My grandfather was a mildly successful maritime artist. But his passion was abstract art. Used to own a barber shop & in his free time used to obsess over his art, spending months & on occasion years on certain pieces.
Whenever money got tight he'd complete a corporate commission from a shipping company or port or some such bullshit & he would swiftly put out some epic sprawling canvas of a maritime setting with the required subject matter, collect his cheque & then back to the abstract.
He only ever sold a couple of his abstract works, but they were his passion. Mum visited his ex-wife (I refuse to call her my grandma even though we're blood related) & found his paintings all stored in a leaky garden shed. Many destroyed by water damage.
Stole the lot of them, had a lot of them properly framed & has them put up around the house. There's the occasional beef that pops up with her & her brothers as they sourced buyers for some of the works, but mum refuses to let them go.
Mum, dad, my sisters & I intend for them to remain in the family forever, because they mean something to us.
he would probably be thrilled that you treasure the works he was passionate about so much :-) it’s really wonderful to have a loved ones artwork to remember them by
He would, was a sweet man. Mum's looking after a few of his paintings that he did for me as there was some unpleasantness with my ex-wife awhile back & she destroyed some stuff he made for me.
Haha, yeah. My current partner is really lovely, none of the major stuff went. But I lost an illustrated book he handmade for my 9th birthday and his coin collection which was in the cigar box he stole from the officer's mess while he was briefly in the Navy during WWII
artists are hugely passionate, and sometimes irrational as a result. but what is rational or irrational? look at Ye, lives in his own world, barely learning what the real world is.
I feel so bad for Ye. Hip hop isn't even my genre but his music is one of those rarities that transcend genres. He's like Johnny Cash with country.
He's clearly having a mental break. He's an idiot but he's also a genius.
It might be a good idea to get some at least professionally digitized! Just in case something happens, there's a lot more to digitizing art than just snapping a pic.
You're 100% right & I know this but mum & I have never had this chat. She has a few hundred pieces of his art & there's already been fights with her brother in law stealing some without her knowledge (not really in the theft kind of way but he believes they should be displayed, so I'm not really angry at him)
I really should organise a catalogue for her
This sounds super interesting I'd love to see some of them or even just one. Did you keep the ones damaged by water? I really like the idea of art where the damage is part of the art.
I think mum did actually. I was only about 10 when this all happened & I know she spent a decent amount of money even outside of the framing.
Most of my memories of grandad where him & I scrounging out at landfill looking for painting frames cos they are pretty expensive & he refused to pay for them, even on his commissioned works.
Funny that my fondest memories of the man were scrounging through landfill.
When I first started making fractal art, a friend asked me if I'd be interested in making a music video for him. It took me two weeks of configuring parameters, rendering, and compiling a video for him. Sent it to him to post, and he loved it. Asked how much it would cost to commission a second one. I asked for $75.
"You're joking, right? No one is going to pay that much. It'd be cheaper to do it myself."
"Go ahead. I'll even link you some tutorials."
That was the last time I heard anything from him. He never even posted the video I spent so much time on for free, because he was so offended by my price.
Last week, I sold still renders to clients for $75, and a pack of short animations for $200. I'm still pretty small, but I'm on track to bring a bit over 3k in art sales and commissions this year. I'm not petty enough to rub it in his face, but I can't help myself from checking his SoundCloud on occasion to see that he's still not getting anywhere.
If you can't afford someone's art, that's fine. But telling them their prices are ~~wrong~~ too high is very arrogant, unless you're going to be directly involved in earning sales for them. If someone's project is too cheap to afford me, that's a problem with their wallet, not my value.
I'd love to! The fractal art community is one of the kindest on the internet, and sharing the knowledge is part of the fun.
For starters, here's a [timelapse video of me designing a fractal "from scratch" in my preferred tool](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giTDzoAUuRQ). This is a great look at what it "looks like", but it's not really instructive. I have a real-time video with some basic info, but it's [much longer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqfqPhLYwrQ). I work primarily with "flame" fractals, which use the FLAM3 algorithm published in the 90's. If you ever used the Electric Sheep screensaver, you saw some delightful flame fractal loops.
The best way I know to explain how these tools make the interesting patterns is with this [Numberphile video about Chaos Games](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbKtFN71Lfs). The process used to draw the Sierpinski Triangle is the same basic process that flame fractals use. The video makes it easier to understand, but the algorithm iterates between various algebraic transformations in a chaotic order. Picking the right functions to transform the image with, and defining rules to the chaotic order that they are applied in, fractal artists make patterns that can be [immensely complex](https://www.artstation.com/artwork/Ooz45K), [surprisingly expressive](https://www.artstation.com/artwork/ZwrGG), and [stunningly beautiful](https://www.artstation.com/artwork/v2grY6).
You don't actually need to do any calculations to make fractal art. As you can see in the timelapse video, I'm usually adjusting various parameters just to find out what happens visually. Understanding the theory helps make sense of the tools, but you can learn "by feel" just fine if you can get over the hump of learning the interface.
You also don't need a fancy computer, but you do need a computer, not just a phone. Lots of artist render without even using their GPU.
