Contemporary Art- a load of bollix?

wayfarers · 09-08-2011 11:41PM

livinsane wrote: »

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".

Physical skill? How does that factor into photography or video? Or are you not classifying those as art forms? Similarily performance art.

wayfarers · 09-08-2011 11:42PM

Larianne wrote: »

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?!"

Just out of curiosity did you go on to study art?

wayfarers · 09-08-2011 11:45PM

Chuck Stone wrote: »

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.

Because? If you went to the theatre or a playhouse and see someone on the stage doing their thing do you think the same thing?

wayfarers · 09-08-2011 11:50PM

MistyCheese wrote: »

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.

WRONG! Art in the 1800s was recognised within its time as being important (I assume you're talking about Impressionism and Post-Impressionism). There were plenty of collectors at the time, predominantly the nouveau riche or educated collectors getting in on the act on the lower rungs. The business of flogging old masters (pre 1800s art) was a 20thC phenomena when families started selling off their collections or tastes in art changed or public galleries had the funding to buy art from owners ready to make a quick buck. If people can't accept abstract art a full century and a bit after its creation (Kandinsky, Malevich etc) then really the problem isn't with the art its with the public.

wayfarers · 09-08-2011 11:53PM

languagenerd wrote: »

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

Then why don't you? I always grate my teeth when people rattle off the same cliche about how they could make something crap and call it art. You don't do it, maybe you should. If artists have the cojones to do it and galleries have the cojones to show it then the problem isn't them. Either don't visit the galleries or do it yourself.

Call Me Jimmy · 09-08-2011 11:54PM

One of the things I do when I'm high is look at really old art and deconstruct it. It's stimulating, it's like reading a book and admiring the author's use of language to create exactly the image in your mind that they want you to see. For me it's the same with art. I'd look at every brush stroke and read it like a book.

So I wouldn't completely rule out contemporary art. I do think there are probably a large amount of chancers, and I have yet to see contemporary art like furniture or 'sh!t on a stick' that says anything to me other than that it is what I would do if I had no technical abilities and I wanted to make money.

I think contemporary art is rightly criticised and called out, because if you take out the technical skill with which 'classic' art is created, you'd better have something else big to replace it - otherwise you're just wasting everybody's time.

wayfarers · 09-08-2011 11:59PM

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.

Again WRONG! Critics were seething that there was a lack of painting quality in the works of the Impressionist. Exactly as people on this thread are doing. Critics at that time thought the works were unfinished, patchy, amateur, in a word bad painting. Some writers and collectors got behind them and the tide of popularity turned but NO they were totally despised for their art when they started out.

wayfarers · 10-08-2011 12:03AM

EarlERizer wrote: »

......enter Zombie number 1

I don't get it at all 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.

Ah the old 'my 3 yr old quote'. How refreshing. As for your quote ''I recognize the art in architecture especially in old churchs,abbeys,castles and the like but thats about it.'' The word 'old' gives the game away. You basically require art to be recognisable.

wayfarers · 10-08-2011 12:08AM

[QUOTE=
I think contemporary art is rightly criticised and called out, because if you take out the technical skill with which 'classic' art is created, you'd better have something else big to replace it - otherwise you're just wasting everybody's time.[/QUOTE]

Technical skill and classical art; what you guys seems to forget is back in the day painting and sculpture were a trade in the same was as architecture, carpentry etc. Boys (predominantly) were apprenticed out to painters and sculptors to learn their trade and that trade was to paint or sculpt in a realistic fashion. The main consumers of art were churches who commissioned artists to paint religious images to inspire worshippers and church goers. Likewise the elite commissioned portraits of themselves so of course they required an exact likeness, hence your technical skill gripe. This all changed in the 1800s. Shame some people preconceptions of art still haven't moved on since then.

Lone Stone · 10-08-2011 12:14AM

A lot of art is crap because their is a lot of crap artists :P But their is also a lot of people with crap taste in art with a lot of money who listen to the spoken crap of said crap artist who in returns hands them money for the crap they talk about their crap art.

Being a art student for the past few years the scene is full of people who are up their own arse and think they are amazing in every way so much so that they are capable of actually making you think they are better than they are its a vicious cycle crap taste support crap art.

