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Contemporary Art- a load of bollix?

  • 07-08-2011 12:41AM
    #1
    Einhard
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,919 ✭✭✭


    Ok, I don't want to come across as a cultural neanderthal or anything, but what the **** is it with art these days?? It seems that anyone can thrown anything onto a canvas, or a wall, or a screen, invite others to peer meaningfully at it, and then call himself an artist.

    I was in Kilkenny today, and had a look at some of the Arts Festival exhibitions. Some of them were decent enough, but others were just ridiculous. There was one exhibition in the court house, and it basically consisted of two screens on eaither end of a room, with a film of a painted canvas. The camera continually panned over the canvas, which was covered in painted swirls and dots and the like. It was interesting for about twenty seconds, and then it was just like looking at a discarded canvas. They had benches in front of the screens, where people sat in silence, pretended to looking meaningfully at the work, and then left with a puzzled expression.

    I moved on then to an exhibiton in an old church. I'd never been in this church before, and it was full of old monuments and tombs which were genuinely interesting. Nothing approaching that could be said of the art. it basically consisted of a large green partition, onto which a light was projected. There was also a clicking noise now and then, but I was unsure whether that was part of the work, or caused by people stepping in front of it. That was it. The entire exhibition. I actually thought that maybe the tombs were plaster mock ups, and formed part of the art, but no, they were original.

    According to the Festival site, Through Transmitter [name of that exhibition] Beattie explores this process of physical investigation, a human desire to reaffirm their place in the world while at the same time searching for something beyond the physical self.

    He does all of that with a green screen and a light bulb? :confused:

    I wouldn't mind except, as I was leaving, I had a look at a sketch the artist was doodling in his pad, and it was brilliant!

    I like art. I like to wander around galleries and look at paintings and sculptures and the like. I like to think I have some appreciation of art. The problem though, is that much of the stuff labelled as art these days hardly qualifies for the title. Art should be a product of genuine artistic talent- if I can do it, then it's not art!

    So what say you all?

    For the ADDH/tl;dr crowd- is modern art sh!t??


«134

Comments

  • #2
    Saila
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,751 ✭✭✭Saila


    some is


  • #3
    concur4u?
    Closed Accounts Posts: 132 ✭✭concur4u?


    yes i wuold mostly agree i went to an expo in collins barrecks a few year back the jist i got was u hav to use your imaganation to appricate the art on show:)


  • #4
    Bipolar Joe
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,443 ✭✭✭Bipolar Joe


    Everything is art.


  • #5
    norris_minor
    Closed Accounts Posts: 130 ✭✭norris_minor


    contemporary art?! beats pulling your plonker when there's not a match on..

    indeed not "just a bloke" I am open to other erec - er, suggestions!!


  • #6
    mikemac
    Closed Accounts Posts: 19,967 ✭✭✭✭mikemac


    Have seen some of the Kevin Sharkey work on display in Dublin

    Well maybe I'm low brow but 700 for paint in random patterns on a canvas :confused:
    Some were cheaper and some were more expensive

    It wasn't even a nice picture of a valley or a horse or a beautiful lake. Now that's something I'd like and possibly would buy if I were a home owner :)

    But this was just splashes of paint

    Not for me


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  • #7
    Sanity_Saviour
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,036 ✭✭✭Sanity_Saviour


    The fact that someone can "go" in a can and call it art, then sell it for $124,000 just shows that all art is designed to maximize your own degree of pretentiousness.

    http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?cgroupid=999999961&workid=27330&tabview=text&texttype=10


  • #8
    My name is URL
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 25,626 ✭✭✭✭My name is URL


    http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055992819

    That is all


  • #9
    livinsane
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,090 ✭✭✭livinsane


    Alot of good, alot of bad.

    Paint and canvas is no longer the governing media in fine art.

    Some things that appear visually insignificant can be theoretically relevant and ground breaking in a conceptual way.

    I think that physical skill in whatever medium should be the basis for all artists, and after that, you can do as you wish (and still be able to call yourself an "artist".


  • #10
    wild_cat
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,291 ✭✭✭wild_cat


    Tracy Emin has managed to part rich fools from their money. Only a genius in that regard, not in the artistic department.


