Why artists don't like conceptual contemporary art.
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- Опубликовано: 28 апр 2021
- Why is blue-chip contemporary art unpopular with artists outside of the contemporary art community? The big name artists seem indifferent to whether legions of other artists like their work or not. Artists are not the target audience. Contemporary art is being made for the ultra rich buyer class: for their tastes, their station, and their beliefs. Much of this art is threadbare, and merely aspires to take candy away from billionaire babies. Nevertheless, the rest of us get this thing gruel crammed down our throats, as well as the traditions it is based on.
Are some of the most famous works of contemporary art brilliant achievements in art, or cynical attempts to get rich from gaming the system? Cattelan, Koons, Hirst, Creed, Manzoni, and more!
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I feel like art has just become another way for a certain group of people to differentiate themselves from the plebs, not only through the high prices (”look how much I can spend on a crappy canvas with dots“), but also through pseudo-sophistication (”You need to be smart like us to understand the profundity of a greasy bathtub.“).
It’s all fake obviously, but I feel like even the advocates of modern art have fallen for their own BS.
As long as this only takes place within people’s homes, I don’t mind, but what I really hate is when it infects public life, mainly in the form of modern architecture. Modern architecture is not only ”radically new, boring shit“ but also ”radically new, depressing shit.“
"You need to be smart like us..." exactly. Well I'm the real thing and nobody's heard of me, quelle surprise...
“It pays to keep an open mind, but not so open your brains fall out.”
- Carl Sagan
excellent quote .😀
This video is brilliant and perfectly captures all my feelings about contemporary art. Soulless, selfish and not even inventive.
Thanks so much. Glad you enjoyed the video and that it echoes your own feelings about art.
I'm finding a ton of parallels between the pitch as product, and public health pitching their "shit products"
I think now a days most people are aware of this, but not all.
Not just modern art, but really any Gallery art where its more about meaning than the representation of an idea.
Simply put, if you have an idea and you want to show it accurately, you should work to achieve the skill to do so. Thats why when we see highly technical pieces that also convey something really personally interesting to us, we get a feeling of awe. We see it and go "That is so particularly interesting to me AND to have accomplished this the artist must of studied and practiced things beyond the scope of what many know.
Its like looking at a power point slide show verses a Disney 2d animation from the golden age. Both can convey a message but one obviously has a lot more time, thought, planning, and vision in it that people watching can relate to and feel.
Art is required no matter what form it comes in.
In my humble opinion, good art is when it creates thoughts and conversation.
Thank you for your interesting video
Who are you? Behind this video. I love this and I appreciate you 100% for doing this and daring to not fall into the darkness of conformity.
If doctors and engineers pulled this shit we would be fucked lol.
True!
💉💉💉💉
Oh how deliciously ironic a comment!!
Really? Doctors pushing opiates and engineers designing "planned obsolescence" are close to selling their souls to the 1%.
Brilliant video ! Telling it like it truly is. I can't wait for the Blue Chip and High-End Art market art bubble to burst ! I believe that true art will always stand the test of time the rest will fade away into obscurity.
The rest will fade away just like pop culture music will fade. Only the classics will remain, groundbreaking art and music that stands the test of time BECAUSE it has inherent value to everyone as a human collective. Like Van Gogh or the Beatles.
@@anyariv Exactly like the music industry, no amount of greedy gallerists or idiot billionaires, will ever eclipse the value of true works of art, created by men and women with 'soul' rather than just a talent for attention-grabbing and and a lust for $$$.
Yep time will be the final orbitrator.
I believe there is truth to what you're saying but "Fountain" (the infamous urinal piece) isn't an example for what you're suggesting. It's the complete opposite actually. Marcel Duchamp secretly placed it in the middle of the most prestigious art exhibitions in the US where all of the famous contemporary artists of the time and all of the wealthy patrons were located. He even signed the urinal with a fake name so know one would know it was him as he knew that since he was such a respected figure in the community that people would immediately praise the piece based on his fame alone. Since people in the exhibit thought some no name did this as well as the fact it was not not just a mundane everyday object but it was a urinal which was seen as extremely vulgar at the time. When a friend of his leaked the secret that it was actually done by Duchamp everyone changed their demeanor and praised him for it which exposed the entire art scene for what it truly was which was part of Duchamp's purpose for doing what he did...the other part showing that art has no true definition and that literally anything can be art as long as you say it is, completely destroying the pompous concept of what art had to be.
He was the OG troll.
Which thing that I'm suggesting is "Fountain" not an example of?
@@artvsmachine3703 it seems that you're placing it together with "pretentious boring bullshit", while accorind to fetal freak it was a trolling move against pretentious boring bullshit
Impressionism and Post-Impressionism aren't pretentious boring bullshit. I'd take Van Gogh or Manet over Duchamp any day. Duchamp is a lot of pretentious boring bullshit, and the thing is, he'd probably agree. He has absolutely said that he liked art to be "boring". Part of his idea is that if his boring bullshit is put on a pedestal, than by logical extension, all art is boring bullshit. But it's not.
And Duchamp was a very accomplished "retinal" painter prior to pretty much abandoning it to become the father or conceptual art. So he doesn't fit into the category of those who practice conceptual art but have little traditional art skill, a frequent assumption about conceptual or extreme abstract art practitioners that is not always true.
I absolutely LOOOOOOOVE this analysis of the top 1% art community. It's controlled by the billion dollar art galleries' Gate Keepers and auction houses.
Sad to see greedy bastards with no pation nor imagination ruining the true meaning and beauty of art and what real artists are
This is goddamn awesome video. Excellent script, narration and effects. I would like it twice if I could.