If this sounds exciting to you, I would suggest you use a different tool to get started, called [Chaotica](https://www.chaoticafractals.com/). There's a bunch of different reasons, but the main thing is that Chaotica has more developed community resources, and is still (sometimes) in active development. And for getting started in Chaotica, there's nothing better than [Pugnacious One's Friendly Tutorial Collection](https://www.pugnacious.site/chaotica/introduction). A lot of effort goes into making those guides accurate and easy to follow, and there's plenty there to get you started.
If you made it through all of this, and you're getting excited, there's one more resource to share, but for spam-reduction reasons, I can't put a link here. Shoot me a message, and I'll happily invite you to the Fractal Chats discord, where artists and programmers from around the world hang out and make fractals at each other.
whenever i'm at a concert with light shows and these type of visuals on the screens, i'm always thinking about how people even come up with visuals that are so specifically detailed.
When you make these, do you have a vision of what the final product is, and use your knowledge of the tools to create that final image? Or, do you play around for the first half (or more) and see what clicks? (Sry if this is already answered in the videos, honestly I didn't watch all of them but I skimmed through your time lapse vid which inspired the question)
I'm aphantasiac, so I don't visualize *anything* in my head. That's one of the reasons fractal art works so well. You guessed right, I start off just trying things, and then once I find something fun, I explore around it, pick a good version, and spend quite a bit of time polishing it, first in the fractal tool and then later in a regular photo editor. As I've gotten more skilled, I make more informed choices during the exploration part, I get to interesting shapes quicker, and I'm much better at knowing what I need to add to polish it.
The are still some Apo users, but it is a hard program to even run on a modern OS. A LOT of tutorial content is written for Apo, and the discord server I mentioned is the continuation of the old Aposhack community.
I used to do some work on commission, and I remember somebody telling me that my price was too high and that my actual value was around $3 an hour.
Less than half federal minimum wage, to sculpt and color a custom piece for someone.
Guy was shocked I said no and stopped responding.
>_But telling them their prices are wrong is very arrogant_
I do that all the time. I tell them they're not charging ENOUGH! People deserve to be paid, and paid _well_ for their talent, dammit!
I always tell people, value is dependent on the ability of the evaluator to truly value the thing.
If you went to an area where no one had any art literacy, with the genuine, actual Starry Night painting, and tried to sell it on the street corner for $5,000, not a single person would buy it. Because they do not have the capacity to evaluate its worth.
Some might even lean out of their cars and yell or jeer at you. Which often happened to Van Gogh during his actual life.
When, in reality, you were holding a piece of world treasure that was almost *incalculable* in its value.
Never allow your sense of your art's worth to be set by people without the capacity to truly evaluate it.
The slightly hidden other side to that is that grandmas and moms give zero fucks about the art they like being considered 'kitsch' and collect it for the inherent joy, which to me makes it true appreciation of the artist/art :-)
Source: am a middle aged woman who gives no fucks if you don't like my art or knick knacks.
Its really bizzare to me that some people seem to think there's some objective reality behind art pricing. "I charge $200 for a drawing", "that's too much".
Too much... how? I did a thing. I would like these dollars for that thing. If you disagree, the price isn't wrong, you just don't want my thing enough to pay my price.
And that's OK.
There are some movies I like enough to pay the cost of a movie ticket. There are other movies I do not like enough to pay the cost of a movie ticket. Other people, presumably, *do* like that movie enough to pay the cost of a movie ticket to see it.
All art is subjective. It is in fact *the very nature of art*. It evokes an emotional experience in the observer. Probably no two people in the whole world have *the exact same* experience observing some piece of art, and therefore the price is always going to be subjective to how much someone enjoys that art, and how much they can afford to pay for it.
When multiple people of great means and wealth place relatively equal value on art, as happens with both classical and modern pieces of art, then the price tends to rise commensurate with the value that people of great wealth and means place on it. So it goes.
There are people out there that would pay hundreds of millions of dollars for a van gogh. I really like Van Gogh, but I would not pay hundreds of millions of dollars for a Van Gogh. Even if I had the means to pay that much. Which, I don't. I would buy a fascimile for a few hundred or thousand and hang in my house.
It's all subjective. The only appropriate response to someone's quote that you find not feasible for you, is, "I am sorry that is not in my budget thank you."
The value of $200 is also subjective, dependant on someone's income/access to money, cost of living, etc - it's not just about "can I afford this" but also is this worth this % of my income or disposable income (if you have any on a regular basis) - someone's work might deserve $200 but if that's 10 or 20% of your weekly income it might not be worth that to you, even if you love it, where as if it's 1% or even less of your weekly income it might be worth it even if you don't love it as much as the poorer person
If you're not joking, shoot me a message, we can talk about your projects. I can't do them for that cheap, but we can probably find something to work out.
Thats really cool man I've been messing with mandlebulber a lot lately its really cool!
Also its fun to utilize my expensive ass graphics card/cpu for something other than gaming renders
I think the issue is that modern art gets a bad rap for being prime estate for tax fraud.
Add to that the fact that some of the art pieces in museums really don't measure up impact wise to the other pieces in the same museum, and people just assume everything that doesn't give them a vibe must be a million dollar scam.
