anytime soon anyways
And Boris, aaah Boris! It's cool if he enjoys what he does I guess. He's not the one to blame ... education is!
You can imagine that being an insider in to this community would help your chances of becoming a famous 'artist'.
There's actually an interesting podcast hosted by NPR called 'Intelligence Squared' and they had a session about the ethics of the art market vs. wall street.
Essentially there are a great many parallels in how much bullshit goes on in the art market, as there does on wall street.
I'm sure she doesn't mean you
She also hates tracey emin/emen/amen whatever
I really don't see her as an artist
is it me or is the horse in the boris picture wearing make up or eye liner:0
damn sexy horse
Edit: Oh hey, is that art? Bestiality?
it s a ceramic installation piece
the vast majority of the people I went to school with were terrible at drawing. Even in illustration with two portfolio reviews people slip through the cracks and managed to graduate while still being terrible at drawing. In no way does going to college or graduating from college mean you were at any time good at drawing. And I went to a school with a pretty competent art program.
Easily 95% of the drawing majors (irony? well "drawing" at NIU meant "hippy bullshit that rarely involved actual drawing) and painting majors couldn't draw in a competant mannor if their lives depended on it.