I agree with some things you say in this video, however it's only true for the top (richest and most 'fashionable') 0.0001% of artists - and even then at least they are creating art and bringing money to the art scene. The vast majority of artwork out there does not fall into the category you expressed in this video, and is original, heartfelt and made only to please the artist who made it. It's just that this kind of art is never seen by the masses. It's true that there are a select few artists who make art only to appease collectors and dealers, who in turn use their art to essentially launder money , which is a real shame because it gives art the bad reputation that you expressed in this video.
Indeed, it applies to the big-name artists in the blue-chip art world. It doesn't apply to me at all, and I have a Master's in Fine Art and have been making art for decades. I thought I made it clear at the beginning of the video that I was talking specifically about artists like Koons and Hirst. If you are not selling art for huge sums of money via the most renowned galleries, this doesn't apply to you. You can't make art for billionaires if you are a starving artist.
Yeah totally - I'm not saying what you did with this video is wrong, I'm just saying that it's such a shame that people will see this information and then write off all modern art as rubbish. It's a phrase I hear all the time. You don't listen to what's in the top 50 charts and then write off all modern music as crap just because what's most popular is crap - so I don't understand why people do it with art. In reality Marcel Duchamp's impact on the art world was one of the best things that ever happened to art because it showed us any creation is worthy of being called art - which led to some of the best art ever being made, even if it also led to some of the worst.
As a contemporary artist myself I'm not trying to get people to write off all contemporary art, just the BS.
Unfortunately so much of the art being made today is made with the main intention of money and a side helping of fame with artistic integrity and producing something actually of interest barely a speck on the radar.
Exactly.
Replace "Art" with "Vaccine."
Whalah! I'm now the impresario maestro of Con-ceptual "Art'
I think this video has forever changed me as an artist and liberated my thought process.
Great!
I never had the vocabulary to describe exactly my conflicting perspective on art, as an artist myself. Something about the art establishment makes artists like me feel like smooth-brained Neanderthals because we aren't able to see the merit in a banana taped to a wall. Or the feeling as an artist thinking "or am I just a jaded bitter failure, that my work barely makes enough to cover materials?"
There are multiple conflicted paradigms in the art world, each vying for legitimacy, and some for supremacy. Would that we would have room for all but the the most ridiculous, but, alas, sometimes it seems we only have room for the most ridiculous. In any case, you likely occupy a different paradigm than the contemporary conceptual art belief system, or simply fall outside of it. I share your pain.
The problem with the artists and critics who believe in all the hype and bogus theories is that they think they've awoken to a greater reality, and that everyone else is left behind. However, they've really just bought into one particular vantage point hook, line, sinker, and worm. Others buy into this or that other paradigm.
I'm between paradigms, slip in an out of different ones, and try to make sense of reality on a daily basis. I don't defer to this or that established belief system. Most contemporary artists and critics are followers. I'm not.
that failure feeling that befalls real artists is all part of the design. real artists are much more likely to create subversive art.. and NOTHING is more dangerous to the rulersh it. they stocked the entire laurel canyon with spooks in the 60s to plaster over the anti-war music scene. they are TERRIFIED of what we can do to them with our creations. never let them make you believe that when their own stupid children they create these phony little art jobs for are complete jokes at art and at everything else.
In many cases the artists are only complicit in the duplicity. It is the extremely wealthy who are conning the rest of society, insofar as they invest in artworks promoted by often paid-off critics who create names with an artificial value. These investments (a.k.a. "artworks") are then used as tools of tax evasion and money laundering. One can purchase one of these "artworks" for a seemingly high price, wait a while for the supposed value of the work to increase exponentially, donate the artwork oh so generously to some museum or other, and then write an enormous sum off one's tax returns, thus evading contributing to the betterment of society. Who is fooling whom then? The artists may or may not be fooling themselves and fooling us all, but many of the buyers know exactly what they are doing.
I think there's a lot of truth in that. Of course there are good, well-meaning people in the game as well, but overall it's become very clinical. Also, artists like Damien Hirst know precisely what they are doing. After all, many of the most celebrated artists whose work is sold for astronomical amounts are themselves among the extremely rich.
YES. they donate artwork re-appraised at stupid high values and write it off. they also often _borrow against_ the alleged value of their art collections. they also stick their stupid, talentless kids in cushy little art jobs, effectively boxing out real artists. it's pathetic.
The obvious volume of labor and skill that went into the Laocoon are qualities that can be somewhat objectively quantified and compared with other works and their prices on the market. If you want to sell it for much, much, MUCH more than the market values of other comparable works, you need to convince people that it possesses some quality that can't be seen or measured or compared to anything else in the universe. Contemporary art works are like placebos and lucky charms. If you believe they work, they will. But it's ALL in your head (or the eye of the beholder). Aspirin has a very limited placebo value because it has a real, objectively quantifiable effect that can easily be perceived and measured. You can't sell it for much more than the market price unless you lie, and I would like to give art dealers the benefit of our doubts. They are deluded exaggerators, not liars. But still, if you want to sell something for an incomparable and infinite (unmeasurable) price, the fewer the comparable and measurable qualities, the better. So in today's art market of speculative investors, they aren't merely indifferent to the skills and labors that go into art, they are decidedly opposed to any such quantifiable qualities.
There’s ART!, and there’s art. It seems there are two separate art worlds, today. Small galleries still show creative works by “minor” artists. The two realms are strangely disconnected.
the world operates with validity on BS (politics, economics, advertising, human relationships - "married at first sight') so why wouldnt it be the subject of art? art reflects the self delusion of humanity.