  • #11
    Einhard
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,919 ✭✭✭Einhard


    Sanity_Saviour wrote: »
    The fact that someone can "go" in a can and call it art, then sell it for $124,000 just shows that all art is designed to maximize your own degree of pretentiousness.

    http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?cgroupid=999999961&workid=27330&tabview=text&texttype=10

    LOL, I was gonna say that next thing you'll know we'll have someone framing his sh!t and calling it art, but thought it would be a tad over the top!:D


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  • #12
    Larianne
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 35,954 ✭✭✭✭Larianne


    I used to have to go to different art exhibitions as part of my portfolio course. It was really a free day off college.

    I'd go to the exhibitions but I spent more time looking at other people there wondering were they thinking the same thing as me looking at some of the 'art' which was usually "WTF is that?!"


  • #13
    Badgermonkey
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,018 ✭✭✭Badgermonkey


    Einhard wrote: »
    is modern art sh!t??

    Actually it's piss, sperm and other bodily fluids in the case of Gilbert & George.


  • #14
    Chuck Stone
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,029 ✭✭✭✭Chuck Stone


    Very subjective whether one likes art or not.

    Some artists are just gob****es who are trying to make a liiving out of flinging their faeces at a canvas.

    Performance art. Now there's a gang of droolers if I ever seen them.

    Performance artists should be packed onto trains and shipped to a camp.... I've said too much.


  • #15
    MistyCheese
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,006 ✭✭✭MistyCheese


    Short answer "Yes" with an "If," long answer "No" with a "But".

    In general Modern Art is a steaming pile of poo. BUT (and it's a big, Jennifer Lopez/Serena Williams sized BUTT) you have to remember that a lot of (what was then) modern art in the 1800s was also a steaming pile of poo. It's just that today we only view the good stuff that survived from that era.

    In 200 years time people will look back upon our modern art and think it wonderful, because only the good stuff will have passed the test of time and still be around for them to witness. The shiite that we witness regularly they won't see at all.

    It's the same with music. Frequently people say "Today's music sucks, music was better in the (insert relevant decade here)." The truth is every decade has its stinkers, but when we look back on previous musical offerings, we tend to think less of the crappy songs and celebrate the good songs.

    This is The Historian's Fallacy at work.


  • #16
    lesserspottedchloe
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 237 ✭✭lesserspottedchloe


    http://www.ultraorange.net/media//2011/03/modernartcraigdamrauer.jpg


  • #17
    languagenerd
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,201 ✭✭✭languagenerd


    I was only talking about this yesterday! I went to the Guggenheim in Bilbao a few weeks ago - and I really don't get how this stuff is art. Mannequins with tomatos for heads and dícks for noses... A room full of piles of random debris that the "artist" collected from building sites... LED screens with the words "I SEE YOU. I HEAR YOU. I FEEL YOU." running along them...

    If this is modern art, I wanna be a modern artist! I'll put a blank green canvas on the wall with a TV showing Martin Luther King underneath, build a tower of sand to meet it and arrange some tins of beans around it. Then I will write an explanation of how it shows human suffering and universal existentialism etc etc. €5 each to enter and experience such wonderful culture :P


  • #18
    Zillah
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,369 ✭✭✭✭Zillah


    Despite this being After Hours, I'm going to attempt a serious response before the zombies arrive.
    Einhard wrote: »
    I wouldn't mind except, as I was leaving, I had a look at a sketch the artist was doodling in his pad, and it was brilliant!

    So we know the guy can do mainstream art that would impress the masses, so maybe we should give him the benefit of the doubt that maybe he has good reasons for doing what he's doing?
    The problem though, is that much of the stuff labelled as art these days hardly qualifies for the title.

    Well, you just hit the nail on the head there. How are you defining art? It would be a rather dull world if everyone agree on what exactly art was and didn't push the boundaries, otherwise nothing would have changed since before the birth of Christ.

    If you look at art history (or film, architecture, fashion) you'll see there are trends of innovation and convention. People do something new, other get upset, and sometimes the new thing becomes the standard thing. Give it a generation or two and the cycle starts again. Contemporary art exists in an information-saturated environment where we get bored and move on at a speed like has never been seen before. We can hardly blame people for experimenting with what exactly counts as art, what it's purpose is and how and why we look at it.