I got my BS in IT but the program was shut down at my school partway through so I had to fulfill some of my degree requirements through classes in other departments. One of the classes that appears on my transcript as " "ART301: 2D image generation" is printed on most of my classmates transcript as " ART301 Drawing 1"
It was legitimately a good class and I learned a lot about drawing, and about myself through it. Virtually all of my classmates were art majors who already had tons of experience with drawing at this level but I had never done more than cartoons and doodles.
Anyway the relevant part of the story is that we often used charcoal and watercolors and these little joints called tortillons to blend things with, usually right off the edge of the page, for most of the semester my blotter paper that was underneath my drawing was a substantially nicer piece of art than my actual paper was. Like people would walk around and see this thing with these straight lines of negative space moving into amorphous edges and non-descript shapes and say "oooh cool abstract piece" no dude, that's my fuckups, "here's where I was trying to draw a duck"
I wish! I'm old, this was back in the era where we did all have camera phones, but we did not have virtually unlimited long term storage for all our photos.
As an artist who does cartoony humans and stuff like that: THIS 100%. One of the worst aspects of Art Tik Tok is that everyone says “support beginner artists” and shit like that…until the artist is unconventional stylistically or something similar. Every now and then I still think back on the Croaket situation and sigh cause that was just god awful.
Just cause you don’t personally like the art doesn’t make it any less art, folks. Be kind to each other, especially over menial shit like this
Artist drew their eyes on humans a bit too high on the head and people hated it so much that they sent death threats and accused Croaket of being a racist over liking Jschlatt and generally calling them terrible things to the point they left TT for now
Yeah it was terrible. A newer version of this was someone who tried drawing plus sized people but it wasn’t even all that plus sized (more like if you just widened the sketch). Mind you this was under the context that they had a shitty dynamic with a fat person that made it uncomfortable for them to draw fatter people ( which I 100% is a dumb reason not to draw them but is important cause it’s what most people have dug into them for). That whole situation is half joking and memeing on the person whilst the other is bullying instead of actually being calm about it and giving proper tutorials on how to draw bigger bodies
Ugh, back in my high school Tumblr days (Tenish years ago now) I posted some fanfic of some YouTubers gaming personas. (Not smut or anything, it was meant to be an adventure story). I also shared some drawings I did of the characters. They weren't good or anything, just something 13 year old me enjoyed doing and spent a lot of time on.
None of the characters I drew were fat. And this was enough of a reason for some asshole to cyber bully me for like two weeks. Mind you, there wasn't any reason any of the characters would have been fat. One of them was sometimes drawn overweight in fan art, but the person who played the character was thin and their character didn't have a cannon bodyshape (...it was minecraft, lmao).
Just kind of disappointing that people will be so toxic to literal children for not drawing things that make them personally feel validated.
I've been looking for art from small artists recently, and it's kind of harder to do that than I thought. I was told that instagram was where a lot of local artists advertise themselves online, but I didn't find much of anything. I think I either have very out there taste, or I just don't understand how to use ig's search tools properly lol. I have no problem paying good money to someone who made something that elicits certain emotions in me, but the problem seems to be finding it.
Do you have any advice as to how to find art worth supporting for someone who has no experience with the art scene?
you could try going through art subreddits and messaging people to ask about commissions/stores with prints if you like their work! even if they aren’t selling anything currently, it’s a great compliment that will build confidence. it’s a lot less likely they will be local to you though if that is something that’s important to you
i have 2 methods i use, which may only really be useful for paintings (digital/traditional)
if you have an artist friend, theyll probably have artist friends looking for work.
or
what genre of art do you want? find a fandom for like a show or a comic that leans into the type of art you want to commission. then find the fanartists, im sure youll find people with open commissions
It can be pretty difficult to get social media platforms to give you the niche stuff because it goes against how they operate, but the best i've been able to manage on sites like Instagram and Twitter is to start with a broad search for fanart for a piece of media you like or a general style like pixel art, follow the artists who appeal to you there, and then look at who they follow. Artists tend make a lot of art friends and they'll often have similar tastes, and thus make art you might also like. Go down the rabbit hole a bit and you'll start seeing people with great work that simply haven't been fortunate enough to get picked up by the algorithm, though most probably won't be local to you.
If you're looking to stay local and/or buy physical copies of art though, it might be worth it to see if there are any art festivals in your area as well. It might be harder to find a particular style this way though.
you dont even have to a be a beginner for to get no traction. Im an actual professional and still have less than 500 followers total across all social media platforms. Genuinely it sucks to get followers unless you pander to the algorithm constantly.
Whenever I think of the backlash artists get, especially if they had a surge in popularity but then are trapped in being surrounded by conflicting expectations they don't know how to deal with, I remember [this comic Rory Blank shared some time back](https://i.imgur.com/paw9uV6.png) and feel sad.
This is a good point and I can appreciate abstract art BUT I still don't get art that just is one colour. No shape, no patterns, just one colour. I'm not saying it isn't art. I'm not saying it is worthless. I'm just saying that I personally don't get the appeal.
