Comments: Even a cursory inspection of modern art shows that beauty,
Years ago, I had to hire some one to help me put together a brochure of pen and inks, watercolors and pastels for a company.
A parade of artists came through the door with portfolios of modern color splotches, scribblings and who the hell knew what.
One young thing at the end of the day put her assemblage on the table and there was the same eyeball searing crap of angles, blobs and smears.
For some reason she pulled out five exquisite pen and inks studies of still life and three pencil nudes. She said she included them to prove that she could draw.
The only response I could make was "Why in hell are you wasting your time doing this other shit!"
No answer. I did hire her for the job.
Posted by Vermont Woodchuck at August 1, 2014 11:02 AM
The problem isn't so much the artists as the arts community. Like the Dire Straits song "The Gallery" there are great artists out there doing wonderful work, but they won't get hung in any gallery, won't get in any magazines, won't get any shows, and won't get glowing reviews from professors and arts writers.
Its not the people who can DO so much as the people who cannot, but get paid to talk about it. To be sure, there's a lot of trash art being done by trash artists, but the system pretty well forces everyone in that direction.
Posted by Christopher Taylor at August 1, 2014 1:41 PM
Postmodernism's fetish with the counter-narrative is endless: ugliness is more valuable than beauty, children are better off without families, religious devotion is contemptible, violent oppressive starving third-world societies are superior to well-fed free Western ones, etc. etc. ad nauseam. Their objective is simple and constant: status. With every fiber and utterance they scream "Look at me, how I've transcended the bounds of logic and tradition." Their obsessive self-congratulation is their sad substitute for religion. They are to be pitied.
Posted by jack_gott at August 2, 2014 5:55 AM
Christopher, those gallery owners, art appraisers and Poufts, those Champagne Charlies, who stand around pronouncing what is art and what isn't are failed artists, maybe more appropriately 'artistes'. Thems that can do, thems that can't talk.
Posted by Vermont Woodchuck at August 2, 2014 6:21 AM
What they all need is a good hard punch in the face.
My uncle Letsgo Lozko raised bantam chickens. He should have used the bottom of their coop as art, shit and feathers and all.
Posted by chasmatic at August 2, 2014 8:21 AM