Modern Art: Love it or loathe it?

Del.Monte

What say you? There have been various threads on this subject down the years but nothing recently - I think.

Whose your favourite 'modern' Irish artist? Sean Scully, Kevin Sharkey, Michael Flatley, John Kingerlee, Jack B Yeats, Basil Blackshaw....?



I picked up the above painting recently and wonder what others make of it? I can relate to it and I think that I understand what the artist is trying to say.

I'm off to Netflixland now so won't be available to fight with anybody until tomorrow.

The subtle eminence of that painting is a marvel to behold. Think Jackson Pollock vomit meets crow shat.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

In before some philistine says "all modern art is ****e"...

AttentionBebe

Modern art refers to a specific period of experimentation that took place roughly between the mid-1800s to the late 1960s. Are you asking about that, or are you actually referring to contemporary art?

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

Deleted User wrote: »

The subtle eminence of that painting is a marvel to behold. Think Jackson Pollock vomit meets crow shat.

Agreed, it aims at a void that signifies precisely the non-being of what it represents.


Most contemporary art is deplorable.

Wibbs

I'm all in for the most part with modernism up to circa 1970, maybe 1980. I'd bookend modernism by the building of the Eiffel tower and the building of the Pompidou centre(both in Paris which was the catalyst for much of it). After that and especially over the last twenty years again for the most part it went squarely up its own hole. Often further up it than could have been thought possible. Someone like Bansky is important in my humble, but he's a rarity these days.

banie01

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

In before some philistine says "all modern art is ****e"...

Well I'm one of those who think that the primary means of identifying actual art over a random pile of material is that it provokes an emotional response.

Love it or hate it, if you feel either its art.

If you look at it and think meh, then its not.

As for the pic in the OP, I'm sure I've seen similar on an Album cover somewhere?

Autecher

Rothko

With regards to Irish contemporary artists, I like Robert Ballagh.

Irish Guitarist

I was in an art gallery years ago and I genuinely couldn't tell what was art and what wasn't. There were things that could have been modern art or it could have been stuff left behind by builders.







I really liked this painting though

JupiterKid

I love abstract modernist work - like Monet, van Gough, Picasso, Pollock (I’m a huge fan), Dali, Mondrian, Kandinsky and others but agree that, with a very few notable exceptions, much of what passes as contemporary “art” these days is vapid and lazy rubbish.

But then, isn’t art supposed to be subjective?

I do quite a bit of art myself. It’s an aside to my main job. Good for my mental health to have a creative outlet. I’m no Damien Hirst or Banksy but people do like my work and I’ve sold three pieces to date and one piece is on permanent display at a mental health clinic.

Badly Drunk Boy

I remember going to an art exhibition as part of a school tour, which I always thought we were brought to by accident. It was 1984 and I was 11, and it was the Rosc Exhibition held in the Guinness Hop Store. The only 'work of art' I remember was a painting of a group of people standing possibly at a exhibition or party of some part, and the most central character was a man in a suit, viewed from behind but at an angle. The most significant element of the painting was the little puff of air emanating from his posterior.

To an 11 year old, that's art!

Airyfairy12

This is contemporary, not modern.
Allot of its good, allot of it is meh - art is subjective
The meaning behind the art can be what makes it interesting so if I dont understand something I always try to read the artist statement if one is available or speak to the gallery assistant if theyre about and look like theyre open for a chat. That said some artist statements are just full of jargon and make little sense.
I like the painting in the opening post, dont think id hang it on my wall though

Tamara tamara

Quite like that painting in first post too.
Would I hang it up? Not sure.
Do I know what it depicts? Not a notion.
Like the colours though.

branie2

I do, but I prefer classical art more.

jaxxx

Is that a Rorschach test OP??

Zaph

banie01 wrote: »

Well I'm one of those who think that the primary means of identifying actual art over a random pile of material is that it provokes an emotional response.

Love it or hate it, if you feel either its art.

If you look at it and think meh, then its not.

As for the pic in the OP, I'm sure I've seen similar on an Album cover somewhere?

