It may be contrived, but it certainly remains
undistorted freedom of expression, pure
and simple. Whether or not it is art, is another
matter altogether. Let's not blur the issue by
insinuating the creator of the work somehow
does not have the right to create it.
It's utter arrogance to suggest that these self-absorbed dilettantes have somehow advanced beyond the masters who preceded them. It's a paradox that they stand on the shoulders of giants, and still can't see beyond their own rectums. They can't be "derivative" because they flatout lack the talent. So to compensate, they denigrate the achievments of their betters, discard them as antiquated, and anoint themselves as the arbiters of taste.
And the sad thing is, the so-called Art Establishment plays along with the charade.
Ironically, by forcing "artists" into a rigid eschewal of form, modernism effectively enslaves artists to THAT school of thought. How "original" is it to do the same thing that a thousand other no-talent hacks are doing?
It is possible that this is the popular interpretation of modernism. I'm sure that many artists would vehemently disagree with modernism structured around anything so unprincipled--as many as there are others who aspire by doing whatever they want. But modernism is not a distinct school when defined by a ubiquitous empty willfulness. It has features and characteristics. One of these, which Ortega Y Gasset explains, is the private tendency of art. It is aristocratic, clubby, purposefully separate and purposefully abstract and shielded from knowledgeable penetration by the masses. When the popular mind aspires and pretends membership, only so many can see the humor in that.
No doubt at the Googenheim in New York City right now, patrons are surely advised by signs not to bother flushing the toilet -- it's effluent has already been coveted by thousands of excited "collectors" who require veerrry "modern" art.
January 10, 1963
Current Communist Goals
EXTENSION OF REMARKS OF HON. A. S. HERLONG, JR. OF FLORIDA
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Thursday, January 10, 1963
22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."
Full text here.
Why would a wealthy benefactor pay a small fortune to a painter when he could get a more accurate, less expensive and far more "high-tech" photograph? Why would a rich adventurer bring a painter when he could commision a photographer?
If painting didn't evolve into abstaction or fantasy, it would have vanished as a relevant art form.
That will be $4 million dollars, please.
Vannrox: It is a really excellent article and gives us an insight into the minds of the Lemmings that call themselves "Democrats".Democrats are responsible for running up prices for fraudulent art? What about the heartbreak of psoriasis? One suspects you might see mountebanks and hucksters on both sides of the political spectrum in the art world.
All art is sh&t ... literally as well as figuratively.
Instead of working hard to fulfill the course requirement, I drank beer and played Rugby.
Not wanting to show up empty handed at the critical review period,
I covered a canvas with various shades of green and palet knife in hand,
scrawled 3 vived red vertical forms in the vicinity of the middle.
This "painting" was received as a work of "ingenious sensibility",
it was at that point I realized that the piece of paper they handed me from this Liberal Arts College was utterly worthless.
American Modernism does have a unique vein in a few of the proponents. One could cite Edward Hopper, Georgia O'Keeffe and above all Maynard Dixon as painters attempting and succeeding in being unique and modern in their approach. In the case of Dixon, he was accused as being a western painter and compared to a couple of illustrators of the west. In reality he is a modernist painter in the west that has gradually emerged through several forms of a modern approach, namely tonalism, pointalism, impressionism and finally cubist realism. By 1930 he achieved his own powerful style, simplistic yet powerful compositions that have a strong message for the viewer about the western landscape.
Modernism does not mean abstraction in the strictest sense, however, real artists and not copyists can make a strong statement without answering to the academics. Remember, those who can't paint, teach.
The rest was crap. 90% of the people who made the effort to go to this museum made comments like "my kid could do this" or "this is stupid" or "I don't get it". I looked at the exhibits for 3 years, read the literature, discussed it with art students - and I came to the conclusion "my kid could do this", "this is stupid" and "I don't get it". Modern art is suited for a very very very small audience and the pretentious.
FYI
I have a simple rule to define what is art, and what is not.
If I can do it, it is not art.