Emperor's New Clothes Syndrome?

Question

Modern art. I don't get it. A blank canvas with three knife slashes in it? Apparently the artist is exploring the "area that exists beyond the canvas." Right.
A blue square. Thats all. It's just a blue square. Anyone can cover a canvas in blue paint. A flippin monkey could do it!
Does anyone see where I'm coming from? People go and see these "works of art" and exclaim at how fantastic they are. It's like people are afraid to say what they are actually looking at for fear of being thought of as stupid and unartistic.
So what do you think of modern art?

Thanks for all your great answers so far- some interesting points of view. :)

Oh dear- should have known I was delving into dodgy territory here! I like Chris's answer- i think it's the most fair. It's a wise man that can see both sides of an argument. "Some is amazing , some is dire." I have seen examples of both in the Tate Modern. For example, I love the work of Kandinsky and totally respect work such as Doctor Watson's. However I do think that Princess Buttercup is right in that a blue square on canvas is a con. I've created some of my own modern art which I hope to one day sell for thousands by conning people into buying them:

Spheres in a Barren Waste
http://file018b.bebo.com/11/large/2007/03/10/17/2136901420a3811991653b455120647l.jpg

Sacrificial Pyramid
http://file023b.bebo.com/14/large/2007/03/10/17/2136901420a3811972296b919594118l.jpg

Infinite Reality
http://file023b.bebo.com/14/large/2007/03/10/17/2136901420a3811972203b430123806l.jpg

American Horse- you made me laugh- I mean, an American with a sense of humour! nah im oj ;p

Answer 1

Dont forget that art doesnt have to just deal with the way the world looks. It might evoke all manner of moods and emotions, including the negative. 'Modern art' encompasses too much to make a blanket judgement, It's like saying 'what do you think of recent films or recent music, Some is amazing , some is dire. What the artist is exploring is incidental, you respond to it or you dont. No need to intellectualise, be guided by intuition..;Whatever turns you on'.

Answer 2

I agree in the sense that I do not see value in a blue square on a canvas just because it's "Different".
However, it always annoys me when people say "I could do that!"
Art isn't about how hard it was to produce the piece. It's about the piece itself; the expression of an idea.

Why does it matter whether or not you could copy the artwork?
For example, take a book instead of a painting. You could look at "Pride and Prejudice" and re-type it, word for word. Does that mean it's a bad piece of work because you can reproduce it? That's not where the talent is, merely copying it.
The talent is in thinking of it originally. See what I mean? Simplistic art is the same way. No, I don't think a blue square is clever, but some "simpler" art, like Jackson Pollock, can be duplicated if you tried, but the original thought and emotion wouldn't be there. Does that make sense?

Answer 3

Art is more about exploring and expressing what many people won't. Many people can paint a canvas blue, but how many can see more than just a blue canvas?

Slashing a canvas at one time would be so unthinkable that the first person to do it and see the art in it (use of a canvas for more than just covering with paint) made people look at it differently.

Now if someone just started slashing canvases they would just be copying the first artist, can they find a new way to slash a canvas and show a different view?

It is more about someone that is willing to step outside the box and see the beauty or emotion, where most people don't see it.

Answer 4

It is a stereotypical (and rather ironic) reaction that modern and/or contemporary art is worthless. If you take close study of it, you will find that much of it is a reaction to a historically dominant tradition of academic art. Many of the modern artists onward (and not just visual artists) found this tradition culturally oppressive.

If you understand this context, you will realize this art was not made to be viewed in the traditional sense you're seeking to view it: being moved with your eyes, awed by technique, etc. but much of this art was made strictly in reaction to these traditions. It's as if you're trying to fit a circle into a square. It's why you and others feel it shouldn't be classified as art.

Are you willing to shrug off more than a century of history because you don't feel aesthetically moved by a few artists? Even if you don't like these particular artists there are hundreds of notable artists in the modern period that should not be discounted based on misconception and distaste. Plenty of them will still aesthetically move you in some traditional way you seek.

Also, the modern period is too often confused with contemporary art which is still equally important. Regardless of how pretentious or useless the perception of it is, it does not define the true value of it. At best it reveals the values of those perceiving it, but history will reveal this.