If the emotional response is anger or scorn at someone trying to take the p*ss by telling us that a pile of old house bricks is art (as I once saw in the window of a gallery), does that response make it art? To me it's a pile of rubble and some chancer insulting my intelligence rather than a work of art.

jaxxx

Zaph wrote: »

If the emotional response is anger or scorn at someone trying to take the p*ss by telling us that a pile of old house bricks is art (as I once saw in the window of a gallery), does that response make it art? To me it's a pile of rubble and some chancer insulting my intelligence rather than a work of art.

Ficheall

banie01 wrote: »

Well I'm one of those who think that the primary means of identifying actual art over a random pile of material is that it provokes an emotional response.

Love it or hate it, if you feel either its art.

If you look at it and think meh, then its not.

I'll start the bidding at €500 for this beautiful photograph of banie's parents dogging in a Fiat Punto...

jaxxx

Ficheall wrote: »

I'll start the bidding at €500 for this beautiful photograph of banie's parents dogging in a Fiat Punto...

Rubberchikken

im not smart enough to differentiate between periods but ill admit to liking the dutch masters works.
the picture in the op looked like lettuce in my fridge that id held on to for too long:)

Beanntraigheach

Del.Monte wrote: »

What say you? There have been various threads on this subject down the years but nothing recently - I think.

Whose your favourite 'modern' Irish artist? Sean Scully, Kevin Sharkey, Michael Flatley, John Kingerlee, Jack B Yeats, Basil Blackshaw....?



I picked up the above painting recently and wonder what others make of it? I can relate to it and I think that I understand what the artist is trying to say.

I'm off to Netflixland now so won't be available to fight with anybody until tomorrow.

Looks like he was saying "ACHOO!"

Donnielighto

If you are exhibiting art then it's for the audience not the artist. And then it can be judged to be crap if an artist wants to maintain something privately that's fine but you can't claim subjectivity after being torn to shreds it's just a bad piece in that case.

If there is no bad art then there's no good art.

branie2

Beanntraigheach wrote: »

Looks like he was saying "ACHOO!"

or threw up

Sheridan81

I'm no art expert. It depends on the piece. I wouldn't dismiss all modern/contemporary art in one go.

Recently, I started a thread on Sean Scully, who I don't like, in the Arts & Craft section, which judging by its lack of activity and discussion on renowned artists, may be an indicator of the level of interest in modish artwork, or indeed any art, displayed by Boards posters. One thread there is titled 'Remove supergue from school jumper', which just about sums it up.

One thing I will confidently say: Tracy Emin has a nice set of knockers.

Conor Bourke

Sheridan81 wrote: »

I'm no art expert. It depends on the piece. I wouldn't dismiss all modern/contemporary art in one go.

Recently, I started a thread on Sean Scully, who I don't like, in the Arts & Craft section, which judging by its lack of activity and discussion on renowned artists, may be an indicator of the level of interest in modish artwork, or indeed any art, displayed by Boards posters. One thread there is titled 'Remove supergue from school jumper', which just about sums it up.

One thing I will confidently say: Tracy Emin has a nice set of knockers.

You don’t like him personally or his work?

I was looking at his paintings online after seeing a piece about him on the news last week, very uninspiring stuff but I’m little more than a Philistine, I expect.

In terms of contemporary, accessible art in Dublin, SUBSET have been doing some amazing work lately. Their most recent piece was completed this week in Bushy Park, Terenure. It’s called “Please Stand By”, they describe it as

“A collaboration with Bushy Park in Terenure on new anamorphic mural reviving the old bandstand.

“Please Stand By” is inspired by the unfortunate fact it has been unused for decades. Using the medium of painted artwork we will create a site-specific, anamorphic installation informed by the historical and physical characteristics of the landmark.

There is huge potential for improving the visual environment within our congregative spaces through utilising canvases for large scale artworks. This provides a platform to express and cultivate Irish creativity in conjunction with nature, heritage and culture.

