Is there a connection between modern/contemporary art and the decline?

RedLivesMatter · 2015-10-29T00:54:19+00:00

True art, and appreciation for said art, happens when creativity meets originality (My opinion).

Most people want to be creditted with being artistic. Most people aren't original. Most people are too glued to their phones to have an original thought. I think they correlate similarly for the same reasons but are unrelated. Women aren't very interesting, but they think they are, so they make shitty art. Worst part is people still praise them for their work even though all they had to do was apply some effort.

situ139 · 2015-10-29T00:55:10+00:00

Not my post, /u/chia-like

Art Major here! We have to defend this a lot, and most of it is because people don't understand the history behind these paintings! Of course you can make paintings like Jackson Pollock's, but he did it first. And he did it in an era where this type of thing was not done. He was one of the many artists who pushed the boundaries of art and helped destroy limitations on what we can call art. But what you have to understand is a lot of paintings are more concept driven. Jackson Pollock's work was about the process of making a painting, than the final result of what the painting looked like. It was about gesture, and how the paint showed where his arm had moved. No one had thought like this, so it was revolutionary. My favorite thing about art however, is that you're allowed to think it's bullshit. That's part of critiquing art! And that's what many artists did after Jackson Pollock and many other abstract expressionists became the norm instead of the "rebels" Yves Klein made comments on abstract expressionism by covering naked models in blue paint and dragged them around on a giant canvas as performance art. When you hung up the canvas, it actually looked very similar to other abstract expressionist paintings. But overall, if you don't understand something, it's often good to look at the artist statement, or this history behind it (if it's an older painting). It can put a lot more context behind work, and then you can fairly critique it (and maybe still think it's dumb). But I can assure you the artist is not being lazy (most of the time ;) ). We get burned if we are lazy. Artists have to back everything we do up, and make an argument for why our art is legitimate. If not enough people think it's legitimate, then we don't get anywhere! That is the difference between a little kid finger paintings, and an artist like Jackson Pollock.

Jason Pollock

(My words)

My favourite art piece is Voice of Fire

yaardi · 2015-10-29T13:26:53+00:00

It's quite simple. The shitty art from the past is forgotten and only the top-tier art remains. You only see the later and assume all art in the past was of such quality, while at the same time you see all modern art and assume all modern art is shit as well.

Example: you see some classic movie from the Golden era of Hollywood and you compare it to what's now playing in cinemas and seemingly logically you reach the conclussion that movies in the past were so much better than what is shown today, but you don't take into account the thousands of movies Hollywood made during that period which were mediocre or bad and nobody remembers.

sonofquetzalcoatl · 2015-10-29T01:06:42+00:00

"The effect of music is so very much more powerful and penetrating than is that of the other arts, for these others speak only of the shadow, but music of the essence." -Arthur Schopenhauer ("It was he, who freed the first of us.")

Modern art is garbage, the last bastion of true art is classical music.

showeidek · 2015-10-29T02:01:29+00:00

Abstract art is important, you can express things without making something figurative. A good abstract artist will think in that manner.

moose_war · 2015-10-29T07:44:29+00:00

Higher art is supposed to have a pragmatic function, but the problem is the mechanism of that pragmatic function can become kind of fuzzy. For instance, Guernica as you mentioned- the pragmatic function is to convey the horrors of war, the surprise and chaos of the bombings. But it's hardly straightforward. You could simply say "war is bad" but that does nothing to tap into human emotions and curiosity and it does nothing to convey the very feeling of the event. So, the shapes and forms have to change and the artist must present his unique point of view of a tremendous event to get people to really think about the emotions and the experience. To the artist, he may well have simply been expressing his feelings, but the point he is examining a very tremendous and important even in human history as well as human EXPERIENCE. The life and death, the essence of war, of a bombing. He has to twist the shapes, muddle them up, reduce the colors. It simply wouldn't have worked for Picasso personally in any other size or style. And this approach apparently worked, since Guernica is often cited as one of the greatest indictments of war ever.

To me, I am half way between traditionalist and "avant garde". I can appreciate Guernica for one specific reason: I can see the shapes, I know what it is going on to some degree. It's because of the very reason that I know what a "real human" form looks like and yet can identify the looks of shock and horror and weeping on these twisted shapes that it means anything to me. In other words, I don't need extremely traditional, classical forms of art and beauty. I need art that is actually speaking about something important. Life or death.