I saw a piece of pink paper crunched up in a display once and thats all i have to say.

wayfarers · 10-08-2011 12:18AM

MistyCheese wrote: »

I agree. However I believe that the people of 2211 will not see "My Bed" because it will not stand the test of time. "

I disagree. "My Bed" will stand the test of time, it perfectly encapsulates the era within which it was created. An era when we were all glued to the gogglebox to watch 10 people we never heard of living a mundane existence for a few months one summer (Big Brother and all that other fly on the wall ****e). When people will audition for anything just to be famous. When total nobodies set up blogs and get millions of followers, when people like Perez Hilton (fat and unemployed) can formulate a career slating off people who actually do do something for a living. Basically an era when everyone wants to trawl their personalities and identities out to an eager public and air al their dirty laundry like Emin did with her dirty bed.

whatdoicare · 10-08-2011 12:18AM

I love art - all types of media and skill sets and have studied Art in all it's forms for decades BUT, and this is a big but, I hate that contemporary blob on a canvas, abstract, screen on a floor with a manequin stuff.

If the title of the piece comes with an essay explaining the piece then I really think it's someone chancing their arm. I shouldn't have to read an essay to explain what I'm looking at - in my opinion, it should be immediately apparent and any information that goes with it should be materials used and if needs be, something about the artist.

Some "Art" colleges encourage this pretentious nonsense. It requires neither skill nor talent to stick a spoon in some clay, all it requires is arrogance and some fool with too much money to pump big bucks into the "concept".

Tar.Aldarion · 10-08-2011 12:19AM

So much of it is terrible in my opinion, art for the sake of art or somethings, then again i think a lot of older art is bad too.

billymitchell · 10-08-2011 12:21AM

Never forget the time I spent 2 minutes stairing at an old wodden chair in a modern art museum, trying to figure out what the artist was getting at with this piece......then the security guard came back and sat in his seat and told me to "f*ck off! what are you looking at? weirdo"

Bollocks I say

wayfarers · 10-08-2011 12:23AM

Chuck Stone wrote: »

If I printed off this thread and cut it up and stuck it back together on a piece of canvass it would probably be deemed art.

If I slit my wrists and spackled it in blood before dying it could well be worth a fortune in an indeterminate period of time.

You've been beaten to the wrist slashing my friend. Plenty of performance artists in the 60s and 70s used nihilism and violence against their own bodies.

wayfarers · 10-08-2011 12:32AM

whatdoicare wrote: »

I love art - all types of media and skill sets and have studied Art in all it's forms for decades BUT, and this is a big but, I hate that contemporary blob on a canvas, abstract, screen on a floor with a manequin stuff.

Some "Art" colleges encourage this pretentious nonsense. It requires neither skill nor talent to stick a spoon in some clay, all it requires is arrogance and some fool with too much money to pump big bucks into the "concept".

...*sigh*.... ''contemporary blob on a canvas, abstract". I've said it in about 5 previous posts; abstract art has been around for a century now, thus the concept isn't contemporary only the artists currently using it as a medium are contemporary. Wiki Malevich or if you can't accept early 20thC then go for Pollock.

Secondly; ''Some "Art" colleges encourage this pretentious nonsense". Art colleges have not changed their agendas, times have moved on and different forms of creating art are available to students that weren't available 20, 30 or 40 years ago. Would you suggest that art colleges stick to churning out kids who can draw and paint realistically? Would you prefer we all read the same, dressed the same, listened to the same music, watched the same movie over and over? That no one had an individual thought? Welcome to the world of free thinking.

whatdoicare · 10-08-2011 12:42AM

wayfarers wrote: »

Secondly; ''Some "Art" colleges encourage this pretentious nonsense". Art colleges have not changed their agendas, times have moved on and different forms of creating art are available to students that weren't available 20, 30 or 40 years ago. Would you suggest that art colleges stick to churning out kids who can draw and paint realistically? Would you prefer we all read the same, dressed the same, listened to the same music, watched the same movie over and over? That no one had an individual thought? Welcome to the world of free thinking.