The artwork will be finished on the 03/08, please feel free to spread the word and drop down to take a look. We intend this project to be a catalyst for a wider public art initiative within local communities.”

Wibbs

Badly Drunk Boy wrote: »

I remember going to an art exhibition as part of a school tour, which I always thought we were brought to by accident. It was 1984 and I was 11, and it was the Rosc Exhibition held in the Guinness Hop Store. The only 'work of art' I remember was a painting of a group of people standing possibly at a exhibition or party of some part, and the most central character was a man in a suit, viewed from behind but at an angle. The most significant element of the painting was the little puff of air emanating from his posterior.

To an 11 year old, that's art!

I was at the same exhibition. I was 17 though. I remember an elephants head made from the sheet steel of a car IIRC. And a pavement of blocks turf I think(which me and a mate moved around).

^^^Really..was there any need for that?
Cheap nostalgia is an easy sell..

As for the piece in the OP..yeah, I kind of like it too..
What do you think the artist is trying to say?..Is he saying anything?
Did you ever think you might be wrong?..
Is he being awfully pretentious to think people might think he's expressing some profound truth in the daubings a five year old could do?
Maybe he was just trying to use up some old green and brown paint..

Earthhorse

I like the piece in the OP but only for its colours; it doesn’t "say" anything to me. Honestly, I think the big problem with art is focusing on all the sub surface meaning over aesthetic appeal. There’s only so much you can say in an image.

banie01 wrote: »

If you look at it and think meh, then its not.

What’s the difference between bad art and not art then?

Hobosan

I enjoyed Portal 2 immensely.

Hobosan

Earthhorse wrote: »

What’s the difference between bad art and not art then?

Bad art is art which makes the experiencers ask "What is art?" , over and over and over, for nigh on a century and a half.

Non art = bad art * time

Conor Bourke

[Deleted User] wrote: »

^^^Really..was there any need for that?
Cheap nostalgia is an easy sell..

If this is in reply to my post re: Bushy Park that’s a pretty reductive approach. Given the absolute state of the bandstand prior to this, anything that brings life and colour to such an underused and neglected facility should be lauded and to me the concept is creative and fun.

As long as it’s provoking thought and discussion, it’s achieved it’s aim as a piece of art which is more than the poor old bandstand did up to now

silverharp

when cleaners have been known to throw "art" exhibits in the bin you can be sure that a % of modern art simply isnt art.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

silverharp wrote: »

when cleaners have been known to throw "art" exhibits in the bin you can be sure that a % of modern art simply isnt art.

Says who? The cleaners? Not sure they'd be in authority here.

mikemac2

I queued 40 minutes to get into the Musee D´Orsay in Paris. Top tip, its free the first Sunday of each month

I saw some amazing stuff and I also saw this. A child in senior infants could have done it



I am a philistine I know but I refuse to appreciate something like that

McDermotX

Pretentious nonsense.

mikemac2

mikemac2 wrote: »

I queued 40 minutes to get into the Musee D´Orsay in Paris. Top tip, its free the first Sunday of each month

I saw some amazing stuff and I also saw this. A child in senior infants could have done it



I am a philistine I know but I refuse to appreciate something like that

That's a western take on an Enso circle..
Profound..
I like how the line is so thin.. very contemporary..

Canis Lupus

Look if it's not a nice landscape with maybe a cottage in it then it's not art in my eyes.

silverharp

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

Says who? The cleaners? Not sure they'd be in authority here.

here as one apparently. there is a bit of the emperor with no clothes about this nonsense, you have to be part of the in crowd to get it



https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/11956330/Art-installation-in-Italy-ended-up-in-the-bin-by-cleaners-who-thought-it-was-rubbish.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

FrancieBrady

Most people who don't understand the rules of cricket or what the goal of the game is find it boring, pointless and stupid.

Understanding what an artist is trying to do isn't a 'right', you have to put something into the contract too.

the beer revolu

McDermotX wrote: »

Pretentious nonsense.

It took longer than I expected for the "p" word to be used.

