Modern art is really quite broad. Personally I like to shit on a lot of abstract art but I have to admit there's some beautiful and mighty interesting abstract art as well. I never got what makes Victor boogie woogie by Mondriaan so great though, and I'm not a fan of Picasso either. So yes, it is really mostly subjective. About the 'he could paint' argument: that's how I looked at modern abstract and impressionistic art as a kid: shouldn't there be a line of improvement in paintings skills over the centuries? Why paint like a retarded kid and place a meaning onto it nobody else can see without it getting explained? Well, the thing is the art of painting realistically has been pretty much done to perfection. Most modern art is made with different intent. It isn't ALL about skill. I don't like the majority of modern art neither, but I acknowledge that it is often due to lack of understanding. I found when the meaning of an at first shitty abstract piece is explained I can sometimes even dig it! There's also a large chance the pretentious artists that know how to get their work under the attention of galleries and the general public may be affecting OP's view on modern art as a whole (without taking notice of it all).
What do you mean by modern art? you railed against "modern" art then immediately name-checked an artistic movement from the 1880's and a bloke who died in 1956. Modern art is a very broad church and almost all disciplines and styles are represented and valued within it. You say impressionism "ruined" centuries of artists competing to outdo each other in technical proficiency. I say it was the first time that artists recognized that an arms race towards accurate representation was a bit of a dead end and it might be more interesting to start to experiment with meaning. Its all subjective, of course. Each to their own. But if what you're getting at is that modern artists are using these experiments as excuses to be lazy, and that there is no place in modern art for skilled craftsmen, and that you prefer art that is skilled and where representation is key, then that can be found as well. For every Tracy Emin's unmade bed, there's a Ron Mueck sculpture: Here he is inserting individual hairs into the pores of one. Thing is, the art establishment is rife with snobbery, elitism, ideological echo-chamberism, insular thinking and class warfare. I'm not opposed to criticism of modern art movements, but the blanket statement "modern art is shit" sounds to me a lot like "modern music is shit" to which the response is "look harder."
As you say each to their own. But although I do like some impressionist painting, I don't quite understand what you're saying here. For me there are works of art going back to the renaissance at least that express meaning. Perhaps meaning that appears more contextualized, but it's still there. Or I seem to see it there. Maybe I'm confusing 'meaning' with 'significance' - but I think not. Surely Rembrandt for example in his many self portraits expresses some meaning? Or is he a proto impressionist in so far as he does? Obviously with the invention of photography everything changed and naturalistic depictions became less important thus opening up the field for experimentation. I'm not against experimentation at all - just don't like some of the results.
I understand what you mean about SOME MODERN ART BEING shit, but I just protest saying that all modern art is.....Anyone can do anything and call it art...Ok, here is a sponge on a table, and it is modern art....right....sure....Those blank canvasses, TY....? No......sorry.....
I probably tripped over my words there. I'm not saying that impressionists invented "meaning" and that anything that predates them expresses nothing except that which it literally represents. What I meant was more along the lines of: "beginning to examine the relationship between an object and its meaning". When i said "experimenting with meaning" I really meant experimenting with that object/symbol/meaning relationship. I didn't mean just injecting meaning into an image. The best way to put it would probably be: an object/image has meaning, but not all of those meanings can be fully explored by simply creating an accurate representation of that image.
Here's a list of art pieces that were so bad they were mistakenly thrown out by janitors in art galleries: http://newobserveronline.com/rubbish-mistaken-for-art/ When art pieces become literal pieces of garbage priced $15,000 or more, you know the art establishment has hit rock bottom.
When I say modern art, I mean the broad definition of the idea and movement of art that came out in the early 20th century. Such as a blue painted canvas with a white line down the middle of it, a bicycle wheel on a stool, anything by Jackson Pollock, Marcel Duchamp's snow shovel and Urinal. That being said, I do appreciate abstract art that indicates real effort that the artist put into it. Especially 3 dimensional sculptures made of wood, metal or stone.
Jackson Pollack based his work on the art of Indians of the South West that he had seen in his childhood in that he removed the work from the easel and placed it on the floor so that he could work on it from all angles even standing in the middle from time to time. He was the first to use alkyd enamels and he used his body and instruments other than a brush to paint his pictures. He broke away from the constrains of gravity in that his work is meant to be viewed from all angles even though museums typically hang it on a wall and he used gravity to make his paintings. He was attempting to capture the moment of painting, not the depiction of an object. He was capturing the physical motions that he used to create his works. His works are records of the energy and motion that he used to create them. He showed that process surpasses objects. Things are merely motion in a field as told us by modern physics. Pollack showed us the field of motion that generates the thing. http://youtu.be/EncR_T0faKM http://youtu.be/hE71R_4Pxxs
I hear you there.......If you need a page to understand what you are looking at...the experience becomes too cerebral....and for me.....I connect with art or not on emotional levels....I even connect with some modern art pieces....The thing with modern art for some artists...is to let you use your own senses and imagination to see and feel something or not.....That has been a discussion in art ......You can look at a painting of a dog or anything else....and there it is....technically perfect....with everything also in painting technically perfect....but that is what it is.....with not much room for you but to just like it or not....or feel it for what it is or not... I like all kinds of art, so I am not saying one is better than the other here...but I really don't want to have to read about its explanation with and on and on explanation.... Also, sometimes artists see and express things with new eyes. My tree is pink....yes..I know it is not....but look at it with news eyes in my painting...sort of thing.
I like some kinds of modern art, but some of them are totally empty. Like, they don't make me feel anything. I like art where you can almost taste the emotions the artist had when he/she made that piece of art. At some point, I think that art is everything. Anyone can make art. Because it isn't always about making things look like what they are. Art is when we do the things we love. For me, art is running. Art is music. Art is Claude Monets paintings. Art is this world. xx
agreed.. this shit is created by the people who suffer because of the lack of talent.. these guyz are no genius, not gifted..
Just because you don't like or understand it doesn't mean it is shit. It means primarily you're not into it. A lack of interest, affiliation and/or understanding. I've appreciated some art only after the meaning got explained to me. It's not ideal, it's not like the classics (although if you're not into symbolism you will miss a shitload in classic paintings as well ) but it is also not shit by definition.
Some modern art literally is shit.British artist Chris Ofili balances his paintings of mythologically evolved monkeys on elephant dung.