It’s money laundering
Pollock is popular because of this exact thing. He “challenged” the idea of art as the Dada movement had done. You can absolutely hate it but like Warhol it made conversations and questions about process and astetics. By making a meme about it you have in fact thought about what art is and aesthetics you prefer. A Pollock painting made you do that.
People saying he do not select colors or use technique is just false. He would use a pulley system for large scale canvases and spread the colors quite purposefully. Remember this is the time of “happenings” like applying body paint and rolling on canvases, cutting up the canvas and applying newsprint, burning things, etc.
I don’t even like Pollock but not to recognize him in museums within a moment of abstract expression would be a disservice. I’ve had plenty of students say. “I could paint that!”. But there are two points they always misunderstand. 1. Pollock was an established painter who drastically changed styles. Many artists show that they can paint or draw in the traditional style but choose to push what is even art. Some people at this time said the “process” was art not the painting hanging in the museum. 2. Everyone who tries to replicate a Pollock typically just uses some random paints with some bushes and just sort of flings it around. If you actually look at a Pollock in person up close. Yes you can see unevenness is created from not having full control of the paint on the brush but thought seems to go into exactly where the paint will land so that you have even coverage or at angles with different brushes. They is motion in how the paint drips. I can say that many of them I’ve seen are very much not “random” as you would think it would be.
Again I don’t care for the work as there are plenty of other abstract expressions to choose from like Hans Hofmann, Helen Frankenthaler who used Pollock as an influence.
This definitely gave me a new perspective. Thank you. I disagree with some things and the finished product is what is seen by most and “does not do anything for me” / I don’t feel anything, which I value the most. You are more versed on the technical side of art than I am for sure. I hope people see this as a light hearted meme and nothing deeper, how I intended it.
Edit: Also, the fact that a vast amount of people dislike it, no matter how versed they are in art, still means something IMO, as on the subjective side everyone’s opinion is equally valid.
This is the modernized version of Dunning-Kruger. When you think you’re on the right side of the curve, but you’re on the left side of the curve.
Absolutely. It’s funny for sure. Your preference which I share is totally valid as any art critics. One more thing I forgot is the scale of these. Seeing in a book is one thing but like the Raft of the Medusa or Mona Lisa (very tiny) scale produces a very different idea and reaction in person. People often don’t consider how things actually were/should be seen. Pollock could be considered a bit of a “troll” of the time I find it amazing he still gets a reaction good or bad. In a post post moden art world Warhol has just sort of been accepted as art across the board. Pollock, Rothko and Duchamp still making people question why they are in a museum.
I’m sorry, where are you getting your data for your assertion that “the vast majority of people dislike [Pollock’s art]”? Your own meme indicates that people with that opinion are in the minority and that half the people with that opinion wouldn’t even know what they’re talking about. Obviously the meme isn’t a real bell curve, but still.
I’ll be honest, it sounds like you made that up based on not much at all. If that were the case, I’m sure I’d have heard many others express a dislike for Pollock, which I don’t think I ever have, besides you.
If we’re sharing unpopular art opinions, though, I hate Zawadzki and Beksinski (really just dystopian surrealism in general, it tries a little too hard to be spooky/dark/edgy imo and usually has that overly polished digital art look to it). Reminds me of something I’d see on Deviantart or something.
Whoa! I’m so sad that digital deviant art copying Zawadzki and Beksinski painting styles sort of ruined it for you. It’s incredible that they are so good at painting it has a “digital art look”. I hate when saturation of a style diluits the original but I can’t blame them for wanting to make art like them. I remind myself that them being “spooky/dark” is the aftermath of war in Poland and time of unease.
Some people at this time said the “process” was art not the painting hanging in the museum
To expand a bit on the idea that the process itself is as important, or more important, than the resulting work standing in isolation, there are a bunch of examples of people really enjoying the “behind the scenes” or “how it’s made” aspects of art.
I happen to love OK Go’s single-take music videos in large part because they are absurdly complex projects requiring precise planning and tight execution. And you can see that the resulting work (a music video) is aesthetically pleasing, and can simultaneously be impressed at the methods used in actually filming that one take, from their early low budget stuff like Here We Go Again, or stuff like the zero gravity Upside Down and Inside Out, or even this year’s releases with technological assistance from programmed phone screens or robot arms holding mirrors.
Another example I like is James Cook making paintings out of typed pages in a typewriter.
There’s a lot of stuff with sculpture and painting that have these aspects where the methods used to make it are inherently interesting, and explain some of the features in the art itself.
needing/getting and this too shall pass are perfect examples of this imo. i’m not really into ok go as a band, but the amount of pure work and skill on display is insane. the process is indeed the art.
