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.
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.
“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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
![[OC] Personal opinion on Jackson Pollock's drip art](https://fedia.io/media/57/a6/57a68784da258ac88cbf772d4cc1c57c31be67a0f7ddda1a203f62c49fd84eff.jpg){kind=link}
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.
https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20161004-was-modern-art-a-weapon-of-the-cia
I feel like this really needs to be asked: So?
There were ulterior motives. Okay. And?
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.
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.
When it’s done, before it’s destroyed.
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.
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.
And I would say the same about Jackson Pollock and Barnett Newman.
And I would say the same about Jackson Pollock and Barnett Newman.
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.
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.
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?
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.