A Belated Rant about Modern Art

[jeffa]

I actually like a lot of abstract art and wouldn't mind having a Mondriaan on my wall. Problem is, no one would know whether it was a Mondriaan or just a quick copy...

What I don't want is a bunch of moldy jars of urine...

And for the record, Dali rocked. My favorite work of his is the huge one he did of Columbus arriving in the new world that hangs in the Dali Museum in St. Pete, FL. If you are ever down that way, it is WELL worth the time to hit that museum, by the way.

[raerae]

I consider art(none of that big-A, little-a stuff for me. I don't like pedestals, it just makes things easier to knock over. I separate it by medium or skill level) to be form of communication. Be it storytelling, emotions, or whatever else.

Which is the reason I don't particularly enjoy modern art. It is not clear in communicating what it wants to get across. I personally think that if I need artwork explained to me, then it's failed.

As storytellers, clarity in our craft is a huge part of what we do. A garbled meandering mess of a comic without clear intent on where it is going or what it people are doing is generally considered a 'bad comic'.

[GaborBoth]

I just watched Ghost World after reading the comic. The movie has scenes about this kind of art, and express some of our opinions pretty accurately. The movie is good too, so I recommend watching it. (And read the comic of course!)

[GaborBoth]

Is it this shark?

[Yamino]

I think that is the shark.  Minus the MS Painted eyes. XD

FYI, I made a followup to this topic, which also addresses the issue of people's bias against comics as a medium: http://forum.webcomicscommunity.com/index.php/topic,299.0.html

[Rob]

Here's one for you.

http://www.thevine.com.au/entertainment/articles/two-year-old-'artist'-scores-melbourne-exhibition.aspx

2 Year old artist receives gallery showing.

[GaborBoth]

I feel pure hate.

[HarringtonAW]

Modern art seems mainly to be a testament to how gullible and pretentious the art world is. It's "King's New Clothes" syndrome, really. Art critics and "experts" are afraid that if they say "That's not art! It's a freakin' jar of pee!" that someone will say they don't "get" the significance of the "display".

-S

[jeffa]

I don't know if it's art or not, but I like that shark. Thinking about getting one for my house. Better than an aquarium. Of course if I just got an aquarium full of fish and dumped in some unflavored Jell-O, I'd get a similar effect.

[GaborBoth]

I never thought about it this way, but it fits perfectly! Thanks Harrington.

[Gibson]

"King's New Clothes"

I feel exactly the same way whenever this topic comes up, but I would say that the distinction isn't that what they're doing is or isn't art, it's that what they're doing is no more art than the child colouring on the walls with a crayon. The beautiful thing about art is how it's so difficult to define that we have to lower the bar on what is or is not art so low that everything becomes art, and there ceases to be any such thing as "artistic validity." The reason that's so brilliant is that it removes art from category and criteria and various other intellectual crap and forces each piece to stand on its own, lets each artist define their own terms of how they want to create, and gives each viewer the freedom to set their own parameters. We can point out what we think makes a piece good or bad and sometimes we can even do it in a generally accepted sense, but anyone who tries to codify it is a fool and the only way to gauge art on more than a personal level is how effectively it influences others.

My favourite thing about this story (and by favourite, I mean the most morosely ironic) is something I've experienced so many times myself, that someone who will belittle you for not being able to understand one thing as art will also belittle you for what you understand as art. The entire point of the type of art that makes people say "WTF, mate?" is to break down the preconceptions of what art is. Now, of course, as happens with any revolution, is that it's become the establishment it sought to topple.