I like to think art can rise above the most shallow and pernicious BS, rather than merely reflecting, and being it.
This sums up 100% how I feel about the blue-chip art world. A little part of me dies every time I see a Koons balloon dog. I love the way you overlayed Koons with the Heaven's Gate cult leader. So much of contemporary art jargon comes across as UFO cult-speak. I'm going to share this on LinkedIn.
I have an Art collection worth more to me as True Art Works than these Bozzo's who pay millions on their Chic gauche Concept Modern Art and high brow Contemporary Art. I just have to laugh. Don't get me wrong there are million-dollar Artworks out there worth their millions but they are very few and far between.
Futuramas Cylon & Garfunkel is the best conclusive clip you could've selected 🤣. Also Matt Groening's "Mom and Pop art" I feel is spot on.
contemporary aka conart
It reminds me of someone saying "we are living in the pseudo-intellectual world". I think the rich who buy these arts, just want to make people think that their taste is unique and "deeper than us plebs understanding", in order to get perceived by people that they are intellectuals. While, they aren't and it's obvious that many of these arts aren't neither. But because they are so rich, people will keep admiring that their taste of art is so superb. It will become more and more like the fable of the Emperor's new clothes. So arts will become more and more ridiculous whilst less and less relatable to the society.
I think you've caught on to something there.
@@artvsmachine3703 Also reminds me of the "business card scene" in American Psycho, when the super rich guys argue about which white paper is the most elegant one while they look the same.
Compelling; great script & edit, no punches pulled.
Hear! hear! The only worthwhile art today is made by "outsider" artists (a term I despise😂) who create for themselves & to hell with everyone else! Art is made by someone that simply has to make it because they're passionate, its got absolutely nothing to do with making some oligarch tosser a buck! I got kicked out of art college through binge drinking in total despair! To my left a guy was sticking empty crisp packets to a lump of perspex & to my right a guy was pouring hot wax into cold water to make a sort of mulch... I shouted 'fuck this' & went to the off-licence.
I now draw everyday, make fuck all for my efforts & im very happy, if a little thin.
Xxx
Right on!
The Emperor has no close phenomena. “Art is anything you can get away with.”Marshall McLuhan
Beautifully presented.
I've heard Conceptual Art described on an apposing view, the point is that it is broken yet it still sells. It dose bring attention to the public that billionaires will just throw their money away without understanding anything & these people are in charge. Mind you the fact that con artist have capitalized on it, maybe be an uncontrollable out come.
The key word is Conceptual, the art isn't the subject, but the thoughts & ideas that it's creates.
Yeah, and thoughts and ideas can be much better conveyed through text, or a documentary video. The core of art should be what it, and only it, can do better than anything else. When people say the "idea" is the most important thing, they reduce visual art to being a prop or visual aid for words and sentences. Curiously, the art that they say this about looks a hell of a lot like props or visual aids, and doesn't give us much to look at at all.
@@artvsmachine3703 Let me clarify the direction I'm coming from, I'm a schmuck wannabe cartoonist / illustrator, I've currently studying other artistic field & finding each have great unique tools, that could be easily broadly applied to all creative felids, but are locked off in their field. We're both in the field of visual arts, but we tend to have wildly different approaches to the same problem.
Just because some jack wholes abuse a tool, should not mean it's forbidden. Closing yourself off to possibilities is a bad mindset for any artist, you can never predict what's out there, with art's abstract nature it can be everything & nothing at the same time. A big part of making great art is engaging the emotional side of your audience, you cant throw that away.
I'm struggling to describe this without paragraphs of text, but if I could jump creative field to storytelling, it sounds like (it's hard to communicate this stuffy by text, I get it) your violating a core narrative principle, show, don't tell. I find this a great use in all my work. The classic art world is pretty impenetrable from the outside, needing secondary information to enjoy a work is kind of a taboo in any other field. Keep in mind saying all art should do this is also extreme, but I can say other artistic fields would have very strong words against "Should be what it & only it", them's fighting words.
I have no idea why you think I'm closing myself off to any possibilities or how I"m violating a core narrative principle. You do know I make art and videos, and do art pranks? artofericwayne.com/new-artwork/
@@artvsmachine3703 I barely know you, I've watch 1.5 of your videos. I apologise for the off the track nature.
My only objections is the attempt of any kind of control, the "should" or 'cant". It's like the thousands of other youtubers driving themselves into madmess, when that creative medium defies them again & again. It may sound corny (& I know I change my opinions every few years), but I'm currently finding Jedi logic is making for some damn good metaphors. Zen state of mind, helps avoid the BS.
Also I'm approaching this from a working job artist side. No ego, no fame, no fortune, no respect, just give me practical tools to push my work further. Animators are the red head step child of the art world, you get use to seeing people go far out of their way just to spit on you & your work. You learn to hold on to the predictable nature of art, even if it means you get fired for doing a good job.
You're going to need to give an example of something I said that you object to, and on what grounds. Otherwise, it just sounds like you are objecting to any and all videos about art that aren't just about techniques. That's your limiting mindset, not mine. If you are paying attention, you'd notice that I'm NOT saying an artist "should" do anything, but rather dismantling the notion that art has moved on from image-making and artists "should" make conceptual art to be relevant. You might also notice that the video is itself a work of art, which adds a level of implied argument about what is and isn't art, so it's doubly hard to find fault. So, what the hey is it that you are finding fault with?
Very interesting and skilled video. I did a search… as an artist… inquiring for information if contemporary art is becoming sterile. Like many parts of society… there is a lot of gaslighting going on it seems…the hiss of narcissistic media. Not everyone probably. It would be nice to keep things real. Thank you.