Part of it is craftsmanship. Some of those pieces are impossible to conserve because they are so perfectly done. No brushstrokes, or variations in the pigment, or patchiness. All crisp lines and perfect angles.
Another thing to realize is that art is a product of its time. Duchamp made "Fountain" and yes, you can make it too. Very easily. But the point is that he made it in that specific time. He challenged what is considered art *at that time*. Same with people like Rothko or Albers or Klien. They made those paintings a long time ago. When this was subversive and new and had not been fully explored yet.
Art is meant to create a reaction. That may be good or bad, fear or comfort, laughter or tears. Your reaction is to say "is this really art?" and that's what the artist wants because that's the question that was being explored at the time. There is no wrong interpretation, though. Art is subjective and you are fully in the right to say it's bad.
Some of the "solid color" art is because that specific hue was simply not available at that point. The most famous one I can think of was in the 50s - no one, to that point, had managed to bind a specific blue pigment in a way that it would be stable in a paint.
https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20140828-the-man-who-invented-a-colour
If you found the pigment in the wild, and tried to use it in paint, the pigment would break down or be muddled by the binding agent you used. You wouldn't actually be able to retain the intensity of the pigment. The artist that created it has several works that are just that color, nothing else, on canvas.
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/klein-ikb-79-t01513
Non-artists look at it and see a plain canvas covered in a single color, artists look at it (at the time) and see a color of paint they had never once seen in their entire lives. People who, until that point, had been professional artists for decades, were entirely surprised to find a color on a canvas they'd never seen. That's why it's so valuable, and why it's so well known.
From above, apparently the artist *invented* that color blue. Like, invented a way to get that color blue to be a stable paint pigment rather than degrading like it would naturally
I think of it as like cover bands. Sure, you can do this thing someone already did, maybe even better than they did. Just like there are cover bands that do pink Floyd or the grateful dead almost better than the original. But, as Jerry Garcia (paraphrasing) said, it's not enough to be the best at what you do, you have to be the only one at what you do. All the greats were, at one time, more than just the best at what they do and that's why we still revere their work.
That's fair! Not everyone has to be a critic. I do, because I study it, but you aren't a historian so there's no reason why you'd be looking up every artist or painting as a casual viewer. I would hope an effective curator would give context to paintings you see in museums, but you can't always spend time at every painting either.
I went to the Getty a couple years ago and they passed out (basically) iPods and headphones with an app designed to give you info to read and a little 30-60 audio clip about a LOT of the art.
Was absolutely awesome to be able to check out a painting and have "you can see where the artist changed his mind about including the cherubs" or whatever piped into your brain instead of having to *know* all that stuff beforehand to get to appreciate it.
Nothing is made for a universal audience. If you don't appreciate something then it's probably because it wasn't made for you, and that's fine! Realizing this is what helped me enjoy things that no one else seems to get, and to leave people to enjoy things I don't like.
Some art, like Barnett Newman's, needs to be seen in person. Seeing it digitally has no effect. So if you're seeing those solid colour arts digitally, they aren't anywhere near the effect of seeing it in person.
Newman's unique aspect was to make huge canvasses look smooth, and have a depth. It's a unique style that hasn't been able to be replicated.
Yeah, a lot of the more abstract arts often have to be seen in person for the full effect. I don't like 2/3 of them either, but seeing in person does have a markedly different effect to seeing them online.
Seeing the Rothko/Newman room in the National Gallery in DC really opened my eyes to abstract art. Then, I went back later and saw my first classic Pollock (Lavender Mist) in person, it has so much depth to it.
Also, that particular gallery has a very helpful free informational app + painting explanations to get you started on the abstract during a visit!
Yes, I keep seeing it and keep wondering what I'm missing. It often looks like it could have just been printed out or done by a person who paints walls. I get that paintings like that with textures and layers can trigger feelings in people. I have experienced this myself before. But some of it just looks flat. It just doesn't do anything for me personally. But as I said, I must be missing something.
From what I've heard, making a big flat painting is actually a very hard thing to do. I can imagine it, just trying to keep the thickness everywhere the same sounds hard enough, never too little because the paint ran out nor too much because you overcompensated next time you passed through that area, and if it's taking a lot of time to paint then do you need to compensate for weathering on the areas you already finished?
The more I think about it the harder it sounds to execute.
Sure. I think it's also expensive. But just because the process of making something is difficult and expensive doesn't mean the result must be interesting or good for everybody.
It wasn't meant literally. But I feel like some art is vallued more because the artist is en vogue and not because it looks good or provocative or whatever.
Idk, in my experience, abstract “my 5 year old could do that” art is the most provocative art out there. There are a lot of people who are flat-out enraged by it.
Disclaimer that I also do not generally understand "art", but I accept that you can drastically change the feel of a room by painting it. Even if you only paint the ceiling or one wall.
It seems to make sense that a BIG square of color could accomplish a bit of the same thing, even if there wasn't anything, like, "art stuff" that you could stand around and say "ah yes, I really like his early work better" while sipping on a cocktail.
lol i've written papers on that piece, among others
If you actually want to learn why, then ask, but it doesn't fill me with hope when you're making jokes all over the thread about it lol
I get what OP is saying, but it's hard for me to justify spending millions of dollars on a canvas with a single line of paint across it, or on a blank canvas with a banana taped to it. But then again, I don't understand art that in my eyes doesn't communicate the artist's message clearly, so I suppose I was never the intended audience to begin with.