And I can appreciate abstract art. I just don't want to watch something stupid for 3 hours, like a feminist eating her tampon or something. Just keep it brief and if it is abstract, make it beautiful. I really don't like surrealism. I find it tacky.

Anyway, I think a lot of modern art is bad because it's self obsessed. When I was 20, I thought "self expression" was the most important thing in life, not just art. Now that I'm a bit older, I quickly see that while point of view and uniqueness of expression is very important, if you aren't examining an important subject, it's fucking stupid. That's why Guernica works, as I said. It's an important event. Why does the feminist abstract performance art piece suck? Because it's about ME ME ME ME ME. I notice that with a lot of female artists. For better or worse, they tend to examine only themselves and their feelings. Not the state of the world, or faith, or war. But how they feel after a guy uses them for sex or something. That's a valid experience, I'm not knocking it completely. But if you're a 35 year old woman and you're still making art like that, AND on top of that you have no skill, well, fuck you and your shit garbage art you fuck.

[deleted] · 2015-10-29T08:12:42+00:00

Look at the background of all these "artists" and tell me what pattern you see. There lies the root cause of society's ills

[deleted] · 2015-10-29T10:44:17+00:00

This is a troublesome thing to gauge correctly because most people have no idea how to judge something correctly. Most people who diss art like this have very little understanding of it and can't judge it accurately.

There is a difference between something being good or bad and liking something or disliking it.

To put it in terms of films. There are good movies that I hate and bad movies that I love.

I dislike pop art with a passion. That being said, I can't say pop art is bullshit or it's bad just because I don't like it. There is shitty art and there are appropriate ways of judging that.

Some people mentioned self-expression here on the thread. This is a trend that's changing society as we progress. Social media has everyone wanting to tell their own story. Scrambling through the noise and finding stories worth listening to is getting fuzzier. It doesn't mean that there are less great stories out there; it means people are too busy trying to tell their own story instead of listening to someone else's. I am referring to stories in a very abstract way.

[deleted] · 2015-10-29T16:17:37+00:00

One of the few actual artist these days is Banksy. But he is an ironic painter and most of his shit can't be preserved past the quick cell phone picture. Sure, they steal some of them from the streets but when you take it from the street, it makes the actual artistic part invalid.

favours_of_the_moon · 2015-10-29T01:19:40+00:00

"Modern" and contemporary art is IMHO an intellectual hoax, designed by financiers and money launderers to exchange large amounts of money without anyone being suspicious.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/3319001728?keywords=art%20money%20laundering&qid=1446081532&ref_=sr_1_2&s=books&sr=1-2

RedSugarPill · 2015-10-29T03:34:12+00:00

I recently read "Art or Anarchy? How the Extremists and Exploiters Have Reduced the Fine Arts to Chaos and Commercialism" by Huntington Hartford (1964). It basically trashes abstract impressionism the way abstract impressionism ought to be trashed. Of course, the intellectuals didn't like the book, but it fit in perfectly with my prior thoughts about modern "art". Show me a modern equivalent to the great draftsmen (e.g., da Vinci), or a modern painter that can create art like the Renaissance masters, and I'll be impressed. Hell, I love Dali's surrealism (he was an absolute genius), which is considered modern. But abstract impressionism? Total fucking garbage...and that's just the top of the steaming heap of shit we call modern art. That landfill is worth less than the materials that were puked onto the canvas.

And to answer your question, yes I think there is a deep and sinister connection between the decline of art and society: Basically, the progressives (artists, or any other kind) have run out of new ideas--but they chant "WE NEED CHANGE!". And instead of being creative, they find ways to cause disruptive chaos to benefit their own interests (i.e., money).

Title	Is there a connection between modern/contemporary art and the decline?
Author	[deleted]
Upvotes	0
Comments	23
Date	October 29, 2015 12:42 AM UTC (10 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/TheRedPill
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/TheRedPill/comments/3qn19m/is_there_a_connection_between_moderncontemporary/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/TheRedPill/is-there-a-connection-between-moderncontemporary.37653 https://theredarchive.com/post/37653

Comments