Being in my 70's, lifelong learning, creativeness, understanding, observation, experience, re-examination 24/7 365.
The definition of the word 'contemporary' ...Con: To swindle or defraud. Temporary: Lasting only for a short time. Not permanent.
Therefore contemporary art is by definition a swindle Lasting only for a short time.
Now we see it, now we don't?.
In part I think the problem lay in the word "Art".
If I point to a giraffe and I say "That's a giraffe", then I point to a horse and say "That's a giraffe." and I do this with a house, a car, food and trees then the word Giraffe loses it's meaning. If everything is a giraffe then nothing is a giraffe.
The way to circumvent this linguistics trap is by calling it what it is. Call a painting a painting, and sculpture a sculpture because each of these must have certain characteristics in order to be "Good."
A painting must have composition, value shifts, and must highlight the skills of the painter. Is a painting of a stick figure a painting. Yes. But it isn't a very good one. Is a cube of stone a sculpture. Perhaps but any mason can do that so it isn't very good.
If conceptual art is your thing then you don't need an "Artist". Go look at a pot hole and let your mind imagine what it will.
Well, you are on to something very important, which is that conceptual art does not belong in the same category as painting, which is "visual art". The mistake people make and enforce is to think that conceptual art evolved out of painting and replaced it. They actually teach this in art school. Try to tell someone that there performance art has vastly more in common with theater than painting, or that there video art is a form of “film” and they get really upset. But then they tell you that their amateur theater performances replaced painting forever and nobody should be annoyed by that.
@@artvsmachine3703 Good point.
The word "artist" is another linguistics trap as well. In DaVinci's time he was not called an "Artist" He was a master painter or Master sculpturer. The term "artist" came out of the trades. A person learned the art of carpentry or the art of tinsmithing. It was only in the 18th century did the term "Fine Art" arrive and that was later just dropped to "Art".
I remembered this video watching American Psycho and had to pause the movie, find this video and see it again.
There is a place for this sort of conceptual art. In most cases, that place is the dumpster behind the sausage factory.
Don't hold back. Tell us what you really think. And why's it gotta be a sausage factory. Ah, in the case of Paul McCarthy's art that's very appropriate and he might even agree, though he'd want millions for it and would call it a collaborative performance work. I agree in that there's been a sleight of hand where conceptual art has replaced visual art proper rather than just being a new category of hybrid techniques that have as little to do with painting as they do with music, theater, film, etc.
The great jazz guitarist Jim Hall was asked back in the sixties what he thought of "avant-garde" so-called "free" jazz. He said: "well, if you took a few of your friends out into the woods, and gave them each tennis rackets, and let them bat some balls at the trees, and run around, you might say that it was an exercise in freedom, and highly creative, and "avant-garde", but it sure as s**t isn`:t tennis."
Great quote! For me, yeah, let people do that kind of music or the equivalent in art. I have no problem with that, and I may, in fact, like some of the results. I may experiment with similar techniques as an artist myself. But don't say that this new kind of artmaking replaces other styles and is important specifically because it replaces them. With a lot of conceptual art, it's considered important because it's NOT painting (in fact, not visual art at all) and is presumed to be beyond visual art and to replace it in a linear model of art history. This is what I was taught in art school and what most people believe in the art industry.
I was fascinated by Tom Wolfe`s book on the abstract expressionist NY scene ,The Painted Word. If you have to "explain and Interpret" a painting to death, then it becomes more about the critic and explainer than about the work of art (which should speak for itself). Your observation that much contemporary art is "not visual art at all" goes to the crux of the matter. Bravo!@@artvsmachine3703
Cheers. I read Wolfe's book. I reviewed it some years ago. Wolfe correctly diagnosed the problem that people are using words not only to interpret and legitimize art, but as art itself. The notion that art is about "the idea" is the perfect example of this trend. Visual art uses visual language and can never be about an idea in spoken or written language. That is bass-ackwards, and that is what Wolfe, himself a man of letters, to his credit, figured out.
If you like this video, you will probably like the one I did about Jackson Pollock: ruclips.net/video/fmv4te_MFYo/видео.html. I have a new one coming out in about a week about Robert Hughes and Andy Warhol. I predict you'll like that one, too.
We easily forgett, that objects of adoration, together with pure abstraction, is far more older than virtous art we like to refer so much
Such a strange opinion that everything after Courbet is bad. I love Courbet for his paintings and personality but there have obviously been beautiful and emotional works since then.
Right. Including Van Gogh, Gauguin, Klimt, and let's not forget Picasso's blue and rose period. Even Picasso's "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" preceeds Duchamp's "Fountain". And yet we are supposed to believe that his attempt to display a urinal as art defeats all that other art, because it is painting. And if you don't believe that, you are considered a Philistine who hates art. Meanwhile you are buying into rhetoric that expressly "discredits" some of the absolute best art of the period.
@@artvsmachine3703 what's worse is that after Duchamp's point was made (however accurately or inaccurately) many artists clung on the parodying it instead of going back to what was felt to be more serious art. In some way his statement failed and succeeded and now has just become boring and overdone. I wonder how he felt about it as the years past? I'm excited to see how your reconstruction of Salvator Mundi turns out!
Also one of the drawings you were using for some reference is a copy after Leonardo's figure of Christ for the last supper, you may know this but I've seen many websites mistakenly claim it was by Leonardo's hand.
