Its Turner Prize time

[Mich the Tester]

I'm with Ayn Rand, as far as the modern 'art' goes.

I see what she's saying but it makes me a bit nervous; looks a bit like the arguments used against 'entartete Kunst'.

But where do you see modern art starting? Would you see Picasso's Guernica as 'modern art'? Or would you see it as traditional Spanish art in a modern interpretation and telling a modern story?

[doodab]

maybe some musicians use the strange music they´ve heard as inspiration for something more accessible.

I found it inspired me to find out more about classical music I actually liked, and to study how the harmonies worked in that, blues & jazz.

[doodab]

I like quite a lot of "modern art" paintings and sculpture and I get some of the early conceptual stuff intellectually, though I'd not say it's aesthetically pleasing, but a lot of the contemporary stuff leaves me cold. It's all very up itself, as if creating something that's actually beautiful is somehow "too common" or "not art". I did quite like Damian Hurst's shark ones, but that's actually satisfying aesthetically.

I suppose like anything we benefit from the passage of time filtering out the crap and leaving the stuff worth bothering with behind.

[SpontaneousOrder]

I see what she's saying but it makes me a bit nervous; looks a bit like the arguments used against 'entartete Kunst'.

But where do you see modern art starting? Would you see Picasso's Guernica as 'modern art'? Or would you see it as traditional Spanish art in a modern interpretation and telling a modern story?

I think (I've not read too much of Rand's theories around art & aesthetics as I'm not overly interested in art) that I have a general agreement with Rand in that to be considered art the work has to be a representation of something 'real'. I.e. a product of rational thought.

Later on in that same section I snipped she goes on to say

And when the practitioners of modern art declare that they don’t know what they are doing or what makes them do it, we should take their word for it and give them no further consideration.

So I personally might like what I'd call modern art, but i'd probably recognize it as being aesthetically pleasing, rather than art.

Regarding Picasso's Guernica - again I'm not an art buff - I would imagine that that could reasonably be considered to be art. Although it's abstract it clearly has a thought process behind it and exists to tell a story. I don't think there's anything wrong with representing some kind of reality, but in a twisted way in order to emphasize some emotional payload - I suppose there is a grey area between that kind of thing and a slashed up canvas that is supposed to depict some kind of anger or rage, for example. But I think that grey area is very thin.

[Mich the Tester]

Regarding Picasso's Guernica - again I'm not an art buff - I would imagine that that could reasonably be considered to be art. Although it's abstract it clearly has a thought process behind it and exists to tell a story. I don't think there's anything wrong with representing some kind of reality, but in a twisted way in order to emphasize some emotional payload - I suppose there is a grey area between that kind of thing and a slashed up canvas that is supposed to depict some kind of anger or rage, for example. But I think that grey area is very thin.

I agree on the grey area, but I imagine that artists who want to use that grey area to express their thoughts or emotions will need to experiment in the black and the white areas (to use your figure of speech); that means you'll probably see lots of art that is rather inaccessible but which contributes in some unpredictable way to developing abstract ways of expressing things. As I said earlier, I think a lot of art is experimentation and as part of the process that doodab described as 'we benefit from the passage of time filtering out the crap and leaving the stuff worth bothering with behind. '

[MicrosoftBob]

Apart from Banksy I haven't seen any modern art that I've liked

[SpontaneousOrder]

doodab described as 'we benefit from the passage of time filtering out the crap and leaving the stuff worth bothering with behind. '

That'll be the proof of the pudding. Some kinds of art are easier for people to gather around in a mutual tulip-talking 'aren't we so cultured' group wank. Last time I went to the tate modern it was sickening listening to the tulip people managed to say to each other regarding a canvas with a single whole poked through it.

If people are still having the same conversations about that piece in 200 years time then I'll have been wrong. I doubt they will though

That's interesting though, thinking of what some people call 'art' as being part of the art-making process. I could see the attraction of seeing it in the same way you might view some old inventor's prototypes/tinkerings in a museum.

[norrahe]

I worked at an insurance firm that specialised in insuring art and they had their own considerable art collection dotted around the office and in meeting rooms, which consisted of many of the former winners of the Turner prize.

Needless to say much of it was pretty tulipe to say the least

[doodab]

I went to the tate modern it was sickening listening to the tulip people managed to say to each other regarding a canvas with a single whole poked through it.

Multiple wholes would have been quite impressive. The whole ought to be more than the sum of it's parts.

[SpontaneousOrder]

Multiple wholes would have been quite impressive. The whole ought to be more than the sum of it's parts.

Haha. Damned muscle memory (presumably I type whole more often than hole).




I like this article Why Art Became Ugly | Ayn Rand, Objectivism, and Individualism | The Atlas Society

It kind of highlights just why modern art (for a lot of people at least) is so uninspiring.