To expand a bit on the idea that the process itself is as important, or more important, than the resulting work standing in isolation
This leads to my take on photorealistic art: basically photography has made fully realistic drawn and painted art obsolete. Even “unreal” things that look real but aren’t based on actual places or things can be achieved by photoshopping pictures together in a fraction of the time it takes, to make something look even close to a photographic accuracy drawing or painting by hand. If you see a picture of photorealistic art somewhere you’ll just think it’s a photograph or photoshopped, unless someone explicitly tells you it’s painted. The visual representation of photorealistic art has stopped being meaningful as it used to be, and the works need the context of the hard labour to be appreciated as what they are.
As a disclaimer though, photography and digital editing can be art in themselves, I’m not making point about that. It’s just fascinating how the value of hand drawn photorealistic stuff has almost fully shifted from the visual representation of reality to the actual process of producing it
Some people at this time said the “process” was art not the painting hanging in the museum.
I would assume that most people who criticize modern forms of art are criticizing the painting hanging in the museum. The more someone likes modern art, the more likely they are to learn about the artist and the process. The less someone likes modern art, the less they’re going to learn about that, so the more the focus will just be on the painting itself.
By making a meme about it you have in fact thought about what art is and aesthetics you prefer. A Pollock painting made you do that.
That’s “Pollock the influencer”. Influencing has always been part of art, I’m sure. Would Dali’s paintings have been as influential if Dali hadn’t also been a moustache artist? Probably not. However, I think you invite chaos if you consider things other than the painting hanging in the museum.
Why? Because if “you thought about their art” is a major criterion, then Hitler is an important artist. Look how often people have made memes about Hitler and his art. If you go by how often the artist’s art is posted, Hitler’s probably a more important artist than Picasso.
First thanks to everyone engaging! Having a great time with some real cool people here.
|“However, I think you invite chaos if you consider things other than the painting hanging in the museum.”
Not true. A huge amount of art is the preservation of an artifact from something previous and not about the “thing” hanging on the wall. Also “conceptual art” is just that the art is the “concept” not result. Ice, kinetic sculptures, happenings, change over time. You can see different art at different points in time. They invite you to consider what it was before and after. Sand mandalas are created in art spaces and then destroyed. When is it “art”? When they pore the sand into shapes or sweep it up? The answer can be “all” because it happened and “none” because it doesn’t exist or even when I think it looks like art.
|“Why? Because if “you thought about their art” is a major criterion, then Hitler is an important artist. Look how often people have made memes about Hitler and his art. If you go by how often the artist’s art is posted, Hitler’s probably a more important artist than Picasso.”
Maybe I’m not explaining well here. Have you ever seen a movie you sort of disliked but you couldn’t stop thinking about it? It sort of continues to impact your thoughts, I’m talking a month later you are thinking about it and still debating if it was good or bad or keep remembering the way it made you feel. That is what I mean. Maybe that was the point of the movie/art. Haneke is my favorite filmaker who creates almost movies that “haunt” you. I would say Hilters paintings didn’t engaged us. They didn’t expand our understanding of art through his paintings. He is famous for being the fascist Nazi leader but his paintings are a result of his fame as a figure. Jim Carrey’s art will likely never be in famous museums, most likely never push or be part of an important art movement, etc. but It gets lots of press because a famous person is making paintings. I’m speaking more of the impact of the art not awareness it exists.
Dali would absolutely be famous as an artist. His brush work is comparable to that to the old masters. His ideas , compositions, colors are incredible. He was a figurehead in the surrealist movement. Maybe not the pop icon without the branding of the mustache and “look”. but that came later.
Sand mandalas are created in art spaces and then destroyed. When is it “art”?
When it’s done, before it’s destroyed.
Have you ever seen a movie you sort of disliked but you couldn’t stop thinking about it?
Yes, but sometimes that’s because it was so bad that they couldn’t get even basic things right. I don’t think you’d argue that an incompetently made movie is a work of art because people can’t stop thinking about it. Although, sometimes things can come full circle and something can be such a train wreck that “art” emerges from the public’s response to it, see for example The Room.
I’m talking a month later you are thinking about it and still debating if it was good or bad
No, I don’t have that experience. I’ve seen movies that I can acknowledge were well made that didn’t appeal to me. I’ve seen badly made movies that I still enjoyed. I’ve seen movies that other people thought were amazing that I thought were crap. But, I’m never conflicted about whether a movie was good or bad.
I would say Hilters paintings didn’t engaged us.
And I would say the same about Jackson Pollock and Barnett Newman.
They didn’t expand our understanding of art through his paintings.
And I would say the same about Jackson Pollock and Barnett Newman.
He is famous for being the fascist Nazi leader but his paintings are a result of his fame as a figure.