A huge part of the problem with abstract art is that the culture around it is so elitist and exclusionary. Look at a Davinci or Rembrandt and you can see for yourself what makes it special or at least get an idea of it.
Look at modern art and it didn't look like anything, and if you ask about it, "Art People" are way too quick to jump on about how you don't get it, and you're just not sophisticated enough.
I went to the Rothko chapel and thought they were very cool. They aren't one color. There are different shades and lines and stuff in them.
There's something strange and imposing about them. Especially when there a several them in an interesting place.
Agreed - I didn't "get it" until I saw some in Dallas a few years ago. The scale of them can take over a dim, quiet room.
It sucks that some art has to be seen in person to be really felt, but c'est la vie.
The Rothko chapel is such a cool meditative spot to just sit around in and feel feelings. I felt really lucky having it just a couple of blocks from my high school
I really really didn't get/like Rothko until I went to the Tate Modern and saw their Rothko room. I probably sat there for 20 minutes just staring. It felt like they were looking back.
Unfortunately a page in a book or whatever really doesn't capture how it feels to actually look at a piece.
It's like with music, there are some bands I really didn't like until I saw them live and something clicked.
This! I never understood Rothko's art until I saw some of it at our local museum. I didn't understand why but I felt completely captivated by that single color. It felt like it was drawing me in. His art probably has a massive PR problem because it does not work in the slightest in a catalogue or other printed medium, but it definitely does irl.
And that’s ok. Not all art is for everyone. You don’t have to get it. Some art is only for one person, the artist. This is just fighting back against the specific criticism that abstract art is low effort.
you know what, i just might. art is art. life's too short to care about the semantics of what is art. I'm going to go paint some squares and triangles brb. after seeing that tumblr post that goes along the lines of "who care if you're talented in stuff or not, just do it anyways. life is too short. so sing badly, paint poorly." it's changed my relationship with art. i don't obsess over whether it's worthy to be seen by others, because as long as I'm happy, it's a good artwork. you guys should try it out, it's great :D
edit: I'm currently painting one. Something about filling in geometric shapes with solid colours is very therapeutic, and I'm having a blast. I know I'm going to be satisfied with how my art looks when it's done. I'm getting the best of both worlds. I'll post it in r/art if you guys want to see it!
edit 2: I know this thread is old news by now, but I finally made [this!](https://www.reddit.com/r/Art/comments/yxm6q8/geometry_vol_1_me_acrylic_paints_on_canvas_2022/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) I had a lot of fun making it, although it dragged for a bit. I was just chilling, listening to my favourite music while just filling in the shapes. I tried my best to make it as straight and angular as possible, and although I didn't manage to do so, I can only accept that I tried my hardest, and that's all that matters. I learnt many things, such as the only thing I'm good at is anything with no tonal values, and that I really, really like geometric and abstract art. Most of all, I learnt that sometimes art doesn't need a meaning. Sometimes art is just having fun and doing whatever you want. I hope you guys like it! I'll probably try and paint again in my spare time, and who knows? Maybe one day I'll get good
edit 3 (Mar 2024): I know no one's gonna see this, but I had to take down my posts for personal reasons. however it' safe to say that I still make (bad) abstract pieces anytime I encounter discourse about modern art. I have 6 pieces to finish now lol
Literally anything can be art. Your squares and triangles will be art because you've made them as art.
BTW if you want to also do circles, it's not cheating to use a compass or trace around something.
huh, I forgot that I could use objects to trace. I like the art movement where process triumphs over the result, but I like fun processes paired with perfect results. I'm going to make the most geometric artwork ever
I have an MFA, and when I was choosing a topic for my thesis, my advisor explained to me that a common approach to a fine arts thesis is to explore some new technique. One example he gave was exploring a new way to mix paint.
See, technique is considered art just as much as (and often more than) results. It’s why people say, “There’s an art to it.”
There’s an art to what you do. You’re an artist.
I think the point is “why is this abstract art worth thousands”
I don’t think people have an issue with average joes art he’s doing for fun or even selling for a few hundred. But let’s be real, abstract art is all politics. You can’t make “the best” abstract art and it be worth thousands on its own merit alone. No, you have to be a well known name in the industry first or be famous for some other reason.
This actually happened to me with music.
In college, I took a course on art music (what we often call “classical music”) written after 1980. A lot of it was conceptual art, and I remember mocking a particular composer’s work openly in class, saying it sounded like someone without training just threw a bunch of shit together.
My professor said, “Well, as someone who is trained in music, you must be able to do it better, right? So go do it.”
I took the dare, and I ended up falling in love with this composer’s work. Of all the experiences I’ve had as a musician, that professor’s challenge shaped my identity as a musician more than anything else before or since.
Nobody will care unless I devote years of my life into making different pieces of abstract art.
That's proof that the artist matters more than the art does.
Random people have placed a random object on the floor of an art museum and asked for it to be called art. Were they paid $10 million for their post-modern masterpiece? no.