Answer 5

The fact that you, or your child, or a trained monkey could execute a given work of art does not in itself devalue that work as art. Art is NOT defined by how difficult it is to produce. Could anyone have covered the canvas in blue paint? Sure. But the thing is, you see, they didn't. An artist did it first. He looked outside the traditional box and the hackneyed set of definitions about what is 'acceptable' and he produced a painting that made the viewers look at art in a new way, just like the impressionists did. When the impressionists started producing paintings that didn't QUITE look like 'real life', they were condemned in much the same words as you used in your question. It took time and exposure before the people could understand and learn to see in a new way. Normally I would recommend to you that if you actually do want to understand and appreciate modern or contemporary art, that you go out and expose yourself to it with an open eye and mind, but in your case it's possible that you are already so hostile to the very idea of it that you're incapaple of 'getting it'. I don't know of course, but it sure does sound that way.

Answer 6

Art is about ideas,that's what counts..The dictionary definition for Fine Art is the completion of ones nature...When M Duchamp put an urinal in an art gallery in 1917,it was part the thinking of " to make life an art and an art of life"...Every ones an Artist..Or do you not like that ,you demand a skill be shown you cannot do?..Thousands of people have learnt to paint/draw figuratively,anybody can be taught to paint draw figuratively,what counts is the ideas behind the expression..

Answer 7

Using a few select samples to put down the full spectrum of 'modern' art is simply nothing more than stereotyping.

I also find a little of it silly and false. But I'm knowledgeable enough to realize that 'modern' art includes a large variety of styles and concepts, much of which is complex, intricate and profound.

I am an artist and I paint 'modern' art and I don't slash canvases or paint a whole canvas blue, But neither you nor a child could possibly ever do what I do on canvas.

You want proof?

http://pics.livejournal.com/unmired/gallery/00002xgc



QUIT STEREOTYPING! STEREOTYPING IS ALSO A CON!

Answer 8

Hahahahaha!!!! Finally someone agrees. Everyone can see "modern art" in everything they do ....rake the leaves, make mud pies, watching the clouds or even watching crap. However it's not art...
People today just CANNOT think for themselves, they are robots.
I was in a museum in DC, looking at one of the "modern art" someone toss some paint on a canvas (by the way I could have done way better without even trying).
And a well dress couple came over, muttering to myself so they could overhear, I said ..."Wow look at those lines how brilliant it’s almost translucent what an exceptional piece of art.
Of course the well dress couple could see the translucence stupendous that DID NOT exist....there was absolutely no translucence in the art. They agreed and talk about the translucence of the art for 5 mins!
I then said opps! it all solid color paint that was toss on a canvas…I was imagining the translucence. They agreed. lol
I think hats off to all the hopping "artistic" monkeys, no need to make mechanical Robots we already have them.

Answer 9

obviously sigumend is offended with people's taste. is art good because it's art, or is it good because it's good. i think pollack was a hack! and so was piccasso! yep there i said it. i'm an artist and i think those two men conned millions with their crap. then you look at van gogh, looks like a child painted those masterpieces. so why do i like his work. well i love the impressionist movement. but it's not that his and monet and manet's work was 'brilliant' , it's that it was the FIRST. noone had done that kind of work ....and there have certainly been better impressionist since then. but you have to admire the "first" in the movement. i admire andy warhol, again the first in the modern art movement. but since then everything else has been crappy. some people are con artists like picasso, pollack. they took a movement and exploited it. so MY POINT IS...i can embrace modern art, and all other types of movements, but i dont have to embrace every single damn artist that comes along. i have the intelligence to know when i'm being conned. and a blue square on canvas is a con!!

Answer 10

Although there are many people making art that is a copy of a existing movement and many people pretending to understand a medium they do not just for the sake of being pretentious, neither of these things are art.

I struggled wIth this for years as an artist & I eventually came to realise that whether something is art or not is in the intention not the object.

Someones intention to communicate makes art, not the medium in which they communicate. Many people could paint a blue canvas, but it is actually doing it and knowing your reason for doing it that make it art. Many people could sing like the Beatles but only they did and it is their story in their music not anyone elses.