Muahahaha

Sheridan81 wrote: »

One thing I will confidently say: Tracy Emin has a nice set of knockers.

She might have nice norks but her 'art' I cannot stand. Like putting your bedroom on display in a gallery complete with dirty bedsheets, used condoms and tampons is not art.

Capt'n Midnight

Deleted User wrote: »

That's a western take on an Enso circle..
Profound..
I like how the line is so thin.. very contemporary..

Contemporary ?

The definitive Western take on the freehand circle was by Giotto back in the 13th century.


It is no wonder therefore that Pope Benedict sent one of his courtiers into Tuscany to see what sort of a man he was and what his works were like, for the Pope was planning to have some paintings made in S Peter's.

This courtier, on his way to see Giotto and to find out what other masters of painting and mosaic there were in Florence, spoke with many masters in Sienna, and then, having received some drawings from them, he came to Florence.

And one morning going into the workshop of Giotto, who was at his labours, he showed him the mind of the Pope, and at last asked him to give him a little drawing to send to his Holiness. Giotto, who was a man of courteous manners, immediately took a sheet of paper, and with a pen dipped in red, fixing his arm firmly against his side to make a compass of it, with a turn of his hand he made a circle so perfect that it was a marvel to see it Having done it, he turned smiling to the courtier and said, "Here is the drawing."

But he, thinking he was being laughed at, asked, "Am I to have no other drawing than this?" "This is enough and too much," replied Giotto, "send it with the others and see if it will be understood." The messenger, seeing that he could get nothing else, departed ill pleased, not doubting that he had been made a fool of. However, sending the other drawings to the Pope with the names of those who had made them, he sent also Giotto's, relating how he had made the circle without moving his arm and without compasses, which when the Pope and many of his courtiers understood, they saw that Giotto must surpass greatly all the other painters of his time.

This thing being told, there arose from it a proverb which is still used about men of coarse clay, "You are rounder than the O of Giotto," which proverb is not only good because of the accasion from which it sprang, but also still more for its significance, which consists in its ambiguity, tondo, "round," meaning in Tuscany not only a perfect circle, but also slowness and heaviness of mind. So the Pope made him come to Rome, and he painted for him in S. Peter's, and there never left his hands work better finished; wherefore the Pope, esteeming himself well served, gave him six hundred ducats of gold, besides having shown him so many favours that it was spoken of through all Italy.

Capt'n Midnight

Deleted User wrote: »

That's a western take on an Enso circle..
Profound..
I like how the line is so thin.. very contemporary..

Back in the day one of the biggest global suppliers of phone systems and WiFi technology used a red (cf. Giotto) Enso circle as their corporate logo.



For a techie like me this is like passing off a line drawing of a Coco Cola shaped bottle as "art"

Capt'n Midnight

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Back in the day one of the biggest global suppliers of phone systems and WiFi technology used a red (cf. Giotto) Enso circle as their corporate logo.



For a techie like me this is like passing off a line drawing of a Coco Cola shaped bottle as "art"

Are you referring there to the photograph from the Musee d'Orsay above?

What are you expecting from art? Surely, much of postmodern art is intended more to offend or to provoke than to please and pacify. It's supposed to make you tut, or raise your eyebrows, just like Duchamp's pissotière (FOUNTAIN), where he exhibited a urinal as a piece of art. It annoys people as much as it amuses or impresses them, it raises all kinds of questions about art and the role of the artist in it.

https://www.villagevoice.com/2006/02/21/idol-thoughts/

JohnnyFlash

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Back in the day one of the biggest global suppliers of phone systems and WiFi technology used a red (cf. Giotto) Enso circle as their corporate logo.



For a techie like me this is like passing off a line drawing of a Coco Cola shaped bottle as "art"

Are you trying to imply that being a ‘techie’ means you cannot have appreciation for art?

ILoveYourVibes

Some of it is very dishonest.

Most of it that you see in galleries or certainly in the Nat Modern Gallery in Ireland is quite good though.

I remember an art installation by Ilya and Emilia Kabakov my mother took me to see it when i was a child.

