Is it art or is it marketing?

MrBishop

MrBishop

Well-Known Member
Picture in your mind a huge painting with several black lines on it and a red swash or colour somewhere close to the middle, entitled "Slave trader" . or a Papier maché statue resembling a flattened anus, but green entitled "Green Hole". Now...picture the price tags. $120,000.00 and $47,500.00 respecibly.

The mastery of the artist, the use of colour and motion to show the horror of captivity, the harsh straight lines taking of the bars, the red of blood, the size of the piece taking of the size of the tragedy of slavery.

Contemporary Art...gotta love it right? Wrong!

How in blazes anyone can compare this imaginative description as anything resebling the artform of daVinci or Degas and still have the gaul to ask thousands, if not hunderds of thousands of dollars for it is beyond me.

Why do they deserve this money? Am I blind to the actual artfulness in this "Art" or is it a Marketing campagne of immense proportion (far more artful than the pieces they are selling IMHO).

Is this closer to Nike ads, where you end up paying for the name rather than the product?

Opinions?
 
i think art is what you make of it. what appeals to you. i don't like the mona lisa...but it's still art. there are so many forms of art...just like music...a never ending variety....and that's the way i like it.
 
It's art, it's just not art that you appreciate. Art is to make you feel something. I'm sure to the right person, this stuff makes them feel. Not that I care for it personally, but that's just me. Think about the German guy that was selling jars of shit a few years back.
 
To me, art should elicit some response below the concious level.

This doesn't do it for me. Art is strictly interpretive though, so some things that I might not consider art, others might. I don't think that makes either of us right or wrong, simply different.
 
I have no problem (yeah, right) with some upstart yahoo splattering paint on a board and calling it what ever he wants. I do have a major problem when the city I pay taxes to buys said piece of shit with my hard earned cash. And can even be bothered to ask. And then IT winds up in some office where the only people seeing it are other assholes who are also sucking cash outta my pocket.
 
Well, art's a lot of things to a lot of people. As I've said before: Art is just about anything... unless they ask a Republican-led congress for funding. Then, chances are it's obscenity. :D
 
Art used to be something appreciable by anyone with no "art knowledge". This is just decadence.
 
Luis G said:
Art used to be something appreciable by anyone with no "art knowledge". This is just decadence.
Click to expand...

so literature or music that requires prior knowledge is also decadence? and if something is easy to understand and accessible to all regardless of their education, this is good?

what's wrong with knowing something about the context, the history, the process of ANYTHING to gain better appreciation? if I see a painting that I understand immediately, I'm bored and walk away...If I see (or hear, or read) something that I don't quite get, that makes me question, that forces me to reconsider previously held beliefs... I get excited. A painting that is a simple rendering of some recognizable object is not art in my world, -- it's banal decoration...
 
Ms Ann Thrope said:
so literature or music that requires prior knowledge is also decadence? and if something is easy to understand and accessible to all regardless of their education, this is good?

what's wrong with knowing something about the context, the history, the process of ANYTHING to gain better appreciation? if I see a painting that I understand immediately, I'm bored and walk away...If I see (or hear, or read) something that I don't quite get, that makes me question, that forces me to reconsider previously held beliefs... I get excited. A painting that is a simple rendering of some recognizable object is not art in my world, -- it's banal decoration...
Click to expand...

If Leonard or Miguelangel had made pieces of such pseudoart, we wouldn't know about them.
 
I bow to your superior knowledge of the topic...I never realized that the criteria for great art is made up of accessibility and recognizability by a culturally illiterate populace
 
In my world that's what art is, no need to have a previous knowledge or be a culturally literate person, the art should express the knowledge necessary in itself.

Of course, many current artists won't agree with me :D
 
sorry...I understand that not everyone wishes to be challenged when they look at art...many want the comfort of the familiar....but, Luis...you are missing out on so many joys and discoveries I can't begin to list...
 
I assume you are a culturally literate person, do you really appreciate that as art ??? (post #1) I just can't see it, if you could elaborate on it, i will be glad to read it :)

Without the intention of being sarcastic, I did this in less than 30 seconds, I assume that if i thaught somebody about the hidden art in it, they would be pleased and willing to pay me US$120,000 for it. :confuse3:
 
I make my living in the art world...and my opinion on the image of post #1 is that it was quickly constructed to make a point about contemporary art. No, I don't think it is a powerful and eloquent image. However, this is not because it is abstract, but based on my own instincts developed from 15+ years of looking at art professionally, and a lifetime of going to museums and galleries.

However, here's an image of one of my favorite paintings: Robert Motherwell's 'Elegy to the Spanish Republic No. 110' painted in 1971.
motherwell.jpg

I find it both poetic and haunting. Would I feel that way if I didn't have a background in art history that helps me understand the development of visual language in art? Probably not. Just as I wouldn't appreciate the music of Ornette Coleman had I not already been a fan of Charlie Parker, or enjoy the books of Italo Calvino if I hadn't read James Joyce. The more you learn about ANYTHING, the more discriminating you become, intentionally or not.
 
I spent about 6 years working with fine art & it's collectors, LACMA, several large & many small galleries while I was in L.A.

Art is...a commodity. Once some large or well respected collector picks up a piece, the artist becomes popular, which, in a capitalistic society, means his/her work appreciates. Some last for days, some years. Aesthetically, much of it is nothing that a 6 year old couldn't do. I doubt your six year old gets 5, 6, 7 figures per piece though. Which makes it marketing. The few truly unique & takented atrists last ages. They're usually renditions of life. "Modern art" & it's artists will fade into the din of background noise at some point & become nothing more than fashion.

Compare Michaelangelo to Warhol to get the perspective.

michelangelo.jpg


warhol.gif
 
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