I would prefer if art colleges trained their students properly in life drawing, art history, painting, sketching, the use of different media and how to use perspective, negative space and to correctly portray their chosen subject. Every musician in the world who is successful has to master their equipment correctly, appreciate past artists and how to collaborate properly with others in the industry. This does not affect creativity in any way or else MTV would have gone out of business long ago.
I had to study all of the above to become an illustrator and I can tell quite quickly when someone unskilled is taking the mickey with their art. Abstract art is not a skill, it is not creative, unique or unusual - it's pretentious nonsense.
Giving me a lecture about how creative you think people who are not capable of basic drawing skills and have to back up their art with an essay is a waste of time. I see well drawn art, I appreciate it - I see an unmade bed that thinks it's a work of art - I call it as it is, an unmade bed posing as art.

Mountainsandh · 10-08-2011 01:01AM

The best artists I know are the ones who in fact have well mastered, and often are still in the process of intensively learning very specific skills, that are well established and rock solid ancestral skills, and who (often unknowingly) start to develop their own individual style, after years of practicing repetition of said skills. Later they more deliberatly take chances and create more.

There is nothing wrong with churning out more of the same old quality stuff. Especially when that leads to the artist later producing something unique and new.

Art school is not when they should be practicing their individuality, they should learn first. There is nothing wrong with that. That's what school is about. There is nothing wrong with telling someone to suppress their own ideas and thoughts if necessary for a while, while they learn a skill. That is a massive failure of our society right now. With that new trend of thought that every little achievement should be praised and celebrated, we are loosing the will, the poise, respect, and dedication necessary to learn how to do something properly.

Generations of young contemporary artists get this feedback : that they're "creating art". Well no, bollox imo. They haven't even learned properly, and only a minority are fooled, look at this thread.

wayfarers · 10-08-2011 01:01AM

whatdoicare wrote: »

I would prefer if art colleges trained their students properly in life drawing, art history, painting, sketching, the use of different media and how to use perspective, negative space and to correctly portray their chosen subject. Every musician in the world who is successful has to master their equipment correctly, appreciate past artists and how to collaborate properly with others in the industry. This does not affect creativity in any way or else MTV would have gone out of business long ago.
I had to study all of the above to become an illustrator and I can tell quite quickly when someone unskilled is taking the mickey with their art. Abstract art is not a skill, it is not creative, unique or unusual - it's pretentious nonsense.
Giving me a lecture about how creative you think people who are not capable of basic drawing skills and have to back up their art with an essay is a waste of time. I see well drawn art, I appreciate it - I see an unmade bed that thinks it's a work of art - I call it as it is, an unmade bed posing as art.

Without bursting your bubble...you're an illustrator NOT an artist. There is a clear difference between the two, both theoretically and in a professional capacity, sorry to be the bearer of bad news. And to burst that bubble even further Picasso was a child prodigy and could draw and paint BETTER than his adult contemporaries when he was still a youngster (I suggest you google his adolescent work) but decided that doing the same old thing (realistic figurative work) was to him pointless as anyone can do it so he threw in his lot and went abstract. He had the talent both for figurative and abstract but the cojones to go for the risky strategy. Well and good you can draw but assumedly you don't have the imagination for anything beyond drawing what you see in front of you.

Mountainsandh · 10-08-2011 01:02AM

whatdoicare wrote: »

I would prefer if art colleges trained their students properly in life drawing, art history, painting, sketching, the use of different media and how to use perspective, negative space and to correctly portray their chosen subject. Every musician in the world who is successful has to master their equipment correctly, appreciate past artists and how to collaborate properly with others in the industry. This does not affect creativity in any way or else MTV would have gone out of business long ago.
I had to study all of the above to become an illustrator and I can tell quite quickly when someone unskilled is taking the mickey with their art. Abstract art is not a skill, it is not creative, unique or unusual - it's pretentious nonsense.
Giving me a lecture about how creative you think people who are not capable of basic drawing skills and have to back up their art with an essay is a waste of time. I see well drawn art, I appreciate it - I see an unmade bed that thinks it's a work of art - I call it as it is, an unmade bed posing as art.

You were quicker than me

wayfarers · 10-08-2011 01:04AM

Mountainsandh wrote: »

.

