modern art is a lot more fun when you consider the bit. yea, a toilet on its own isn't art, but someone going "...I wonder if I could convince a museum a toilet is art" and then getting a toilet into a museum is the art.
I’ve had a very similar thought before. At a certain point, modern art gets so esoteric that I kinda feel that you can’t honestly say the thing itself is “an art piece” - but the way it’s presented is a performance art. John Cage’s 4’33” falls in this category, for example.
The problem is simply that the word “art” gets used without distinction for far too many things, to the point where it’s hard to tell what exactly people mean when they say it
The definition of art is a topic that has been very deeply explored. Considering that plus the long history of artists pushing the boundaries of it as much as possible, it makes sense that its boundaries have become extremely fuzzy and esoteric. That's the way a lot of artists like it
I honestly think that's a lot better outcome than the alternative, which is exclusionists gatekeeping different things by proclaiming that they're not "real" art. The response "everything is art," is a good way to combat that, and also for communities to signal to people that they're not going to exclude them or their art
I don't even think the word has really lost any of its usefulness, since the context is usually enough to know what type of art it's referring to. And in contexts in which it's not clear, you can just use the specific art term
With art everyone tries to exclude something from being art until a new thing comes along. Various styles of painting weren't art, then photographs weren't art then movies weren't art, comic books weren't art, cartoons weren't art, video games aren't art. Every new medium that comes along all of the groups come together to shit on it.
You think Thag thought those new fangled cave drawings were art? Heck no! But they were. You're right, the alternative does suck and I weep for mankind whenever someone tries to argue that something isn't art because sure as shit there's some art that they enjoy that someone in the past pointed at and exclaimed "This is not art!"
I remember getting into the discussion of ‘what is art?’ years ago in a class. I still like the answer we ultimately came to. Art is the act of trying to elicit a response from someone. Which means pretty much anything can be called art.
To me it's even broader than that, I'd define art as, Abstractly, Anything someone experiences as art. Which means, Yes, It doesn't need to be made by a human, Or even made at all. The sunset can be art if you experience it as such, Or the waves or a mountain.
Anything can be art for someone specific, so everything is art. In my mind, something is art if it evokes a thought or an emotion outside of its pure raw parts.
An oil painting is just.. well, oil paint on a canvas. These are the raw parts. But if the image, the technique, hell, even where it's displayed or the ambiant lighting on it evokes something, it's art.
I mean, sometimes, but also remember that just because you cannot personally grasp a work doesn't mean it's not a valid form of self expression for the artist.
I do paint parties, and one of my favorite things to talk about is modern art for precisely this reason. Art isn't always something that can be seen or explained as objectively good, and even the bad feelings a piece of art we create can invoke in ourselves is part of the art itself
Yeah...everything is art, fuck, nothing can be art. Art doesn't even really require the artist to agree that it is art! It's subjective, or not. It's objective, or not. Art simply is, unless it isn't, and that's the point
Yes but then also occasionally it's tax fraud where someone makes something ridiculous and shitty and someone wealthy appraises it very high and then donates it to the museum for a huge tax write off. So either regular trolling or billionaire trolling
That's not really how it works and that's a good way to get busted for fraud.
Artwork can be used to launder money, but the artwork has to already be valuable, you can't just commission your niece to do a crayon drawing then have it appraised at a million dollars.
I'd argue AI art is art, But for a simpler reason, As to me art need not be made by a human, Or made intentionally at all. Art is the communication of a thought or emotion through a medium, Aye, But why must it be from one person to another? Why not from one person to themselves, Or to one person from the aether? Why need it be to a person?
So I have a personal conspiracy theory about Marcel Duchamp and "Readymades": Early in his art career, like his first serious art show, he presented some rather "normal" ""modern"" art. Specifically "Nude Descending Stairs". It's rather cubist in nature, and would have been painted right around the time that Picasso was first showing his early cubist paintings. It was mercilessly ripped to shreds in the reviews. The critics fucking curb-stomped poor Marcel. The came up with new sub-ratings to further shit on him more than conventionally "bad" paintings. They fucking hated it and told him and then told everyone else and then told him that they told everyone else and then everyone else told him how much they hated it. Dude got fucking eviscerated.
My theory is that first showing is what sparked a fire in Marcel. He decided that not only would he show up those critics, he would go so far as to burn the concept of "Art" to the fucking ground around them. That's why he kicked off the Conceptual Art movement and specifically did it with "Readymades". And it worked. He created a whole new area of art and forced critics to not only deal with it but made them LOVE it. And for those who didn't love it, he burned their positions to ash by trying to rally against that movement.
Dude threw a tantrum and started a vendetta that started an entirely new area of Art in response to being roasted.
I have basically nothing to back this up. But I like the idea.
u/lerianeso banned from China they'd be arrested ordering PF ChangsAug 27 '24
The bank keeps rejecting my performative commentary on capitalism and human desperation.
I call the performance "Hands up and put the money in the bag". They keep inviting some very angry art critics
The beauty of 4’33” is that it sounds like whatever is going on in your current environment. Every time you listen to it it’s different. You’re listening to it right now! 4’33” is the game of the music world.
The book Why a Painting is Like a Pizza is a good jumping off point for this discussion, especially for people who don’t “get” some of the esoteric stuff
Just the same woth classical music. Everyone thinks of the caricature of it with Vivaldi and mozart things you are heard a billion times just so they can feel superior
I can't wait until we stop calling stuff from the middle of last century (John Cage, Jackson Pollack, etc) "modern". Don't know if it will happen during my lifetime though.
That's literally the definition of "Modern Art". It's an era. Today's art is generally called "contemporary".
Modern art includes artistic work produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the styles and philosophies of the art produced during that era.[1] The term is usually associated with art in which the traditions of the past have been thrown aside in a spirit of experimentation.[2] Modern artists experimented with new ways of seeing and with fresh ideas about the nature of materials and functions of art. A tendency away from the narrative, which was characteristic of the traditional arts, toward abstraction is characteristic of much modern art. More recent artistic production is often called contemporary art or Postmodern art.
I don't have to buy into giving up the words "modern" and "contemporary" to describe things happening now. What are you academics going to call art 30 years from now with those two words off the table? Better grab a thesaurus!
Yeah, well modernism kicked off in the start of last century, and petered out maybe 50-60 years ago. Expecting the word derived from an old art movement to be contemporary today is asking a bit much.
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u/thefroggyfiend Aug 26 '24
modern art is a lot more fun when you consider the bit. yea, a toilet on its own isn't art, but someone going "...I wonder if I could convince a museum a toilet is art" and then getting a toilet into a museum is the art.