Ah, I have several pieces not by Leonardo in my references, including a Durer, and a few different version of the Salvator Mundi. I was even looking at Leonardo's teacher, Verochio's work for clues on how to do the hair, which is for me the hardest part. I included that drawing just as a curiosity. Things I gather as referenes are not necessarily what I think are authentic Leonardo's at all. That drawing is very vague, and the only thing I was curiour about was the personality.
@@artvsmachine3703 according to Martin Kemp Leonardo had his own theory on how hair fell, he said this as evidence of authenticity for Salvator Mundi. I'm not entirely sure what he bases this assertion on but I can email him directly if you'd like?
@@jojones4685 The best examples of how he does hair that I could find were a couple studies of a child, and in his John the Baptist. In the Salvator Mundi there’s an underlying technique, which is part stylized and part realistic, that is rather sophisticated, and more so than in the other versions of the Salvator Mundi, which is one of the reasons some think this one is the real deal. In other versions there’s not enough variety in the technique, and the curls looks like the ends of drill bits. Lesser artists want to apply a technique without having to go into all sorts of variations. That said, in the studies of a child, Leonardo seems to clump together arrays of hair, rather than make them logically long continuous hairs forming into curls.
There’s the result, and then there’s the way it was done. Obviously I can’t do it the same way working digitally. I am only approximating the end result via other very different means. There is however drawing, which is common throughout.
The reason the hair is the most difficult part is that there’s so much of it missing that one has to invent quite a lot, but keep it consistent, while all the while not really being sure what it’s supposed to look like because the painting is so eroded. Did he just do highlights without painting hair, in some parts, or is that just all that remains. The Modestini version, as far as I can see in digital images online, fudges some areas, or at least that’s how they looked. The underlying logic is gone. And the same can be said for the whole face.
I’m still on the fence about whether it is really by Leonardo or not. Some passages are very convincing, but there are outstanding questions, like why he would start off at all painting on an inferior piece of wood with a knot in it, and which he knew would warp? It’s also the wrong proportions relative to what is probably the original cartoon, and so the shoulders are cut off, and the figure is crammed very awkwardly into the composition. Why start off shooting yourself in both feet, and then spending years perfecting something woefully and incurably imperfect from the onset?
Sure, if you can get some info - images are best - that’s helpful. I’m just doing this as an exercise, partly because I haven’t seen it done before adequately, and don’t intend it to be taken seriously as any part of the art historical record. It’s one artist’s interpretation, done in Photoshop. That said, it’s coming out pretty good, and a lot easier on the eyes than the official physical version we now have to look at.
IMPRESSIVE! when my Dad would look at my paintings when I was young he would say. "What is it?" I'd say "it's Art" he'd say " FART, I may not know Art, but I know what I like!" LOL He was also my biggest fan. quietly of course, But he always said and I agree Art was similar to Befuddling someone with Bullshit, when you could Baffle them with your Brilliance. You are my knew Fav channel.
I really like your channel...it's intelligent, intuitive, and fun.
Thanks. I don't see enough alternative, edgy art videos. Most of them, even the independent ones, tend to repeat the dominant narrative. Few dare stick their necks out, stand on their own two feet, and boldly assert their own individual viewpoints.
good work man, couldn't agree more.
Thanks. Great minds think alike!
Who was the woman who said "it might not be the art we want, but i fear that it might be the art that we deserve."?
That's Sarah Urist Green, of PBS’ The Art Assignment. I think what she meant by that comment is that "Comedian" is a reflection of the society we live in. My counter would be that art can and should rise above the lowest common denominator of consumer culture. I addressed her other quip about "poking fun" at "our desire for art to be unique, original, and something we couldn't do ourselves" in my last blog post: artofericwayne.com/2021/05/03/why-art-theory-and-the-dominant-narrative-are-wrong/
She's alright, but the size of the dollop of identity politics/social justice/political correctness that pervades her art videos is perhaps a wee bit too generous for my palate. I tend to prefer that politics, religion, Freudianism, new ageism, wokeness, and whatever other singular ideological lens be served up separately so that it's up to me if I want to drown the art main course with it or not.
Is it art when we need to view with ears and not eyes? In was at the Boise art museum and they had a simple sketch of a subject done with a crayon on news print. An average junior high school student could have done it. I might have been really impressed if I knew the artist, but I doubt it. The whole experience was questionable. Of the hundreds of wonderful Idaho artist, they didn't seem to have even one.
Great video as always Eric!
Thank you, I needed that 🙏
You are right on showing examples by Koons and Hirst.
Pfizer, moderna and Astrazeneca are the New London School of Shit Art
The buyer ate the banana; I wonder if investors will buy it when it comes out for more money & duct tape it to their walls.
Now that would be a more interesting piece!
I'd find it too hard to swallow.
What bugs me most of all is that whenever I denounce "Fraudism" (i.e., Damian Hirst shit), the person I'm talking to always reacts as though I'm attacking abstract art. I then am forced to endure a trite, predictable speech on abstract-vs.-representational painting. But: FRAUDISM IS NOT ABSTRACT ART. The skull, the shark, the balloon animals, the banana -- all are representational. And the great abstract paintings are all "retinal" (in Duchamp's phrase). I've made many abstract paintings myself. They were part of my search for beauty. If you want to make an intellectual argument, don't paint. Write.
Yeah, I've seen that in the comments. People conflate conceptual art with abstract art (technically "non-representational art"), and there's no relation. They are two completely separate things. And I wouldn't say that the balloon dogs, urinal, toilet... were "representational" either. They just are what they are. Significantly, most of those examples aren't art, but I'll save that for a video coming soon.