And I would say the same about Jackson Pollock. Would his paintings be as famous if he’d lived to 80 years old instead of dying tragically young? Would his splatter art be as famous if he hadn’t made a name for himself (i.e. achieved some degree of fame) doing traditional art first?
Imagine if an unknown 20 year old with no background at all in art had created the paintings that Pollock had created. Imagine she’d been painting her house and thought the paint drops on the ground looked interesting, so she put a canvas over the plastic and did some dripping intentionally. Would that art be hanging in a museum? Almost certainly not, because she wouldn’t have the fame, story or background necessary to get the art world to take her seriously.
As for Dali, I’m sure he’d be well known. I love his stuff. But, you can’t separate the art from the artist. Would his art be less famous if he just looked like a short, chubby peasant from Spain, and he’d lived a quiet life? I think it definitely would be less famous.
What I’ll acknowledge is that there are “artist’s arists”, artists whose work is considered very important and influential by other artists, but not by the general public. You’ll find that in all kinds of fields. There are standup comedians who have never been able to draw a big crowd, but who other standup comedians think are absolute geniuses. That’s a situation that’s pretty interesting because the whole point of standup comedy is to make people laugh. If a standup comedian can’t reliably do that, then are they actually a good standup, even if other comedians think of them as a genius and highly influential?
The other issue is how you can’t untie art from the reception of that art. Take “Voice of Fire”, which is hanging up in Canada’s National Art Gallery. Artists may think it was important or influential, but the general public thinks it’s absolute crap. But, the controversy of the gallery paying $1.8M for it made it incredibly famous. As a result of that fame, it is now valued at more than $40M. IMO the reason it is valued at $40M today is the result of it being selected for the art gallery, and the controversy around its selection. If there had been no controversy about its acquisition, it would probably be valued considerably lower today.
But, does any of that change the “paint on canvas” value of that art? I don’t think so. All of that is related to the circumstances related to the art: the fame of the artist, the circumstances around the creation of that art, the price other people have paid for it, any controversies around that, etc.
The point I’m making is that although you can’t separate the art from the artist, or from the circumstances surrounding the art, including its history, etc. You should still try to do that when evaluating it as “paint on canvas”. Talking about the buzz surrounding a piece of art opens the door to all kinds of things that are not relevant to the paint on the canvas. If you argue that a piece of art is important because people are talking about it, then that opens the door to saying that art by Hitler, Ringo Starr and Jim Carrey are important. And then you have to get into an impossible scenario where you dissect why it is that someone is famous, and how much of the fame of their art is the result of their own personal fame. While it may seem obvious with people like Ringo Starr that his art would be completely ignored if it weren’t for his fame, it’s much less obvious with someone like Dali or Andy Warhol, or some of the people who made huge money with NFTs.
I don’t think you’d argue that an incompetently made movie is a work of art
You are making a fundamental mistake: that art is venerable by nature. I.e., if it is not venerable, it is not art.
I would insist that an incompetently made movie is a work of art, actually. It’s very interesting to me that you wouldn’t.
then that opens the door to saying that art by Hitler, […] are important.
Fascist art is actually very interesting because there is a perverse artlessness to it.
The nazis were not good artists. They liked big, masculine, square stone blocks. They liked big nipple domes that communicated power through their sheer size and their size alone. They hated degenerate, jewish ornamentation and artistic flavor.
Their depiction in recent Wolfenstein games is notably cool as shit, but also entirely unlike them: the gothic-esque qualities of those pillars and tall buildings would have been seen as degenerate, damaging the masculine austerity they wanted to project.
Their art, their marble statues of strong, muscly soldiers, venerates status and power in a purely aesthetic, unthinking kind of way—you’re not meant to think about it.
Now, why point this out. You keep bringing Hitler up in an obvious attempt to disgust, as if the words “Hitler” and “important” in the same sentence are itself a crime, but “important” doesn’t have to mean “good.” It doesn’t even have to mean “likeable.”
Hitler is a very notable historical figure, I’m sure you can imagine why, and his art, and the art of his fascist contemporaries, is an important reflection of what they were like as people: boring and stupid.
Why should I care if Ringo Starr or Jim Carrey are “important” or not? They don’t deserve to be? Does “importance” come with a trophy or something?
You are making a fundamental mistake: that art is venerable by nature. I.e., if it is not venerable, it is not art.
Anything can be art, but most things are not good art. I’m not interested in wasting my time with bad art. A badly made movie is art, but everything is art, so what does it matter?
The nazis were not good artists.
The Nazis were effective artists. Just look at their rallies. Their aesthetic was ideal for what they were trying to achieve. It’s not the sort of thing I’d want around my house. But, the Germans were coming out of a time when they had been defeated in WWI and then humiliated by having to make reparations to the French. Their style was “we’re powerful, manly men”, which appealed to people as a contrast to the humiliation of post-war Germany.