    As you said yourself, that guy can draw really well, clearly he's chosen to do what he did for a reason. Maybe its not for you, but it isn't exactly fair to dismiss it as horseshit because it doesn't do anything for you. Hell, maybe he sat there doing such a nice picture precisely so that people would see him and put the rest of the exhibition in context.
    Art should be a product of genuine artistic talent- if I can do it, then it's not art!

    Why ever the hell not? This is a very sad sentence. Have you so little respect for yourself that you think you have nothing interesting to say about the world or life? There are more ways to make art than putting paint on a canvas.

    Cue zombies.


  • #19
    Greentopia
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,221 ✭✭✭Greentopia


    Some good, a lot bad. I don't think that something has to be straight representational conventional art to qualify as being art, there's a lot of conceptual installations I've seen that provoke and question that for me gives the work artistic value. After all art is not just about pretty pictures.

    The best conceptual artists will also have a high level of skill in representational art such as drawing and painting.

    A good friend of mine is an artist, her drawings are excellent but she seeks to go beyond that into installation work (hanging books for example) to explore her creativity.


  • #20
    Zillah
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,369 ✭✭✭✭Zillah


    Art.


  • #21
    Einhard
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,919 ✭✭✭Einhard


    MistyCheese wrote: »
    In general Modern Art is a steaming pile of poo. BUT (and it's a big, Jennifer Lopez/Serena Williams sized BUTT) you have to remember that a lot of (what was then) modern art in the 1800s was also a steaming pile of poo. It's just that today we only view the good stuff that survived from that era.

    In 200 years time people will look back upon our modern art and think it wonderful, because only the good stuff will have passed the test of time and still be around for them to witness. The shiite that we witness regularly they won't see at all.

    Good points, but at least much of the stuff derided in the 1800s exhibted displays of artistry. A critic might have lambasted an Impressionist painting for its themes or depictions, but at least he coulld acknowledge that there was some artistic skill on display. He might hate the work, but to paint it required some skill.

    The same cannot be said of much of modern art. It takes no skill to poo in a can. It takes no skill to leave one's bed unmade. i do it all the time. Am I an artist now?

    That's what I mean when I limit art to things that I cannot do. I see it is a mix of inspiration and skill. Without one or the other, it's not art IMO.
    Zillah wrote: »


    So we know the guy can do mainstream art that would impress the masses, so maybe we should give him the benefit of the doubt that maybe he has good reasons for doing what he's doing?

    Because he's putting it on display and therby inviting opinion on his work. If it was his own private collection I could see your point, but otherwise, you're asking people to censor themselves when they dislike a work of art.


    Well, you just hit the nail on the head there. How are you defining art? It would be a rather dull world if everyone agree on what exactly art was and didn't push the boundaries, otherwise nothing would have changed since before the birth of Christ.

    If there are no boundaries to art, then everything can be described as art, which I don't think is the case.

    If you look at art history (or film, architecture, fashion) you'll see there are trends of innovation and convention. People do something new, other get upset, and sometimes the new thing becomes the standard thing. Give it a generation or two and the cycle starts again. Contemporary art exists in an information-saturated environment where we get bored and move on at a speed like has never been seen before. We can hardly blame people for experimenting with what exactly counts as art, what it's purpose is and how and why we look at it.

    Again this is true, but as I pointed out above, the activities you mention all require some form of skill in order to stand in their field. I couldn't stick two buckets on their heads, and call it architecture, anymore than I could make a daisy chain and call it a dress. Yet, the equivalent happens in art- people do things that require no skill, tell us how meaningful it all is, and then pronounce it as art.

    As you said yourself, that guy can draw really well, clearly he's chosen to do what he did for a reason. Maybe its not for you, but it isn't exactly fair to dismiss it as horseshit because it doesn't do anything for you. Hell, maybe he sat there doing such a nice picture precisely so that people would see him and put the rest of the exhibition in context.

    I think it's entirely fair to give an opinion on a public display of art.

