I stumbled across this video late last night and couldn't help but be intrigued by it. Andy Rooney, the famous "60 Minutes" commentator, goes on quite an impressive rant about modern art, raising a lot of questions about our place as creatives and the validity of what we do.
Rooney, a self-described "know nothing boob," notes: "I don't like most of the stuff passing for 'art,' and it's everywhere." It's a rather epic takedown; he sees modern art as "pretentious nonsense," claiming that artists have not earned the right to be avant garde because they have not (in his eyes) demonstrated an aptitude for more classically oriented works before moving into less traditional realms. He sees modern art as an elitist club devoted only to sustaining its own existence. There's even a very funny movie devoted to the idea:
Is Rooney right? Has Gursky unfairly usurped Adams? Do the world's most expensive photographs hold their own? Or is Rooney's rant the very thing he laments: pretentious nonsense? It does seem rather strange to admit you know nothing about something immediately before you dismiss it as invalid and unworthy. But at the same time, the majority of the audience of any art knows far less than those initiated in that world. Do we owe the audience? Are they entitled to anything at all? Even within our own worlds, we have mostly universal conventions on what is good and what is bad. When was the last time you saw a selective color portrait and proclaimed: "this is art!" But on whose authority do we make such judgments? On whose authority does the audience? Is beauty really in the eye of the beholder, or is that a convenient justification for bad art? Let us know your thoughts.
Rooney's whole shtick is being a curmudgeon.
He anticipated the Fox network in his "tell it like it is" plaints about societal change and his discomfort about educated people.
This was built into a full fledged anti-intellectual business model at Fox.
I am not sure why we need to have a celebration of ignorance.
Pretty easy as he declares it himself in his first few sentences.
You don't have to like art of any sort. You are entirely free to do so. However, his disparagement of a field has little understanding of based on "common sense" is just another way of saying "I know nothing about this, i don't like it and thus it has no value because, common sense."
Denigration of education in celebration of "common sense" has become the rallying cry of those who demand simple black and white answers to the world.
My reference to Fox is apt as they have built their network on selling the idea that the world's problems are easily solved if common sense were applied. Note too their anti-intellectual bias here:
http://www.cc.com/video-clips/ahba3f/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart-gre...
There are no simple answers. Claiming so just leads to disappointment.
What does art have to do with photography?
when it's art, everything!
aelita andre. Type her name into a search. Have fun ;)
When I was in college as an art major in the early 90's, there were no standards taught. It was more about learning how to verbally justify what you created. As long as you could justify what you created you received good marks. I relate this to everybody getting a participation award in sports even if you just held down the bench all season. I knew some truly talented artists back then, some (like me) were just average at best and others just had no talent at all and we all advanced together year after year with pretty much the same grade averages. The argument that "who's to say what is good and bad in art" is the cop out for a hunk of dog feces on a dinner plate sitting on a podium with a knife and fork next to it to be considered "art". Take a picture of the same thing and someone will think it's art too. Give it a title and description somehow describing the human condition and you can put a 6 figure price tag on it.
I went to a group art show recently because a talented friend who painted in oils was going to be part of it. My reaction was confusion & amusement. It seemed obvious most of the art was made hours before the show. Examples: a few cans of soup with a plastic toy (non-farm) animal sitting on top & childish scrawls on notebook paper taped to the wall. The only ones who seemed to have genuine talent was my oil painting friend & another woman who drew cute bunnies that looked like they belonged on greeting cards. The artists themselves seemed to be the very stereotype of the bohemian artist, which I guess was the point...
Andy rooneys best work is sadly when being interviewed by sacha baron cohen as "ali g". With that said i really enjoy his rants at the end of 60 minutes.
I think some of the modern art forms can be pretentious, and I'm talking about the "anything can be art" crowd. In my personal view there is a distinction between art and fine art. Art is about creating something that evokes an emotion, whereas fine art is about learning the classical techniques.
"Do we owe the audience? Are they entitled to anything at all?"
Only if you show your art to them. The audience deserves an "intended experience". It could good, bad, or a variety of other experiences, but they deserve some effort from the artist to evoke a specific feeling. And for the portion of the audience that doesn't get it, there should be some alternate method (like a plaque) to describe what the artist intended that experience to be.
Anyone can slap paper mache onto shaped chicken wire and paint it weird colors, but that effort alone doesn't make it worthy of an audience.
Sometimes I think only time will tell. El Greco was forgotten until the Romantics re-discovered him centuries later. Beethoven went back to writng quartets after his 9th symphony & his peers & contemporaries thought they were painful to listen to & the result of his deafness, but are now considered ahead of their time...
I wonder why this article has been posted when it's a banal critique of public art - sure, little creative endeavour actually engages as art or poetry even when the artist intends it - far more interesting to see actual critique of, say, photography as art or photography that actually pushes the boundaries.
I completely agree with Rooney.
Andy mentioned Picasso as being able to do anything he wanted... Well why? Way back in the 60's when I was in learning to draw, Picasso was a bit far over the hill, but he could draw, the man could do more with a single line than any one I have ever seen, then or now. I think Andy's reasoning is based on the discipline of Picasso's work, the underpinnings. And those underpinnings are there for anyone to see if you look, no mater your understanding of 'art'. I am not a Picasso fan, don't care for his work - too short sighted, too selffy self.
Photography as art? It depends on the discipline of the photographer and his craft.
But for me even a blind squirrel finds a nut every once in a while.
Maybe he could worry about the standard of modern journalism instead of delving into areas he doesn't know about.
Part of the issue is that talented artists are being shut out of the business and academia by organizations who view anything other than modern art as uncreative and uninteresting. I remember taking drawing classes in college. They were a nightmare. My professor berated me constantly for being too analytical, told me that my art was only suitable for scientific illustration and suggested that I not take any other classes (I guess that was supposed to be an insult?) My final project for that class was thrown together in two hours. It was the worst drawing I've ever done and I got an A on it because my teacher thought I'd "finally learned to loosen up." I can draw or paint anything you want, regardless of whether or not it exists. The problem is it actually might possibly look like it could exist. I know many talented artists who have the same issue. I remember submitting a painting for an art publication in college... it got rejected. You know what got published? A photo of a piece of tree bark tied to a string. I kid you not.
This is why museum attendance is in decline, why respect for the arts is in decline, and why art sales themselves are declining. Because it's boring and holds no meaning to most people. A bunch of straight lines on a canvas is nothing to me but a bunch of lines on a canvas. It doesn't stand out. It's not really pretty or captivating, or even pleasant to look at. It doesn't take any significant amount of skill, talent, or creative thinking to produce. It's just lines. That is how most people look at modern art, including most artists outside of the modern art community. Those of us who put a great deal of thought, time and labor into making our works of art visually appealing and thought provoking tend to resent the fact that we continuously get rejected for publication and display, while those who don't are continuously rewarded for not straying from the herd and catering to biased judges.
Welcome to the subjective world:
P. Mondrian
De Stijl
Fauve
It was good but not so much any more; but still collectable.
I appreciate and respect an artist that can paint/draw/sculpt human and natural forms with realism much more than someone who's painting looks like an old drop cloth fresh off the floor. Art to me should stand on it's own without having to read a paragraph about the artist and what he is striving to accomplish. But just like photography, there are many different genres and each have their own value and merits in the art world. The problem with modern abstract art as I see it is this: when you can't tell the difference (visually) between talent and bullshit then you are fooling yourself when you call it art.
There may not be a difference between talent and bullshit with abstract art in any media - its abstract and very subjective. That's why the different movements in art don't have staying power. But great design and great images do have legs and are sought out.