You keep bringing Hitler up in an obvious attempt to disgust
I’m not trying to use him to disgust. I’m just pointing out that if the frequency with which art is discussed is important, then he’s an important artist. I think if you focus just on the paint on the canvas, he was not at all important. He doesn’t seem particularly skilled, and he didn’t seem to do anything interesting or new.
Does “importance” come with a trophy or something?
If you consider “whose art should we study?” to be a trophy, then I suppose it does. I’m sure that question gets asked pretty often, and I think if your answer is Hitler, or Jim Carey, or Ringo Starr, you’re not making good use of your time.
I’m not trying to use him to disgust.
Don’t lie to me, c’mon.
“If you accept that how much art is talked about is a useful metric, then you would have to accept Hitler as an important artist”—don’t pretend you aren’t stirring the pot.
Either, Hitler is talked about quite often, in which case, yeah, he’s more significant than Picasso. Good job Hitler, I guess.
Or, he isn’t, because nobody gives a shit about his stupid castle paintings, in which case I don’t understand why you keep bringing him up.
People talk about him, they don’t talk about his art, so no, we don’t have to contend that he’s an important artist, actually. But fine, you want me to accept through some lense you’ve constructed that Hitler is very important: Sure. He is. Now what?
What is the next part of this argument? Because the self-evidence of this is lost on me.
The Nazis were effective artists.
Their big boob building, which was meant to be the capital of world commerce or whatever, is ugly as all hell. I reject this entirely.
Their beach resort building is a big, flat rectangle.
If the point of these were to be as boring, depressing, lifeless, drab, uninspired, and hostile to people’s mental health as possible, well, they certainly moved that conversation forward.
Don’t lie to me, c’mon.
I’m not lying. I’m picking a well known person who isn’t famous because of their art, but whose art is often shown on the Internet. I’ll grant you that the art is often shown for shock value, but I’m not trying to “use him to disgust”. I’m merely making the point that if you talk about how much “buzz” an artist’s work gets, he’s going to be right near the top.
Either, Hitler is talked about quite often, in which case, yeah, he’s more significant than Picasso
Hitler is definitely discussed more often than Picasso. I’d even say that Hitler’s art is discussed more often than Picasso’s art. It may be for shock value, but again, if you’re using “this person’s art is talked about often” as an indicator for how relevant their art is, then he’s going to be in the conversation.
Or, he isn’t, because nobody gives a shit about his stupid castle paintings,
People don’t give a shit about his castle paintings as paintings in themselves. That’s the point I’m making. They’re not talking about his art because his art is worth talking about. But they’re talking about his art because of who he is. If what matters is how often an artist’s art is discussed, then his art is important. I don’t think it should be, but those are the rules that are being suggested.
People talk about him, they don’t talk about his art
They talk about him and they talk about his art:
https://old.reddit.com/r/memes/comments/pm0rxq/nice_painting_though/
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/you-just-enjoyed-one-of-hitlers-artworks
https://www.tumblr.com/cleanmemes/56159658268
Hitler is very important: Sure. He is. Now what?
I dunno, you’ve decided he’s important. Now I guess you go discuss his art? I’m having no part in it though.
Hitler didn’t kill millions of people to make you think about his art. Pollock intentionally wanted to create art that makes people think about what counts as art. His methods certainly worked.
So now you have to get into the mind of the artist and if their fame influenced the knowledge of their art, but they didn’t achieve that fame in order to promote their art, you can ignore their art? That seems very convoluted.
A better idea is just to ignore the artist and focus on the paint on the canvas.
Why? Why ignore the process? Why does the idea of thinking critically about what the art means and not just how the art looks make you uncomfortable? You don’t have to do anything, but trying to make an equivalence between someone taking actions in their field to challenge established ideas and someone who is only known as an artist due to unrelated atrocities is ridiculous. You’re making the exact same arguments that traditional painters made against impressionism, now widely recognized as masterful artworks (Monet, Manet, Renoir, Van Gogh, etc), which were similarly making statements about what could and could not be considered art. Just as with any of those other artists, you don’t have to like Pollock’s work, or agree with the statement he was making with it, but to act like it isn’t art, or that the things we’re saying with art don’t matter, would be pretentious.
I don’t like Pollock’s art. I don’t think the statement he was making was particularly revolutionary, and I think other artists he was contemporary with accomplished the same statement far better (Rothko). However, this “just focus on the paint on the canvas” thing is silly, and artists have widely rejected it. Art should mean something. It’s why human design and intent will always be worth more than AI’s best Monet facsimile.
