|
There are many things not being understood in some of the arguments I'm seeing here, including the ones pushing for him. I'm going to focus on the ability for art to be easily reproduced, what some people frame as "my child could do that" or "anyone can throw paint at a canvas", and the value of the technical skill of an artist and its role in art, specifically in America because we are discussing Pollock and it is a reasonable place to start. There was once a time when people made paintings like this:  These people were known as limners. These were American limners, not to be confused with the European ones who made cool books. These limners were, more or less, Jackson Pollock. They had no formal training in painting but they did it anyway and they made money doing it. The market at the time was such that moderately wealthy merchants wanted pictures of their children, but they couldn't afford a really great artist, so they hired one of these dudes to do a quick painting of a loved one or themselves. These people were replaced by mechanical reproduction. If you want a picture of someone, you get a photographer and that photographer is faster and better than some lovely limner. Around the time photography started hitting the mainstream, we also begin to see a more thoroughly civilized America, and some schools (both literal art schools, and just groups of talented painters) begin to appear. This is when we start to see American impressionism and the other great landscape painters (Hudson River etc.) pop up. Photography was taking care of the bulk of portraits (certainly some were still being painted, Sargent wasn't struggling to find work), and there was now room for decorative painting to really take off as the market begins to shift a bit toward NY from Paris near the beginning of the 20th century. Then the Great War happens and most of the European art movements just straight up die, notably the Futurists. Then WWII happens and the Europeans are all like "Aight gently caress this, I saw the futurists die I'm loving outta here." Enter NY, full swing. (By which I mean there is now a ridiculously large art market that still hasn't died in NY, enabling the sale of some poo poo from American artists that wouldn't ever have seen the light of day otherwise.) The world has changed really rapidly, seen two world wars, photography is astonishingly accessible and starting to see a role outside of portraiture, and a lot of sensitive artist types have realized that not only does photography exist to easily reproduce reality, but you can also now (~mid 50s) just straight up copy basically any work of art mechanically without any problem. This puts into real question the value of the artists ability to truly create whatever you want to term it, I'll go with "reproductions" by which I mean photorealistic paintings or sculpture. These things have significant historic weight, but only because nothing but an astonishingly skilled craftsman could reproduce reality. Now, any idiot with a photocopier or a camera can do it instantly. And, what's worse, they can also photograph or copy your exact copy of reality. So, with that in mind, most of the art world decided it was probably a-ok to start exploring things in the abstract and Jackson Pollock is now the modern day limner, an untrained painter making money from painting. The only difference is that now the individual limner can be propped up by the market to the status of godhood, rather than having more or less the status of your senior prom photographer. So, when debating the value of modern or contemporary art, it is usually best to realize that the entire world stopped caring about technical execution about a hundred years ago, so it isn't even really a talking point. Because art doesn't look like this anymore:  vs  It looks like this:  vs  And there is much, much more to it now. So much more that some people don't even bother actually making the artwork, they just write about it. The March Hare fucked around with this message at 19:54 on Jul 27, 2014 |
#
¿
Jul 27, 2014 19:50
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 16, 2024 14:58 |
|
|
Control Volume posted:Art has transcended the physical medium and now exists in the headspace of the cultural elite, taking on a new life of its own, an organic creation born of the gestalt knowledge of art critics and aficionados. Truly, art has no bounds. This but unironically.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 27, 2014 23:46
|
|
|
the posted:You wanna get into "how can you explain ____", try Franz Kline. Kline is pretty basic, was buds with all the dudes in the scene and rode the wave. Being friends w/ the dudes already making tons of cash and then having them all pimp you out to gallerists is a good way to become famous. That, and also his work is super impressive in person and of all the expressionists I'm pretty sure he was the best at actually executing a painting. They're super controlled in their execution if you really get a good look at them, and most of them were done from life.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 28, 2014 05:15
|
|