"If you want to make an intellectual argument, don't paint. Write." Yes. And, those great philosophical artists are really just using props or visual aids to make their deep philosophical observations. Meanwhile, once you poke at them a bit, the observations are neither deep, nor sound. In fact, they are BS. So, in the case of Duchamp's "Fountain" you get a prop illustrating an argument that is wrong, harmful, tedious, boring, and self-defeating. My next video is about that. Stay tuned.
As someone pointed out quite early in Conceptual Art's rise, the problem with having to rely solely on ideas is that virtually none of them haven't been thought of before and expressed better.
A lot of the ideas turned out to be bogus as well.
@@artvsmachine3703 Absolutely. There's also a question over whether any point worth making can be expressed adequately with a single image. Very often, at best you end up with a glorified flag.
@@pch2230 Right. That whole thing where the purpose of art is to "start conversations" is BS. It's all about subordinating the visual to the linguistic. Visual art doesn't need ideas in linguistics to be relevant any more than music needs to somehow be about an idea, preferably in line with a certain political agenda.
Wow this is an amazing video.
Intellectual!? is it art hacking !⬅️. Great video
Thanks for watching. Glad you like the video.
Cant wait for the galleries to open so i can take photographs of the bathroom Urinals....Great video Eric
Thanks, Daniel. Much appreciated.
Already been done.
I didn't understand the statement by Duschamp, “Everything since Corbet has been ‘retinal’. It’s only … when you look at a painting, what you SEE. What comes on your retina." I agree with him on this though: "You would add nothing intellectual about it, nothing else than what is visual."
He's just saying that painting since Courbet has no content, meaning, or philosophical significance, but is just pretty. He applied this particularly to the Impressionists. However, anyone who knows anything about Manet knows there was a lot more going on than just surface color and pigment. And, as I showed, his denunciation includes people like Van Gogh, and even early Picasso. I'd definitely rather own a Van Gogh, Manet, or Picasso than a Duchamp work of art. I also think all three of those artists are a lot deeper than Duchamp, and it's not even a competition.
@@artvsmachine3703 Thank you. It was confusing but you helped clear it up. Even a hundred years later we are still debating ‘beauty vs intellectual”, which means Art is working.
@@artvsmachine3703
Look up Duchamp's early paintings and you'll see that he was a very accomplished "retinal" painter including in naturalist, inpressionist, post- immpressionist, and cubist/futurist modes. Some of these paintings are quite good, IMHO.
For some reason he decided to let the conceptual game dominate his attention. That he was an avid and high level chess player is perhaps indicative of the type of mind that would take the direction that he did.
Your 'RADICAL NEW BORING SHIT' would probably sell quite well.
I recall, I think a 60-Minutes from the late eighties, a young artist making a work critiquing the art world. A machine that hung on the wall slowing counting upwards how much it was worth. He said something along the lines of, " I thought it was too on the nose, I didn't think it was sellable."
Interviewer: "And what happened to it?"
Young artist: "It sold."
It's probably just on the other side of too critical. As I like to point out, while virtually all of contemporary art theory places its genesis in Duchamp's "Fountain", which took an extreme stance against the art world of the time, and trashed earlier and contemporary art, there's no tolerance for taking a pot shot at his legacy. The mockers of great art shall not tolerate their own products being mocked!
This video presented a somewhat skewed perspective on contemporary art. It’s important to recognize that contemporary art encompasses much more than just urinal-like pieces reminiscent of Duchamp; these are actually a minority. In reality, contemporary art has produced numerous intriguing and some truly exceptional works. This is largely due to its departure from traditional representational constraints, focusing instead on the ideas or content behind the art, rather than solely on craftsmanship.
It is misleading, especially to those less familiar with the broad spectrum of contemporary art, to cherry-pick unusual works and portray them as emblematic of the entire field. Contemporary art, in fact, offers a vast landscape for creativity and innovation. While it’s true that not every piece will resonate with everyone, and some may even be unappealing, this diversity is part of its essence. Moreover, individuals still have the choice to create art in the style of old masters like Rembrandt or Velasquez if they choose.
I am generally careless about the high prices fetched by works from artists like Jeff Koons at auction, other then 😅 the recognition of that the higher the price pay bore a painting, the more tax revenue collected, which ideally benefits society. Ultimately, contemporary art, in its full scope, cannot be boxed into categories of right or wrong; it simply exists as a diverse and dynamic form of expression resulting from the continuous creative exploration by the artists.
If you paint like Rembrandt or Velasquez you aren't making contemporary art. You are just making art in the contemporary world. "Contemporary art" refers to style and approach rather than just when the art was made.
Further, as a living contemporary artist myself, I am about as aware as anyone can be that there are contemporary artists doing work that does not fall into the same camp as Koons, Hirst, Creed, etc. For an analogy, imagine a musician does a video about what's wrong with pop music, and someone tells him there's all kinds of other wonderful music being done today. It's just that nobody hears it or knows about it, and those musicians are also barely able to make a living if at all.
lso, when I was in art school, you most definitely could NOT paint like Rembrandt or Velasquez; in fact, you couldn't paint representationally at all. To paint was itself considered DOA. Worse, it was considered regressive, reactionary, and hopelessly ignorant.
Just in case you haven't seen it: Roger Scruton's "Why Beauty Matters" is available on yt
I believe I have seen that. Might be about due to watch it again. I rather like some Rober Scruton. His tastes may be a bit conservative, but, alas, that's refreshing these days.
Your video is brilliant!
Hey your Patreon link is broken. Please tag me when you fix it, I'd like to support. Thanks!