Hey, if you want to focus on the biography of the artists, and everything that isn’t on the canvas, you can do that. I think the focus should be on what’s on the canvas, and how that makes someone think and feel.
Your way seems to be proto-influencer culture, where someone is famous for being famous, and being famous means their work is more important.
You clearly didn’t read my whole comment. Your argument is the exact same that was made against Van Gogh, Monet, Renoir, etc. It’s not about the artist. I didn’t say it was, and I don’t understand why you replied like I did. It’s about the meaning behind the art, the statement it is making. It has nothing to do with whatever influencer thing you’re talking about, and everything to do with what the art is saying.
By rejecting the traditional realism of their time, artists like Van Gogh and Monet made a statement that perfection and realism weren’t all there is to art, and that impressions of the subject can be beautiful. Artists like Rothko made the statement that the subject does not have to be literal, but can be the art itself. Cubism was all about this. Pollock is doing the exact same thing, but pushing it to an even more dramatic extreme.
IT ISN’T ABOUT THE ARTIST. Do me the basic respect of understanding this one part of my statement. It’s about art meaning something because of what techniques were used, how it is presented, when it is presented, and the context that inspired it.
What is on the page is important, but why it’s on the page and what message the art is conveying is equally so, and I’d argue much more. You continue to misinterpret this fact as not only less than quintessential to art, which any artist will tell you that it is, but insignificant and silly to consider.
It’s about the meaning behind the art
How do you determine the meaning behind the art? Who gets to determine that?
I feel like this really needs to be asked: So?
There were ulterior motives. Okay. And?yea. cia propaganda made people call this slop “fine art” and then say “so what?”
good job
Oh, it was MKUltra. I see.
You know, the CIA might be why I got caught looking at boobies on live television, too. They shouldn’t have fired me; it was not my fault I was jerking off then.
What about Helen Frankenthaler and others doing “pouring” before Pollock, and that Pollock was a mediocre traditional painter, plus I guess the CIA money helped.
I understand the whole idea of transcending stuff, but just doing something “different” isn’t IMO obligatory noteworthy.
The Dada movement challenged not just standards but art itself, interesting and necessary, but is it art? One can argue.
The impressionists started it all, but then it spiraled out to just do something not have been done yet, which is good and important, but IMO it does absolutely not mean it’s some kind of new art form. But of course that’s just my opinion.
Those art pieces are literally poison to a young aspiring artist’s mind. It condemns them to a life in poverty, chasing dreams of becoming high profile abstract-postmodernist-whatever artist selling shits in jars, instead of focusing on making what the world really needs the most:
spoiler
gay furry porn
You either die dignified and impoverished, unrecognized in your own lifetime, or you live long enough to afford a custom alpaca fursuit.
A fursuit of an alpaca, or made with alpaca fur? Or both?
an alpaca wool fursuit sounds like it would melt the wearer.
Well, I’ll let you know that big dragon mommy milkers are superior
My favorite thing about art is that if you look at it and you hate it, that’s still a completely valid take
Art museums became way more fun once I realized that
I am going to MOMAs all over to laugh at the stupid shit some artists pull off. Laughed my ass off at the taped banana. I am not even interested in what the artist thinks or means. I am entertained, that is what I expect of art.
Like in London, there was this big-ass room dedicated to a giant chair and a giant table, you could walk under. Heated, in the middle of a freezing winter. Like, the homeless were freezing out on the streets, and here we are as a society, heating a room for a chair and a table nobody could use. Just take in the absurdity, and you have to laugh at this shit to compensate and stay sane.
taped banana
It was called “Comedian” and it was a fantastic piece of art.
It was a derivative, unoriginal piece of art
This is very true for me. Same for a lot of history museums, which are full of historic arts and crafts.
Like, some native art is just old craft, not actually good art to me, but some ancient cultures had a wild perspective and the art matches.
Not trying to be a dick, if you enjoy his art that’s great 👍
I was similar until I saw him actually painting. There is something about the process that makes me love it. It’s weird to me too that I feel that way.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3Uj_HAAvbk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrVE-WQBcYQ&list=RDCrVE-WQBcYQ&start_radio=1
Appreciation of art is always 100% subjective (except technique). So your opinion is just as valid.
Oh for sure, I believe everyone’s opinion is valid as well. I’m just surprised that seeing him paint made me appreciate the art more. That is interesting to me. It reminds me of monks making sand mandalas, like he was meditating. I doubt he was drunk since he has to paint systematically and mainly on one leg.
Sand mandala being made: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCwLLo_9D-E
If he was an alcoholic, he would be “normal” at a certain blood alcohol level. At some point people drink only to avoid withdrawal, which can be lethal in the case of alcohol. I can absolutely see that the process of creating something influences how one perceives it.