Generations of young contemporary artists get this feedback : that they're "creating art". Well no, bollox imo. They haven't even learned properly, and only a minority are fooled, look at this thread.

And who are you suggesting is fooled? I'd argue the toss that this thread is full of philistines. Its always easier to ridicule something you don't understand or are afraid of rather than admitting and accepting ignorance.

Mountainsandh · 10-08-2011 01:09AM

So there is an abundance of child prodigies who don't need to learn first and can produce great contemporary art, and a very wise minority who understands it ?

whatdoicare · 10-08-2011 01:12AM

wayfarers wrote: »

Without bursting your bubble...you're an illustrator NOT an artist. There is a clear difference between the two, both theoretically and in a professional capacity, sorry to be the bearer of bad news. And to burst that bubble even further Picasso was a child prodigy and could draw and paint BETTER than his adult contemporaries when he was still a youngster (I suggest you google his adolescent work) but decided that doing the same old thing (realistic figurative work) was to him pointless as anyone can do it so he threw in his lot and went abstract. He had the talent both for figurative and abstract but the cojones to go for the risky strategy. Well and good you can draw but assumedly you don't have the imagination for anything beyond drawing what you see in front of you.

Hate to burst YOUR bubble - I am an artist. How dare you assume otherwise and belittle my skills just to make a point in your favour! The very fact you state illustration is not a proper art form shows your ignorance.

Illustration is my chosen career but I studied art, as I said before, for decades and continue to do so. I have studied in Limerick college of Art and Design, gained a degree in Fine art and have apprenticed with some amazingly talented artists in my time of many many different skill sets. I am in the middle of completing my masters right now.

Picasso studied as an apprentice BEFORE he became an abstract artist, he perfected his skills FIRST - not LATER! His piece Guernica is one of my favourites and it is quite clear that he is well trained. You can't bend the rules until you have mastered all of them first! As Picasso has already done.

You're talking rubbish and defending an idea - but not the hard work that comes before it. You have no idea what you are talking about.

wayfarers · 10-08-2011 01:14AM

Mountainsandh wrote: »

So there is an abundance of child prodigies who don't need to learn first and can produce great contemporary art, and a very wise minority who understands it ?

Durr....you don't need to be 'very wise' to recognise a child prodigy or at least I don't need to be. As for learning..those who are classified as talented or genius under a specific age, say 5 or 6, haven't had the normal schooling to develop their skills, they've more than likely be recognised at an early age as having a latent talent veering in a specific direction. Picasso's father was an amateur artist so experts make the connection there a genetic one.

Reamer Fanny · 10-08-2011 01:15AM

Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈpaβlo ˈrwiθ piˈkaso]; 25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, draughtsman, and sculptor who lived most of his life in France. He is widely known for co-founding the Cubist movement and for the wide variety of styles that he helped develop and explore. Among his most famous works are the proto-Cubist Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907) and Guernica (1937), a portrayal of the German bombing of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War.

Picasso demonstrated extraordinary artistic talent in his early years, painting in a realistic manner through his childhood and adolescence; during the first decade of the 20th century his style changed as he experimented with different theories, techniques, and ideas. His revolutionary artistic accomplishments brought him universal renown and immense fortune, making him one of the best-known figures in 20th century art.

Wibbs · 10-08-2011 01:15AM

wayfarers wrote: »

Likewise the elite commissioned portraits of themselves so of course they required an exact likeness, hence your technical skill gripe. This all changed in the 1800s.

Eh not quite though nice explanation excuse for mundane lacklustre art in the the currently defined and traded term. Picasso wasn't technically skilled? Miro, Duchamp, Dali, Rothgo et al? You're having a laugh surely?

EDIT oh so you do see technical skill when it suits;

Without bursting your bubble...you're an illustrator NOT an artist. There is a clear difference between the two, both theoretically and in a professional capacity, sorry to be the bearer of bad news. And to burst that bubble even further Picasso was a child prodigy and could draw and paint BETTER than his adult contemporaries when he was still a youngster (I suggest you google his adolescent work) but decided that doing the same old thing (realistic figurative work) was to him pointless as anyone can do it so he threw in his lot and went abstract. He had the talent both for figurative and abstract but the cojones to go for the risky strategy. Well and good you can draw but assumedly you don't have the imagination for anything beyond drawing what you see in front of you.