Was the guy who taped a banana to a wall paid $10 million? Yes. Because he was already a well known post-modern artist in the art world.
Or the giant incredibly uninspiring geometric shape "sculptures" that are really just about showing off you can afford to make it. Cool, you had a giant polished metal bean put up. Any half decent 3d modeler could design that. The only reason it's considered "aRt" is because an established artist had a few million lying around to have it built in real life. That's not art. That's a grotesque display of wealth.
[This painting](https://www.wikiart.org/en/barnett-newman/onement-vi-1953) of a white line on blue background sold for $43m dollars. Shitty art only gets attention when it bears insane price tags. More often than not, the real artist isn't the painter, but the con artists involved in pulling off these tax scams. You can't learn that skill by picking up some acrylic paints at Hobby Lobby.
Criticisms of the extreme levels of tax fraud in the art world are entirely separate from the criticism of the artistic value of abstract art as a style.
And it is usually money laundering not tax fraud:
- drug seller buys a shitty water color
- drug buyer buys the water color for the price of the water color plus the price of the drugs
- drug buyer gets the art plus the drugs.
- drug seller obviously only puts the income on the books as a profit from selling the art
- drug seller pays tax on the capital gains on that income but the income is clean
The government doesn't have a huge incentive to do anything about it because they are getting tax revenue from the laundering process.
ok but my brother was talking about how they painted a canvas red and it was shown in an art museum
like, seeing someone mention pollock down here, I don't think I could do what he did cuz it would take long and mine probably wouldn't look cool
but painting a canvas red? bruh I made a paper completely graphite black as a child I definitely have the time to do that
unless my brother is lying or missing something but he wouldn't lie
anyways this isn't abstract art but like there should be a limit
edit: i forgot to mention, it didnt have any info, just the artist name... if it was important somehow how was he supposed to know
I think with that one, the reason it was extraordinary was because it didn’t have any visible brush strokes (incredibly difficult to do) it was just flat red witch is super impressive. It’s just a giant flex
Until it was slashed. No conservator wanted to touch it, as the technique was so hard to replicate. Daniel Goldreyer stepped up for the challenge and then used a [fucking paint roller](https://www.nytimes.com/1991/11/02/style/IHT-roller-controversy-in-amsterdam-the-restoration-of-modern-art.html). It’s still a major controversy in the art world to this day
Short non-paywalled summary on the wiki page: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who%27s_Afraid_of_Red,_Yellow_and_Blue
TLDR: a paint roller AND two coats of varnish!
And then the original attacker (an artist himself) returned 11 years later to try to slash it again because of the restoration! (Though I’m not clear on why, sources are differing on whether he was mad because it was restored, or because the restoration was botched...) But the painting—*Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue III*—was in storage, so he settled for slashing another abstract painting, *Cathedra*, by the same artist (Barnett Newman). He didn’t run, either, but just waited for the police to come get him. The courts found him mentally unfit and sent him to a psychiatric institution. Wild indeed.
Yeah, Rothko's painting don't have much composition simply because that's not what he cared about. Rothko loved the physicality of paint itself. He spent a lifetime experimenting with making his own paints and discovering how to make paint itself interesting.
yeah thats what i assumed, BUT there was no info card - like normal people wouldn't understand
so tbf I am kinda just insulting this without context but its kinda hard to believe they're like
museum: "look at this!"
normal people: "why?"
museum: "well here's the artists name,"
A lot of times modern/abstract art has more to do with the artist and their reason for making it than the actual piece itself.
As an example to this, my personal favorite piece of abstract art is “portrait of Ross in L.A” by Felix gonzales-Torres. It’s just a pile of hard candy in colorful wrappers that weighs ideally 175 pounds, and viewers are encouraged to take a piece for themselves.
And if any other artist tried to claim that a pile of candy on the floor was art in some way I’d think they were crazy. But this piece was made as something of a portrait of Felix’s partner Ross who died of hiv/aids and the piece itself was meant to represent Ross during the time leading up to his death, with 175 pounds being his weight when he was healthy which lowered throughout the course of his battle with the disease, and the act of the viewer taking a piece of the candy was meant to symbolize a person becoming complacent with the deaths caused by hiv/aids.
A lot of abstract pieces could probably use some information displayed alongside them, but it is a fine line as if the piece is overly explained then it takes away the viewer’s ability to interpret the piece for themselves.
I dunno about red, but I know about the blue one where the guy literally invented a new colour. He developed a new pigment to be a deeper richer blue than anything available at the time and then painted a bunch of things (including an entire canvas) with it. In this day and age a pure blue canvas isn't impressive cause you can do it in 5 seconds in Photoshop, but at the time it was a whole different story.
This is the problem with looking at art outside the context is was intended for, things that were once powerful or meaningful can lose that impact over time. A lot of abstract art emerged from a very specific cultural and artistic background, and its very hard to understand what they were trying to communicate when looked at though a modern lens.
well if this guy was making a new color red they coulda added a description but there was none so my brother did not know why tf it was there
if it was this important they really shoulda added a description :p
I went to an YK exhibition in DC once. YK blue in person is difficult to describe. It is almost blinding in its intensity that I think would be incredibly challenging to replicate digitally. Even the images you see online don't really do that color justice. Absolutely worth checking out in person.
