We just watched a documentary about the 1913 Armory Show, an huge art exhibit introducing many of the new less representational European artists to the US in 1913 and how confounded the critics and public were about this new group of artists. Looking at the work now, it is not shocking to our eyes any longer. We have grown used to that art and accept its brilliance.
But when I go do an art museum now and see installation art, I know what they felt like. Or even more ordinary art. Today I saw perhaps twenty drawings on yellow and pink legal pad paper. They were drawings of ordinary things and not done very well to my eyes. Perhaps that was the point. Or maybe they were the preliminary artwork for sculptures.
But I just can't grasp how so much of what I see in contemporary museums is art. I need the eyes of someone from 2115, I guess.
How do you feel about contemporary art?
13 comments:
I'm not sure how I feel, other than puzzled. But this is interesting: http://mentalfloss.com/article/61675/new-computer-program-sorts-real-jackson-pollock-paintings-fakes
I don't know much about contemporary art, but I have become a fan of modern art in general, helped along by the two excellent museums in Fort Worth, the Kimbell and the Modern.
Even some "classics", though, don't do much for me. Even pieces that aren't representational have to have some sort of form, they have to give me something (apparently something hard to define!). Some just look like aimless scribbling to me. And I believe that art should be able to explain itself; no one else should (or can, really) tell you why it's great.
I wonder if art curators are responsible to encouraging more and more out there art. I need to take a class or something.
Ever since minimalism, it's eluded me.
My reaction to most all modern art of the literary type is....'meh.'
Most of it is a swindle, some is excellent.
(Possible duplicate--Blogger ate my comment, which is a shame because it was the greatest comment ever! Anyway, here we go.)
In a world where shysters like Jeff Koontz and Damien Hirst have become multi-millionaires by convincing gullible fools with more money than taste that giant balloon animals and dead cows floating in formaldehyde are great art, give me a room full of Monets or Magrittes any day.
I think art can only be sensibly and accurately assessed (in terms of aesthetics rather than dollars) when at least 3 or 4 generations have gone by.
And there is this: there are too many frauds in the visual art world. Only time will erase their influences.
I wrote about art -reviews and criticism - in the 80s and 90s - I always tried to find something positive. Now, unpaid, I just like looking. JJ Stickney
Yes, I do think time helps. I bet I would have found nothing to like in the art of that era at the time.
consider Sturgeon's Estimate: 90% of all art (if not all human endeavor) is mediocre or worse. This will tend to include museum shows, and how not all envelope pushes are created equals...
or even equal...
There are some great painters working today. I'm not into abstract or "paint-splatter" stuff.
I try to be open to contemporary art. It's a different way of representing things though, and sometimes I admit I'm not swept away at all...
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