    Why ever the hell not? This is a very sad sentence. Have you so little respect for yourself that you think you have nothing interesting to say about the world or life? There are more ways to make art than putting paint on a canvas.

    I have lots to say about life and myself- hence why I'm on boards!:pac:

    However, I'm not so arrogant to believe that what I say is somehow art, and that expressing it is an art form. I don't read amateur attempts at creative writing, and think hmmmm literature, and I don't see why "art" is deserving of a different standard.

    I appreciate your thoughtful response though.


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  • #22
    EarlERizer
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,192 ✭✭✭EarlERizer


    ......enter Zombie number 1

    I don't get it at all :confused: I like art, that is I admire a persons ability to paint,draw,sketch or sculpt beautiful images,I recognize the art in architecture especially in old churchs,abbeys,castles and the like but thats about it.

    Bolloxology pretentious chin rubbing type stuff I just dont get it, i remember reading years ago about some workmen who were working in a big wig gallery in England,they fecked off for lunch and upon returning they found they couldn't get near their tools as a bunch of gob****es were stood around admiring and discussing the finer points of the peice laid out before them!

    Then there was the one were the 'artists' unmade bed was passed off as 'art' , there was also a story not so long ago about an elephants paintings selling for thousands.

    Seriously, I've dismissed the scrawling doodles of my 3 yr old with "awh thats lovely sweetheart" and a smile,and all this time I coulda been holding the next big masterpeice.

    probably the neandrathal in me but gimme a public space adorned in brightly coloured graffiti over this lights n blank canvases anyday.


  • #23
    Bipolar Joe
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,443 ✭✭✭Bipolar Joe


    If art is things you can't do, did Escher look at the Mona Lisa and say it's not art?


  • #24
    sock puppet
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,586 ✭✭✭sock puppet


    I know nothing of art (I don't like any art really) but I do like to write music and I'd hate to think that anyone judged something I wrote on proficiency.


  • #25
    MistyCheese
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,006 ✭✭✭MistyCheese


    Einhard wrote: »
    Good points, but at least much of the stuff derided in the 1800s exhibted displays of artistry. A critic might have lambasted an Impressionist painting for its themes or depictions, but at least he coulld acknowledge that there was some artistic skill on display. He might hate the work, but to paint it required some skill.

    The same cannot be said of much of modern art. It takes no skill to poo in a can. It takes no skill to leave one's bed unmade. i do it all the time. Am I an artist now?

    I agree. However I believe that the people of 2211 will not see "My Bed" because it will not stand the test of time. The people of 2211 will see "good" art from 2011, ironically that "good" art is very likely to be art which we, the people of 2011, do not see, as it's not popular in 2011.

    For example, Vincent Van Gogh died penniless (and not in the best of mental health). His 'Sunflowers' painting did not make big money until close to a century after his death. The people of his time likely didn't witness his art, however people years later did.

    Another example is Jan Vermeer, creator of Girl With A Pearl Earring that a lot of people know because a film about Vermeer was made with that title starring Scarlett Johansson. Vermeer died in debt, it's believed his first major work got auctioned 123 years after his death!

    So, the people of Van Gogh and Vermeers time probably also thought "Modern art is shhhit. Renaissance art was brilliant. Art sucks these days."


  • #26
    iliketeaandcake
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 130 ✭✭iliketeaandcake


    People are so quick to dismiss a lot of contemporary art as rubbish. I work in an art gallery that exhibits some of the best international contemporary artists that would not be very well known to an Irish audience. Many visitors just wander in not knowing what to expect as the gallery is located in a heritage site and not very well advertised. Visitors have often commented on the art work as nonsense, and of course they are perfectly entitled to their opinion, as without a debate about art, what would be the point of it? Usually once you talk about the artists, and explain why a work of art is created and what it's about, people become a bit more enlightened and appreciative.

    There is nothing more annoying than someone who jumps to disregard fantastic art out of sheer ignorance. Be more open minded about cultural experiences and you'll find yourself posing all sorts of questions about the representation of things.

    Saying that, there is an awful load of pretentious shyte out there that's completely inaccessible, and the only thing worse than ignorant people are snooty artists up their own holes..

    I'm off to eat some brains now.