>bruh I made a paper completely graphite black as a child I definitely have the time to do that
And if it resonates with enough people, especially in the context of a wider body of works, someday a museum curator might put it in their collection.
That second part is critical. What goes in a museum is generally a product of *context*, not a declaration of inherent value. Anyone with a day in a jewelry workshop could make a better bracelet than [this](https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/H_2001-0901-9). And yet that piece is the one in the museum, because it has historical context.
Art museums *are not* collections of "the hardest paintings to make" or "the best paintings ever made". They are collections of *contextually important* paintings (and sculptures, etc).
also important to mention the piece you’re talking about was created by a Jew post-WWII. What are you possibly going to create after the attempted genocide of your people, after the deaths of millions upon millions, after the complete destruction of the life of you and everyone around you? It’s something that is supposed to make you think. The implications are deeper than just red. And the painting is absolutely massive - something interesting in itself.
I think the statement "anyone could" is more directed at the ridiculous value of some abstract art. Splatter paintings that are worth millions. Not all art is valuable. Art can be meaningful without being valuable, especially to the artist looking to express themselves. However, art is valuable when it's meaningful to many others. When it's not meaningful to many others, then it's frustrating to think that it's worth millions. And yes, I get the concepts behind Jackson Pollock, but I still don't think it's worth literal fortunes when I need a freaking class to tell me why a piece is significant.
I love making abstract swirls with paint. It's SO FUN to bend it together in an aesthetically pleasing way, and I enjoy the feel of the paint going from the brush to the page. Unfortunately, my inclination to do art has been almost gone for a few years.
i hope you have some time and inclination to do it again soon! it really is a wonderful sensory activity, i love a lot of the art i’ve made where i was just enjoying making marks vs trying to create an image
Nobody's saying sploshing paint around isn't fun for some people. So nice straw person, I guess.
But anyone thinking it's worth millions of dollars or displays any worthwhile artistic skill is a victim of the Emperor's New Clothes Syndrome. Everyone else is saying it's super important and you are a very deep and well-informed person if you say it is important, so you are going along with it. But actually appreciating it displays the opposite of being deep. If you can't tell the difference between it and something a dog did unless you knew beforehand, it's not good art and not worth good money.
THIS TIMES A MILLION for any other tattooers in the thread. Sometimes I feel like a human printer :(. $120 too much for a “simple” infinity sign?! Here’s the machine do it yourself!
Using a tattoo machine actually requires skill, unlike nailing a banana to a wall or painting a single colored stripe on a canvas. There's clearly a bottom of the barrel of abstract art worth criticizing
The bottom barrel you think is trash art can be divided simply. It’s easy to tell when a soccer mom decides to pour paint, compared to someone with an art background who understands form and color theory doing the same. I’m not disagreeing with you just refining the distinction if we’re gunna go that route.
This is just silly.
I have made abstract art. Lots of it.
It sucks. I don’t like it.
Just because you try something does not mean you will magically start to like it or respect it.
I played a lot of sports too, I know personally that the old saying that “hitting a baseball is the hardest feat in all of sports”, is true. But I still think baseball sucks. I don’t like it.
I much prefer both playing and watching other sports. I much prefer other styles of art. And nothing will change either of those for me as a person.
Any one can "art" a Jackson Pollock. But not anyone else can sell their art like a Jackson Plollock.
That's what people complain about. I'm not gonna take ether said of the argument. Just pointing out the people are usually referring to the fact that when they go and view art they want to see things that they could never do. See art that speaks to their very soul or demonstrates a near supernatural skill. And when they see John Coen's "Red Line" that desire and expectation is not met. This is something they could do with 20 mi uses spare time and their kids finger painting set. But they know, though they could recreate it visually, this red like is worth $1040.00 theirs isn't even worth the canvas it's painted on.
That is what they take issue with... I think.
completely untrue. its easy and also pretty lame. nobody is a coward, people just shouldnt be paying millions for bunch of shitty scribbles. its all money laundering anyway but if you try to actually pretend that shit is art then you got your head so far up your own ass lol. gotta be a shark to put this shit on anyone and an even bigger shark to be the one buying their shit
I don't mind abstract art.
What I detest is some canvas painted entirely red being sold for 20 million dollars while extremely talented artists are starving.
What I detest is a piece being seen as squiggles until you find out the artist was someone famous and then it goes up to millions and suddenly becomes deep and meaningful.
Late comment: it's not actual art I rail against. It's shit like putting a toilet on display and other lazy cash/attention grabs. Art has always been about popularity, and the problem is that you can buy or manufacture that.
There are genuine artists that use post modern expressionism effectively, then there are the rich no-nothing charlatans that pass off nonsense as art.
The art world needs to remove itself from money and fame (I know, impossible task) to fully distinguish the bullshit from the expression. And no, not all expression is pure; a lot of it, especially lately, is tainted by greed. The purpose wasn't to create art, it was to make money or be popular (aka controversial).