Thanks for pointing that out. Dang it! This one works for me (also updated in the description): www.patreon.com/ericwayne
If that doesn't work, for some odd reason, this one might: www.patreon.com/ericwayne?fan_landing=true
okay, but I love exceptions
Excellent synopsis!
Thank you kindly!
lovely video!
Thank you! Cheers!
As an artist I find it hard to justify this type of conceptual art. I find incredibly boring. I sell my work and have had several solo shows and have more coming up in the future. I really dislike the current version of the art world. It’s always been vapid and disingenuous but it seems almost overwhelming now. That being said if one where to approach making conceptual art as a way to scam and fool the elite art buyers I’m all for it. I’m hoping that’s actually the concept behind some of the work in your video. That’s probably wishful thinking on my part, I know.
I think there's an element of cashing in on the ultra rich not really knowing enough about art to see through the BS. The elite buyers frequently rely on advisors to tell them what to buy. When that happens, it's a speculative investment, not a purchase of art.
Actually the Spot Paintings are not dead... they will cost you a pretty penny, and thats because they are awesome .
Nah, man. The spot paintings SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!
We love novelty. But what's new now? There is no point repeating. Who wants to see a gallery stuffed full of clones? Or is that the definition of 'gallery'! (etymology: gall - to have moxy and take the rip out of).
Yeah, I agree. There is no point in doing what has already been done. But like scientists, artists can build on what went before and keep going. Artists recently have been obsessed with rejecting all that went before and doing some radical stunts. I think it's better to build on the best and move forward.
Not to sound like im race baiting or anything... but why are they all.... you know what nvm
Probably because that art is coming out of a European trajectory of art history. That said, currently there is a much greater variety of artists doing similar work.
wow i really got lucky with this one
Awesome!!
Thank you! Cheers!
Because it's a hustle?
Because it's made for the rich buyer, not for ordinary people, lovers of art, or even other artists. It's worth watching the video.
@artvsmachine3703 I watched it. I feel like the term conceptual art is giving it provenance it doesn't deserve. It should be called Hustle art, precisely because that's exactly what it is. It's all about getting as much cash for it as possible. And it's just reserved for idiots who are stupid enough to buy it, whether they're billionaires or not.
Thanks for watching. I think you have a toe-hold on the reality. I don't think it's quite that simple, but, there's definitely truth in what you say IMHO. Money has corrupted art.
Yep, sounds about right. But this applies to cars, clothes, software, political parties, etc.
Yeah, it probably applies to a whole range of things to a degree. However, when it comes to things like vehicles, complete BS won't fly. The car has got to run and function as promised. You couldn't just get a stack of hay with a sign on it that says "car" and have to accept it as not only a real car, but the best design of the century. Art can get away with a level of utter BS that nothing else can, IMHO.
Subscribed.
bravo!! brilliant (howe ver, Duchamp NOT as corrupt as those who chipped off him 70 years later) PRETTY SHARP takedown of this BORING SHIT
Thanks for watching and commenting. Glad you liked the BORING SHIT!
What happened at 3:33 and at 3:35?
The guys says something and then some of the other shake their heads.
The teacher showed them a slide of Duchamp's urinal "The Fountain" and asked if they knew what it was. The man said, "toilet". The women shook her head in rejection of the "toilet" being "art". The point of this segment is that if you try to teach other cultures that a urinal is the greatest art of the 20th century, if fails to impress them, and that could signify that they see it the way it really is. Note that this is an attempt to impose western culture on others.
@@artvsmachine3703 thank you, that makes sense!
i'm an emerging artist and although i hate the same modern art tosh as you, i've also started to get really fed up with the salt-of-the-earth artists' artist scene. artists will put on exhibitions with shit marketing, no curators/art writers/collectors/gallerists show up, no one actually buys art, its just other artists that show up. we need to have a pinch of that hirst machiavellianism
Is the art itself any good? That's all that matters.
@@artvsmachine3703 from the perspective of an art viewer yes thats all that matters, but from the perspective of the artist how are we supposed to sustain our practice if no one buys it? as an artist i find what gives me the most grief is the gulf between the large amount of compliments i've gotten on the one hand and the lack of financial renumeration. i'm done with this sort of art world roleplay, i want to learn that blue chip skullduggery for real
😏❤
But would you say that if the Laocon still had its original kitch colors?
Cool
Didn't Duchamp also say he exhibited the urinal as a joke? He wanted to see if the critics would fall for it. It was nearly thrown out until he said it was his work.
I don't remember that little tidbit. I know the other jurors accepted all his other ideas, and he lost the vote on the urinal, but it wasn't a landslide. It almost made it in. In fact, I think it was included, but hidden away behind a partition.
@@artvsmachine3703 You're probably right.
There is no art. These productions are nonsense devices used to get people who want to be artists status and money, if possible. And you get to flaunt a phoney authority over artists who do have talent. Contemporary art doesn't perform any of the functions of the historical arts. Contemporary nonsense devices have different functions. One is to allow anyone to become an artist by simply saying so, or being anointed as one by someone in the art world. So, for progressively minded people, this seems very egalitarian. Now the "artist" is allowed to compete with even the most talented artists in the lottery to become famous. This ideology allows contemporary "art" and the "artist" to take away power from talented artists who are also moral people and puts the power into the hands of wealthy elites. No moral justification needed. The public is ripped off and talented artists are displaced in society by grifters. Go to any university where the professors teach contemporary art and you will see grifters with no talent.
👏👏👏👏👏👏👏
I like the Balloon Doll. It reminds me of a toy.
In all honesty, I feel you are making statement after statement without actually telling us WHY you think the way you do.
Give an example.