He did say one thing that made me think a lot about art in general:
“technique is just a means of arriving at a statement” - Jackson Pollock
The process is the point
Wait - you’re respecting other people’s tastest that don’t coincide with yours on the internet? Is that legal? /j
No, I was kidding, hahahaha. /s
I do. My enjoyment is not diminished by how many people like it.
Pollock hits harder in person tbh.
Prints and photos don’t really work; it ends up looking flat and empty. But in person, there’s more “depth” in both a literal and figurative sense. You can see more of the intent put into the methodology.
Mind you, I agree with the idea that he’s over hyped. He wasn’t exactly breaking new ground, and there’s plenty of other artists that explored abstract painting with more satisfying and effective results.
But I don’t think it’s accurate to call it shit either. As much as people love to say it, no a kindergartener couldn’t do it. Even high schoolers have trouble making something that looks similar enough to carry the same visual effect. Some art students at a collegiate level can’t.
Turns out you do have to have some degree of development in your techniques at the very least to get the same results, no matter how much raw talent you have.
Now, don’t ask me if I really like his stuff. I mean, I’m going to say it anyway, but still. My take on his body of work is that he fully explored the “drip” technique way before he quit doing it, and likely could have stopped after the first one because the only real differences between them amount to nothing more than the difference between most hotel and doctors’ office wall hangings. You see one, you’ve seen them all.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t doubt that he got something more than money out of the process. I make bland and basic art myself, and IDGAF about the results as much as the enjoyment of making. Every art student I’ve ever known gets super into the process of creating and that’s a wonderful thing; dissecting what they’re doing as they do it.
But that value isn’t something that carries on beyond the process itself.
Saw one in a museum last week. Still looked like shit.
Its paint splatters. Which the artist has no control over.
Only if it is deliberate can you claim it has depth. Otherwise it is nothing more than a happy accident that it looks to have depth.
Well, you absolutely have control over splatters once you understand the way they happen. A liquid at a given viscosity moving at a given speed will have predictable, but minutely variable, outcomes.
In other words, every raindrop hits in a predictable way, and the only reason you can’t predict exactly how the resulting splash will look is a lack of ability to make the same predictions on a molecular level. But, if you could see and hold in the human brain, the outcome is absolutely predictable even at that level; we just can’t pull it off without outside assistance.
Look at airbrushing. It’s tightly controlled spatter. You’re using air to make the drops so small that we can predict and control the outcome so that it can be used to give a range of end products. But if you get in really tight to what’s going on, it’s high speed splattering.
I would also disagree that a happy accident can’t have depth visually. But I think you likely misread how I was emphasizing, so it isn’t really useful to say more than that.
However, Judge for yourself if he was bullshiting about his degree of intent in his efforts. It isn’t like there aren’t other interviews and information about what he did, on both technical and analytical levels. Him saying he has intent doesn’t mean he’s speaking truth, nor would it being truth change whether or not one agrees with his intent, or how successful one feels he was in achieving it.
But he at least came up with an explanation of intent, and his movements when working are controlled enough to indicate he at least thought he was working with intent, and isn’t that the same thing as intent on a practical level?
If you can find it, Kurt Vonnegut wrote an essay for Esquire called “Jack the Dripper” which was reprinted in his essay collection Fates Worse than Death. He argues that Pollock was a) absolutely able to produce quality traditional art and b) accessing his sub- and unconscious mind when making drip paintings in a way that anyone interested in the human mind should be fascinated by.
I like it. Generally, when abstract and contemporary art is well executed, I find it to be thought provoking and exciting to experience. One of my personal favourite paintings is Asger Jorn’s “Stalingrad”.
It is entirely useless to look at that painting on a tiny screen on a search engine because it looks like shit online.
However, in real life, you enter the room where it is hanging and it is HUGE. Whites and blacks and blues ans yellows and reds in a turbulent mix on the canvas and if you sit down on the bench and soak it in, you start to feel the emotions Jorn was trying to evoke in the viewer. War is hell. War in the deep of Russian winters is worse than hell. It is blind, cold, desperate chaos and you’re supposed to fight in this inferno while being able to tell friend from foe, but they all look the same, their blood looks the same in the snow and dirt beneath them.
I’m always exhausted when I look at that painting, but I do it every single time I’m at the Asger Jorn museum.
There definitely is shitty abstract and contemporary art out there. I have seen my fair share of bullshit pieces, but it is sad to me how some people entirely close themselves off to this aspect of art just because it is different. But, at the end of the day it is a taste thing, and that is okay.
Counter offer: that’s all expectation bias.