I was so moved by it i remember it to this day.

I actually have problems expressing what it made me feel.

It was called 'The Children's Hospital' or (Extraordinary Pirouettes).

They also made the Ship of tolerance.

It was a few rooms replicating a very old and basic USSR hospital for children it was very stark and depressing and very frightening. And when you walked in music played. And there by the beds there were little theaters. You pushed a button and the play began on little automated beautifully painted puppets. Then began the play depicting fables from ancient Greek fabulist Aesop.

Then as part of the written into to the installation they wrote an Essay of how children whose environments were positive in hospital seemed to do better and recover faster.

You understood everything perfectly.
Ilya and Emilia Kabakov showed you how scary a hospital can look. And how sad. And how the room was instantly changed forever in character by selection of the right stimulus of music and visual theater that was hand crafted. The tales in the little theaters were stimulating and were to make children think and debate with each other from their beds. At the same time the little paper puppets were cute and charming.


It felt very safe but only after the puppet shows and music started. It felt like a LIGHT opening up in a room of darkness when they started.


https://fineartbiblio.com/artworks/ilya-and-emilia-kabakov/2210/the-childrens-hospital










I totally understood even though I was only 6 or so.

ILoveYourVibes

Its hard to dream in the soviet union ..its hard to dream when you are sick in a scary place. So you have to dream harder!

Church on Tuesday

Del.Monte wrote: »

What say you? There have been various threads on this subject down the years but nothing recently - I think.

Whose your favourite 'modern' Irish artist? Sean Scully, Kevin Sharkey, Michael Flatley, John Kingerlee, Jack B Yeats, Basil Blackshaw....?



I picked up the above painting recently and wonder what others make of it? I can relate to it and I think that I understand what the artist is trying to say.

I'm off to Netflixland now so won't be available to fight with anybody until tomorrow.

Jim Fitzpatrick for me, not strictly modernist but influential all the same.

Le Broquy too.


If were're talking about abstract art, what make it interesting for me, is that the piece you are viewing is essentially what you want it to be or rather what context you want it to take on. In the OP's pic I see weathered human faces amongst the strong but subdued colours.

A lot of people want art and things in general to make sense. There is a sculpture near Ballindine on the N17 which I think is great; some people think it an eyesore and when I talk to them about it, my take is what makes it so great is that it is something so out of the ordinary on a fairly banal motorway to be almost surreal, there's no point to it because there doesn't have to be.

ILoveYourVibes

Strictly speaking the modern art era is over though. It was from the 1860s to the 1970s.

I would thoroughly recommend looking up the Kabakovs though they are Russian Jews born in soviet union Ukraine. They fled the USSR later.

They have had installations here in the Nat Gallery a few times.

Church on Tuesday

Church on Tuesday wrote: »

If were're talking about abstract art, what make it interesting for me, is that the piece you are viewing is essentially what you want it to be or rather what context you want it to take on. In the OP's pic I see weathered human faces amongst the strong but subdued colours.

I don't see that at all. I see something to do with reproduction - an explosion of life. There's something vaguely menstrual about it. Motion, blood, energy/ exsplosion, and new life are all the things that I think about when I see that. Scientifically, the menstrual reference doesn't even make sense, since menstruation and conception are completely contradictory.

But contemporary art doesn't even try to refer to conventional explanation, anyway, so that's no matter. We all probably see something different in this,or maybe don't see anything just perceive a certain mood from it.

The predictable reply to that from people who prefer more orthodox, or classical art, might be 'well then anything could be art'. Yes, probably it could. Plenty of contemporary artists would subscribe to the idea that art should be something far less reverent and solemn, in fact quite ordinary, and perhaps the whole point of art should be to provoke constant inner reflection, like Patrick Kavanagh seeing the mysterious in the banal

This is what love does to things: the Rialto Bridge,
The main gate that was bent by a heavy lorry,
The seat at the back of a shed that was a suntrap.
Naming these things is the love-act and its pledge;
For we must record love's mystery without claptrap,
Snatch out of time the passionate transitory.