  • #27
    ballsymchugh
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,943 ✭✭✭ballsymchugh


    i don't care what private individuals spend their hard earned money on. i do have an issue with the contemporary art that has to be commissioned for every new feckin roadway in the country though, only for some shams to steal it for scrap metal.

    http://www.sabre-roads.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=26805

    it's all modern **** anyway.


  • #28
    later12
    Closed Accounts Posts: 11,298 ✭✭✭✭later12


    I am friends with a young contemporary artist, and some of the stuff he does is brilliant in my opinion, but some of the stuff is just way out there. Some examples from a recent exhibition included a stage light lit on a blank wall, and a display with two empty coffee cups and a brown paper shopping bag with random handwriting all over the shopping bag.

    What I find far more interesting are the people who go along to his exhibitions, whom I like photographing. I would post some photographs up here, were Ireland not such a small place and we'd all probably sued for crimes against hipsters, but I have a particular favourite of a she-hipster who arrived in a top hat, and is seen gazing thoughtfully at the afore-mentioned coffee cup installation.

    To all the world she looks like some crazy girl in a top hat looking at what is merely an empty coffee cup. But to herself, she feels like something much more enlightened, thoughtfully considering an evocative art installation. And I guess that's modern art. If people can even be challenged by it, and challenged to derive something from it or see the mundane in a new light, then it may have achieved its objective.

    However, having said that there was/ is an enormous raven black canvas in the Hugh Lane which really infuriates me. It's just a bare, black painted canvas on a wall. Nothing else at all. What could that possibly mean?


  • #29
    Zillah
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,369 ✭✭✭✭Zillah


    Einhard wrote: »
    If there are no boundaries to art, then everything can be described as art, which I don't think is the case.

    This is my main point. You've just stepped into an argument that has been ongoing for thousands of years, between millions of individuals, from every country on the planet. Some people will literally argue that anything can be art, others will argue that only an accurate representation of something in the real world counts. Some define art in terms of its opposition to convention (look at dada for example), others seek to experiment with form (cubism, for example), some go abstract (expressionism), others go outright surreal. And all of that is just the tip of the ice berg.

    My point being that any given work of art could be from a very specific school, or it could be a parody, tribute or criticism of a particular movement or individual. If you don't get why what you're looking at has an appeal it is very possible that you're simply not equipped to understand what they're saying.

    Don't get me wrong, there are, however, plenty of pretentious morons out there, and it can sometimes take a lot of effort to tell them apart, but its probably best to give someone the benefit of the doubt.

    You seem to want to define art as that which requires a great degree of proficiency in specific artistic techniques, which is fine if that's how you want to do it. But it is, quite frankly, a very limited definition, and you are defining yourself out of enjoying anything other than very mainstream art. So don't bother going to modern art displays if you aren't willing to broaden your definition, because it's a complete non-starter otherwise. Many other people, especially those who contribute to, patronise or attend modern art exhibitions, tend to define art in terms of how we can create meaning, or how we relate to each other, or as criticisms of movements in society, or simply the expression of an original thought.

    The specific means by which that original thought is expressed is often a secondary concern.


  • #30
    MistyCheese
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,006 ✭✭✭MistyCheese


    later10 wrote: »
    However, having said that there was/ is an enormous raven black canvas in the Hugh Lane which really infuriates me. It's just a bare, black painted canvas on a wall. Nothing else at all. What could that possibly mean?

    A painting of nothing but blackness does sound like it would suck but there are certain paintings that do, at first sight, look like just a big black nothingness. Ad Reinhart's "At The Edge Of Visibility" looks like a big painting of black but when you look at it for long enough, you will see three distinct shades of black.

    That is the point of that work of art. Whether you like it or not depends entirely on you. You may still decide "So what? It's still just a painting of blackness. Even if it's three shades of blackness." And that's entirely your prerogative.


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  • #31
    Bipolar Joe
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,443 ✭✭✭Bipolar Joe


    later10 wrote: »
    bare, black painted canvas on a wall. Nothing else at all. What could that possibly mean?

    "Black is the ultimate. Black eclipses everything."

    This is the thing about modern art, I feel. It's open to interpretation. What is black? Go from there. I'm far too lazy tonight to bother trying explain farther.


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