I think most viewers will be more interested in what the film says rather than WHY the filmmaker thinks the way he does. For the record, I do agree with much of what the author says.
Marcel Duchamp nicked the idea from someone else anyway…a woman too, can’t recall her name…funny that…
I don't believe that story. The fountain fits in which his other readymades, and his stated purpose was to "discredit art" and "end art" with his readymades. I'd rather not pin that ugly motive on some woman.
@@artvsmachine3703 her name is Elsa von freytag-loringhoven, an early dada type artist, you know, one of those bohemian type of avant-garde person. But there are many articles attributing the urinal to her. Apparently it was she who mailed it in as the entry to a competition under the name mutt, or Mott, or whatever it is.
Last I heard Duchamp used her to enter it in order to disguise his identity as one of the board members. Either way, the Fountain was merely a stunt designed to take a piss on the other artists. Duchamp said he wanted to "discredit" art, and to "end art" as he believed religion was no longer taken seriously. Consider that context when thinking about him inserting a urinal into a gallery. He didn't enter something really interesting that was outside of what was normally considered art. He entered a flagrant insult that also was according to him neither appealing nor unappealing. In his words he was "indifferent" to the appearance of his readymades. The purpose was to attack aesthetics. It's all very boring and tedious, while also wrong-headed. And his charge that all art since Corbet was "retinal" is extremely ignorant. I'm really surprised nobody has pushed back on that. I'll do it in my next video. Just pointing at the Emperor's new codpiece. Not difficult. Just need to not be easily duped by layers and layers of BS.
Mordern art is Solace for non talented artist.
Wrong.
And yet I feel this misses a very important point - art is everywhere. The keyboard you type this on, the paved street you walk down. The shape and style and function of your car. Your clothes. You used a clip from The Matrix in the video. Is that in itself not amazing art? Have you seen a delidded microchip? It's like the districts of a miniature city, painted in metal. There are toilets out there that truly are works of art. And then there's people on Instagram and Reddit and other social media who are painting and drawing and creating to their heart's content. And look at the world of music. Thousands of new albums are being released each day. Anyone can be a composer nowadays. Learning, in a lot of cases, is free. There are no more guilds or workshops. We exist amidst a nebula of art.
But most of it is not on a pedestal. Most of it is not labeled as art. Most of it isn't presented to a museum. We've grown so accustomed to the amazing being our everyday that we've grown blind to it. You criticize artists like Koons. Great. I agree with all your points. But check how many contemporary artists are listed whose work you do like. Or just art pieces.
And there are other types of art being sold at auction houses and displayed at museums. But one way or another Koons or Cattelan get all the attention *because* they're unusual. Because they're weird. Or they take something and make it big.
Having said all that, thank you for the video. I enjoyed it. And now I must go. I was thinking of watching some Oscar-worthy films but I think I'll just settle for clips of cats doing silly things. :-)
Is every snap taken with a smart phone "photography"? Is every tweet, text, and message on a sticky note "literature"? Is a recipe for spaghetti sauce "science"? Is my paying for my lunch "economics"?
@@artvsmachine3703 That's a strange analogy. For every snap taken with a smart phone I would say that is photography. Is it good photography? While most of it isn't, the fact that even a ten year old can take thousands of photos in a month and be able to see the results of that photo instantly (as opposed to having to wait for film to be developed and being limited to shooting around 30 shots per roll) means that most photography today is leagues better than it was just a few decades ago.
As for every tweet, text, and message on a sticky note being literature - no. But it is writing. What is literature though? If you're talking about long form essays as well as short stories and works of fiction, then there are untold works of literature all over the internet. Fan fiction. Original works. Poetry. Look at how many ebooks come out every day. And most literature today isn't written for a market. It's not written to be sold. Gone are the days of pulp journals paying a living wage per word.
As for a recipe being science and paying for lunch being economics - what are you talking about? Science and economics are the study of things. A recipe doesn't tell you why something happens. But, sure, if you were to analyze the reason why it takes over seven minutes to hard boil an egg and the complex chemical processes that turn a wide array of proteins into a hardened yolk then that would be science. Same thing for paying for lunch. Just paying for lunch isn't studying anything. But if you look at why you paid a certain amount for lunch, why you bought lunch at one place instead of another, how the cost of that lunch compares to the cost of a lunch you paid for a year ago, then, yes, that would be economics.
Perhaps the bigger issue is curation? With the death of push media and the world in general becoming "on-demand" there is a lack of curation to separate that new things which will surprise it and which we may (but not necessarily will) enjoy from the chaff.
That said, our enjoyment of art is quite subjective. For example, I may go out to a museum in a few days to look at commonplace breakfast bowls (albeit from thousands of years ago) and corpses (albeit wrapped and mummified but, still, just corpses put on display in a museum and called art). If I'm lucky I may see graffiti left centuries ago by French soldiers as they wondered though millenia-old ruins.
Art isn't everywhere, and any slight inkling of creativity is not art, just as any physical movement is not gymnastics. Gimmie a f_cking break, man.
No, not everything is art.
It's just that people have lost their minds and in the 21st century there's no standards of beauty or meaning compared to previous art movements.
One the one hand I can respect the IDEA of elevating the skill and craftsmanship that goes into the design and creation of everyday objects to an art form, HOWEVER, what Koons and his ilk do is steal that credit and give it all to themselves. Like how Michael Jordan gets paid more to wear Nike sneakers than the workers get fot manufacturing them
You're right, but also artists like Duchamp weren't trying to elevate ordinary objects. He shared them because they were uninteresting and boring, and thus to put them on a pedestal in a gallery made everyone else's art into a joke. He wanted to "discredit art".