You read
War is hell. War in the deep of Russian winters is worse than hell. It is blind, cold, desperate chaos and you’re supposed to fight in this inferno while being able to tell friend from foe, but they all look the same, their blood looks the same in the snow and dirt beneath them.
then you conjure up the feeling with some art museum self-gaslighting. Maybe the art is the prompt?
Modern dance and modern art (including free form poetry etc) that try to leave rules/form/structure behind are, to me, rorschach content with accompanying flavor text that makes them smell faintly of the artists’ farts. This is to other forms of art what whiteclaws are to flavor.
I quite strongly doubt that any abstract or contemporary art in isolation gives any specific, repeatable feeling to anybody outside of maybe “chaos”. Its fine if you like it (I don’t obviously) but I think adding specific feelings that you wouldn’t get without the title is oversell and over-hype. It’s like establishing the canon for a book or story using the fanfiction for that story or just the authors opinion: if you didn’t actually write it in the main work, it doesn’t count (I see you J.K. Rowling, Brandon Sanderson, etc). Put the story IN THE STORY.
But then, this is all just one man’s polemic.
Counter offer: that’s all expectation bias.
Counter counter offer: The title and description (and sometimes a biography of the production of the piece) are an integral part of the art.
That’s a fair point of view, but that is literally the point of art. Not just abstract and contemporary art. The more context you have with a piece of art, the more it will make you feel and think about what it is trying to communicate.
Try and look up the painting Stańczyk by Jan Matejko.
In isolation, you’d look at that painting and see a sad jester in a chair. You may feel something, but it won’t be very deep.
When the context is added for that painting, it starts taking on a completely and much more complex meaning. The most basic takeaway with context is “while the politicians, kings and nobelmen are partying, only the jester is understanding the severity of the country’s predicament.”
But if you take the time and start diving into the meaning of the comet outside the window, the cultural and historical significance of the court jester Stańczyk to Poland’s history and culture, the letter on the table, the fact that Matejko used his own face as a reference for the jester, dive into Matejko’s own life and his views, interests and concerns you will get a much greater and much more nuanced interpretation of what you’re looking at. It will basically educate you on something you most likely know nothing about.
That is what art does.
Asger Jorn’s Stalingrad is the same for me.
It is so miss the point of art to think that you should be able to just glance at it briefly and get anything out of it.
Art is also not supposed to be pleasant or pretty. It is supposed to move people. There is tons of art out there that bores me to tears or that I think is bullshit, but others may connect with it where I couldn’t and that is worth something.
Are there bulshitters and bulshit art out there? Absolutely. One of my favourite horror satirea Velvet Buzzsaw very much takes the piss out of the art scene and the silly snobs in it.
But I think it is a mistake to think that having context for an art piece is somehow cheating when all art ever made has a title and an intent and context by default.
Very succinctly so I don’t end up writing another wall, I generally agree with you on these points. Where we differ I think is that I feel context can add depth and richness (as in the Jester painting) but that the work itself should contain some INTRINSIC depth and richness.
The analog discussion I think we are having is “are placebos good medicine?”. Do you feel better after taking them? Sure. I suppose that makes it hard to say they are not medicine. At the same time, it’s the act of consuming them that gives them the effect, not anything to do with the content.
the work itself should contain some INTRINSIC depth and richness.
This may apply to some art, but it is not necessary for all art.
I genuinely disagree with you on the placebo argument, but that is okay.
Sometimes I like an abstract painting or sculpture because of shape, color, composition and so on. I don’t think abstract art would be popular with many people is the works didn’t stir something in them just by how they looked.
Again, I completely respect that this type of art doesn’t do anything for you, but I think you are entirely wrong in claiming that there is nothing to abstract art unless there is a title for context. That isn’t true. Abstract art can evoke all kinds of emotions in people without any context. Disgust, euphoria, sadness, happiness, fear, anger, calmness etc. It is not a trick that an abstract art piece can evoke emotions. It is simply a matter of the art piece being created by someone who has an eye for composition, color theory and is in tune with the emotion he or she intents to transfer onto the canvas.
Also forgot to mention that one of my all time favourite contemporary art pieces was a long table in a small room with let’s say 50 identical white vases lined up on either side. Next to the vases, on the table lay a bunch of cheap permanent markers. Out of the 50 identical white vases stood maybe 10 white vases with gold leaf patterns on them.
All the vases were scribbled over with drawings and words except the vases with the gold leafs on them.
I picked up a marker myself and drew on some of the plain vases, but it took me a bit of courage to start drawing on one of the gold leaf vases. At least one other person had drawn on one of the gold leaf vases but only on the white parts. I found myself instinctively doing the same.
It made me think about a lot of things. What we put value to, why, even when we are given the go-ahead, most of us still hesitate to destroy something that we perceive to be valuable even if the only difference between it and the other pieces is cheap gold patterns on the side.
