Many years ago now, my wife and I went to Art Basel in the heart of Miami to check out who is who there. To be honest, aside from two or three notable exceptions, everything I saw was straight up garbage.
If you have to explain it...
I know art is subjective, I know that something someone finds gorgeous another person might find ugly, I know all this. But, there is a line to be drawn the sand so to speak. If you have to explain to me your art, then you failed at the job of communicating.
At the end of the day Art is just that, communication. An artist can express a range of emotions, of moods, etc. Truth be told, Art doesn't even have to be pretty to be powerful.
As a matter of fact, I would even argue "shock" is best to transcend, if you are an artist at least. It seems to me that an artist's success is not measured by the money they made or didn't make, but if their work stood the test of time.
It's here, on this line of thought, that I would like to make a prediction, If I'm allowed.
No one will remember...
I can't say all, because there are notorious exceptions, but I would venture to say, with reasonable confidence, that 99 percent of "artists", and I'm going to group sculptors, mix media, traditional (whatever that means, these days) and Pop, Will never amount to much.
To be fair, they can make money, and some, I'm sure make good money. But it's nothing more that a new version of "The Emperor has no clothes" I dare to say.
The biggest joke of the night
Was meeting an "artist" who was acclaimed by everyone for his "revolutionary idea". He stood by his work, and people came up to him, shook his hand, as he explained his vision.
As I watched confused the dissonant scene, I had to laugh out loud. His work consisted of News Paper articles framed with driftwood, and highlighted with sharpie.
His masterpiece, the one everyone was asking about. Was a tarp, a military one (at least) painted with the flag's colors, sprinkled with news paper clippings.
If tomorrow I decided to consume two sharpie pens a day, smoke them, to be clear. I would assume that the led they contain would dull my brain's capacity enough at some point to dream up such an "amazing piece" in about two weeks of self inflicted stupification.
Why the rant?
I hear not asking, but yet reading the line and then wondering the why. Well, because some recent "art" has been showing up on my feed on twitter and Instagram that reminded me of our Art Basel escapade.
Looking back it was a fun night, mostly because we laughed so much, quietly of course, we are not monsters.
MenO
The art world is crazy. I know it's about ideas, but there should be some craft in the execution. I'm sure some people just buy stuff from big names as an investment rather than because they appreciate it. I was actually tempted to buy something from a local gallery today just because I liked it. I have no idea who the artist is. I may go back for it some time.
i actually thing its more about tax write offs than anything else.
I'm sure some people actually like it, but a lot is just business. Spending millions on stuff you might consider junk if you don't know it's by a famous artist. Too many rich people with nothing better to do.
Yeah... I'm an artist and most "art" is pure crap, inspired by some neo-modernist art teacher insisting that "vision" is the only thing that matters and fuck skills and execution.
I've had similar experiences, including the "genius" of a bale of hay, several pesticide containers and some animal bones wrapped together with barbed wire, sitting on the floor next to a beat up gasoline container.
Oh yeah, and you can take it home for $8,000...
lol this is too funny
Your "Emperor's New Clothes" analogy is spot on. So many people rave about so called art, I just wonder, do they really believe themselves when they're alone.
im sure when they are alone they suffer from impostor syndrome.
I have to agree with you on this one for a lot. As you can explain the story behind it it feels like it can be labelled as art.
Years ago I was here on a designer exposition and I asked the artist about his work...the reply was 'this is so much design, you would never understand'
woww....okay missing the audience there
its beyond us mere mortals...