Yea but have you either his technical skill or his imagination to be the artist, or even the ability to spot same and support the current artist? I'll warrant not.

You do realise you're proving his point?

Shame some people preconceptions of art still haven't moved on since then.

or

And who are you suggesting is fooled? I'd argue the toss that this thread is full of philistines. Its always easier to ridicule something you don't understand or are afraid of rather than admitting and accepting ignorance.

Ahh the appeal to ignorance. You just don't get it maaaan. Bollocks, it's the last bastion of the artistic charlatan and cultural mountebank. I hate to break it to you Ted, but it's the first time in the history of art that the general perception of art among humanity is so at odds with what many so called artists believe is art. And what does that tell you? Naked emperor time, that's what.

wayfarers wrote: »

I disagree. "My Bed" will stand the test of time, it perfectly encapsulates the era within which it was created. An era when we were all glued to the gogglebox to watch 10 people we never heard of living a mundane existence for a few months one summer (Big Brother and all that other fly on the wall ****e). When people will audition for anything just to be famous. When total nobodies set up blogs and get millions of followers, when people like Perez Hilton (fat and unemployed) can formulate a career slating off people who actually do do something for a living. Basically an era when everyone wants to trawl their personalities and identities out to an eager public and air al their dirty laundry like Emin did with her dirty bed.

So like the obvious is obvious maaaaan. You think that makes it art(and BTW I like some of Tracey's stuff)? You do realise that's about as original as sliced bread, nay as original as mashing grains together and making bread in the first place. The Greeks were talkin about that stuff a couple of millenia before Davina McCall was plying her tacky wares. Change the record, play a CD, download an MP3 whatever, but take the adolescent notion that any (obvious) thought is "art" somewhere new. BS in need of an explanation, especially banal BS in need of justification doesn't make it art. Not unless you're some tubby early teen wearing black shocked at noticing what the rest of the world noticed and calling it an insight. That's what's lacking with too much of "art" today, insight. Honest to humanity insight, engagement and human effing juices.

Bipolar Joe · 10-08-2011 01:15AM

whatdoicare wrote: »

Hate to burst YOUR bubble - I am an artist. How dare you assume otherwise and belittle my skills just to make a point in your favour! The very fact you state illustration is not a proper art form shows your ignorance.

Illustration is my chosen career but I studied art, as I said before, for decades and continue to do so. I have studied in Limerick college of Art and Design, gained a degree in Fine art and have apprenticed with some amazingly talented artists in my time of many many different skill sets. I am in the middle of completing my masters right now.

Picasso studied as an apprentice BEFORE he became an abstract artist, he perfected his skills FIRST - not LATER! His piece Guernica is one of my favourites and it is quite clear that he is well trained. You can't bend the rules until you have mastered all of them first! As Picasso has already done.

You're talking rubbish and defending an idea - but not the hard work that comes before it. You have no idea what you are talking about.

Looks like someone cares, guys.

citizen_p · 10-08-2011 01:17AM

I agree, I much perfer the large paintings I see in statley owned homes etc...
landscapes, people, battles etc... than the modern abstract stuff I see today.

I wold perfer a statue of a general or head of state to a monument of metal bent in a weird way in other to represent comunity spirit or some other bull

zuroph · 10-08-2011 01:17AM

4 years ago I'd have been in this thread slagging Tracey Emin. But I went and read up on her and studied what she was about, and now I get it. Fantastic stuff.
lost count of how many posts started along the lines of "now I don't know anything about art but.." Admit you know nothing of the subject and don't feel like educating yourself on it, then lambast it anyway...
Some contemporary art, and a lot of it at lower levels can be cack. But the big artists got where they are for good reason.

except Hirst... cnut.

Wibbs · 10-08-2011 01:21AM

zuroph wrote: »

except Hirst... cnut.

I'd disagree Z, Hirst is and has more potential and actual visceral insight than Emin IMH. Go beyond the crystal skulls and look at some of his more painterly works. He's better than his shark in a tank stuff would suggest.

Contemporary Art- a load of bollix?

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