Furthermore, nowhere did it say that you weren’t allowed to smash the vases, but nobody had done it. You could probably do whatever you wanted to do to these vases, ans yet people only allowed themselves to do the safest form of vandalism.
I thought about the other people who had written and drawn on the vases. I felt their presence and the thoughts they had gone through when interacting with this piece. I thought about the artist and their intentions with it. The fact that I interacted with their piece made it very clear that all the thoughts they had put into their piece was realized in me as part of the installation.
I have no idea what the made of that piece was. Not a clue. But it still affected me because of how well it was executed and I understood the message(s) the artist intented. Maybe not all of them, but the main point, I got.
Contemporary art can be so amazing if one opens themselves up to it.
That sounds like a different kind of art altogether. The experiential kind of art where the point is the unspoken discussion between the artist and the audience, or just a commentary on the audience, is pretty cool. Marina Abramović is an icon of art in that category I would say.
That is contemporary art. :)
Speaking here as an art noob who generally knows nothing of what the pieces are supposed to mean or what their societal context was when they were made and what forces they were pushing against etc:
When my arty partner drags me into art museums with huge abstract modern art pieces with just big splotches of heavily textured color (I’m thinking in particular of one giant piece filling a wall with jagged black heaps of paint) they do in fact make me feel feelings.
In my case, as in OP’s case, they were really bad feelings. I would prefer not to feel really bad and I don’t like that art. But I certainly couldn’t call it ineffective fart-huffing!
I just like the way it looks.
The bell curve is in fact 3 dimensional and you took the upper 0.1% of the orthogonal axis to the one depicted.
That’s cool. Don’t let any douche like me talk you out of that. 🙂
Sir, I laughed and upvoted. I am unable to share as my wife is a visual arts grad and I want to be able to get laid in the future.
I understand.
Very polite of you to make that comment. I, however, am willing to be a dick.
Pollock was a drunk and a hack, Kandinsky is the abstract artist we should be celebrating as a household name.
Also I’m p sure I read that Pollock killed a dude while drunk driving and got away with it but I don’t care enough about him one way or another to verify that before posting it on lemmy dot com.
Agree completely. I think Pollock was just really good at bullshitting people and once you are a big name you can pretty much make whatever you want and people will add value because of your name.
He was a commercial artist through and through, that is for certain. His pieces have that je ne sais bullshit feel that comes from people producing art as product, not art.
I’m gonna have to try and remember “je ne sais bullshit”. That’s a good one.
Can’t tell if you are on the Neanderthal man spectrum or Jedi knight spectrum of bell curve.
Me? Probably Neanderthal. 😅
A Neanoerthal that knows Kandinsky, tho.
Kandinsky is the abstract artist we should be celebrating
Had to look this up, and wow yeah, that is some very striking, abstract art from someone who has definitely refined their craft and worked hard to do so. Very cool imagery.
Don’t forget my man Rothko!
I’m a simple man, I see “Kandinsky”, I upvote.
At least it’s not made by AI.
Still better than AI art.
I don’t like AI slop. But this kind of “art” is not much better. This is human slop.
Low effort bullshit to impress art “connoisseurs” (people with money)
When the end goal is (in)fame and money, we can’t argue with the results
Indeed.
Tax dodges for the rich don’t need to look good, they just need hype.
Sure, but if I were to do that, I’d at least buy something nice.
Why pay more when banana taped to wall do?
Someone eat banan 😨
Fun fact: when you buy stuff like that you get a paper explaining how to remake the artwork, here how/what banana & tape and how to replace the old one.
Not just tax dodges. Also money laundering. ;)
Edit: I’m not slamming Pollock. He’s cool with me.
Looked for this comment before saying the same thing. This is just what emerged at that time as a wonderfully convenient tax avoidance scheme, however organically. Art gatekeepers are tax dodgers’ useful idiots.
It may be aesthetic. It may be beautiful. But applauding while traitors converge upon some artist and their work is a mistake. They will always use this shit to rob society blind.
Luckily the time for highly centralized art opinion is somewhat over with the internet. It is much harder now to ‘force’ opinion to be that so-and-so is just divine and worth ten billion dollars for any art they create.
I think Pollock paintings are fine. I’ve seen his paintings in an art gallery at least once.
Compared to most other modern art in the same gallery, Pollock was actually visually pleasing to look at. He knew which colors work well together, which is uhm great.
i thought it was shit until i saw some of his paintings in person, and they’re awesome….
they suck when tiny and on a screen
![[OC] Personal opinion on Jackson Pollock's drip art](https://fedia.io/media/57/a6/57a68784da258ac88cbf772d4cc1c57c31be67a0f7ddda1a203f62c49fd84eff.jpg){kind=link}