Fun Stuff > MAKE
As abstract as you can stomach
KharBevNor:
--- Quote from: ekmesnz on 24 Jan 2007, 09:41 ---I think it's fair to point out I haven't accused anyone of being uncultured or dim for not enjoying Rothko,
--- End quote ---
--- Quote from: ekmesnz on 24 Jan 2007, 09:41 ---Firstly, perhaps those people inclined to learn more about the arts are those with the depth of feeling and emotion necessary to enjoy a Rothko.
--- End quote ---
...
What you're basically saying is, that art is a product produced by and for a cultural elite and if you don't get it then you've got no soul.
EH URRRRR.
ekmesnz:
--- Quote from: KharBevNor on 24 Jan 2007, 12:21 ---
...
What you're basically saying is, that art is a product produced by and for a cultural elite and if you don't get it then you've got no soul.
EH URRRRR.
--- End quote ---
There's a basic misconception going on here. In the modern age, artists produce artwork as a mode of personal expression. No one is painting a secrete code that disperses messages to a select few. It's so tempting to whip out the "Well, maybe you just don't understand." bullshit because it's too difficult to explain how breaking from centuries of established tradition doesn't make someone a poser.
KharBevNor:
As I've made clear, I don't think that breaking from established tradition is in any way bad. I just think the way Rothko and most other abstract expressionists (and the fucking suprematist mob) broke from it was, basically, pretty crap. Maybe interesting once or twice, definitely not something to base a career or movement on. I've also said that perhaps the fact that I'm an illustrator colours my perceptions as I'am constantly striving to create art that communicates. Self expression is all fine and dandy, but it doesn't always produce results worth looking twice at. Tracey Emin anyone?
But, I'd also like to say, that even though I'm an anarchist, I don't believe that traditions should be avoided just because they're traditions. You lose centuries of technique and visual vocabulary that way. Rothko was left with a visual vocabulary that consisted entirely of shades of colour and rectangles. Sorry if that doesn't thrill me. Abstract work can get me, I must say, but the necessary element missing from Rothko is movement. Rothko looks and feels like a still-life of the inside of a dupont colour mixing machine.
ekmesnz:
I think good artists defy tradition out of necessity, and even when this defiance results in pictures that don't use the same vocabulary as old pictures, the standards have not been lost. Art history is full of men and women who have decided specific methods do not fit within the ideological or emotional framework they seek to operate in, but the things they discard naturally resurface in new and interesting ways later.
The huge body of work the public typically decries--everything from Suprematism to Constructivism to Post-Modernism blah blah blah--came about because these people's ideas and feelings were ineffable with the visual language that the artists who came before them gave them.
However, I've said before that no one needs to enjoy looking at these things. It is enough that some of us do for that work to be declared "art".
KharBevNor:
Also, I was never arguing that any of it wasn't art. I was just saying bad art. My interpretation of art is liberal enough to include cooking, and the novelty Simpsons mug I'm drinking my coffee out of. I define art as, roughly, any object which has had someone direct care in to its design or manufacture. A coca cola bottle is as much art as the Mona Lisa in my opinion. What I'm talking about is quality of art, which is a whole different kettle of fish.
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