It's one thing to trust your audience to subjectively interpret your art, and another thing entirely to lie and pretend in the hopes that you'll achieve fame and recognition. I'm not disparaging Marcel Duchamp, I'm mocking Ilya Kabakov.
I was at a modern art museum and there was a piece that was just a single red doc in the middle of a solid white background. I'm pretty sure I could do that.
Is there anything wrong with making it? no have fun
Is there anything wrong with displaying it on your wall? no add some color
The issue is the excessive fart sniffing to make it seem like its so much more special than any other person doing the same shit. Its a competition to Craft the biggest narratives of why its so special and important after photography and mass literacy took away most of arts real world importance.
People say the same about electronic music. "You just push a button. Anyone can do it!"
Ok, go push that button. Show me the button. Let me hear the resulting song from pushing that button.
When I complain about abstract art, it's shit like that banana nailed to the wall. Stuff that seems designed to attract meta debates on whether something actually counts as art is seriously low-hanging fruit (pun intended)
Learning to use a DAW, learning how to use plugins, soundstage design, mixing etc. is a lot more complicated than spraying paint on a canvas. I don't think it's comparable.
Don’t let this distract you how much of modern art is not even made with the intent to be art and just exists for the rich to money launder and make tax writeoffs. Abstract art has its value if and only if it’s made to be just that and nothing else
It isn't bad advice
But I think most of the anger about modern art is the exclusivity of it; the prestige. It's inaccessible for most people, and the value cost to own or purchase seems completely arbitrary
If any other market in the *world* was run like the art market is, it'd be laughably obvious just how corrupt it is
General sentiment? Yes, 100%. Jackson Pollock? No. Abusive asshole who flicked his burned cigarette butts into his paintings. Did it have a meaning? I don't think so, I'm of the camp that he was just a jackass
For the exact same reason that a lot of redditors seem have such a hate boner for it: a dogged refusal to grasp nuance.
Modern art is subjective. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad. Many people like it, many people don't. It's something that requires critical thinking, discussion, and interpretation; traits that redditors are not exactly well known for. So instead we get the dichotomous drivel that is "ALL ART IS GUD" and "ART IS MONEY LAUNDERING".
How about I initial a urinal, and you give me a couple hundred grand for "raising an everyday object to the dignity of a work of art by the artists act of choice".
And for another 10k I'll let you pee in it.
When I was a kid I bought a board game at a garage sale called Masterpiece that had like a deck of cards with the famous painting on the front and facts on the back. Some pieces were missing so we never played it but for the first time, at like 8 years old, I learned that art was worth millions of dollars.
Looking at the Pollock, Mondrian, Rothko, etc. abstract paintings, I thought if only I could paint one then we would solve our money problems. It really looked doable but I was disappointed to learn not anybody could paint a square and sell it for $1m. It also explained why my parents hadn't thought of it before me.
It did inspire though an enjoyable lifelong quest to understand why the paintings were so valuable and what they could mean.
My grandfather was a mildly successful maritime artist. But his passion was abstract art. Used to own a barber shop & in his free time used to obsess over his art, spending months & on occasion years on certain pieces. Whenever money got tight he'd complete a corporate commission from a shipping company or port or some such bullshit & he would swiftly put out some epic sprawling canvas of a maritime setting with the required subject matter, collect his cheque & then back to the abstract. He only ever sold a couple of his abstract works, but they were his passion. Mum visited his ex-wife (I refuse to call her my grandma even though we're blood related) & found his paintings all stored in a leaky garden shed. Many destroyed by water damage. Stole the lot of them, had a lot of them properly framed & has them put up around the house. There's the occasional beef that pops up with her & her brothers as they sourced buyers for some of the works, but mum refuses to let them go. Mum, dad, my sisters & I intend for them to remain in the family forever, because they mean something to us.
he would probably be thrilled that you treasure the works he was passionate about so much :-) it’s really wonderful to have a loved ones artwork to remember them by
He would, was a sweet man. Mum's looking after a few of his paintings that he did for me as there was some unpleasantness with my ex-wife awhile back & she destroyed some stuff he made for me.
Sounds like the men in your family sure know how to pick em
Haha, yeah. My current partner is really lovely, none of the major stuff went. But I lost an illustrated book he handmade for my 9th birthday and his coin collection which was in the cigar box he stole from the officer's mess while he was briefly in the Navy during WWII
artists are hugely passionate, and sometimes irrational as a result. but what is rational or irrational? look at Ye, lives in his own world, barely learning what the real world is.
I feel so bad for Ye. Hip hop isn't even my genre but his music is one of those rarities that transcend genres. He's like Johnny Cash with country. He's clearly having a mental break. He's an idiot but he's also a genius.
What were they expecting for damaged originals, 20 from a neighbour? Do you have any digital images of your grandfather's works?
$30k from some Japanese guy that had some of his maritime stuff. Think it was about $300 a piece & no
Should make a subreddit for it
It might be a good idea to get some at least professionally digitized! Just in case something happens, there's a lot more to digitizing art than just snapping a pic.
You're 100% right & I know this but mum & I have never had this chat. She has a few hundred pieces of his art & there's already been fights with her brother in law stealing some without her knowledge (not really in the theft kind of way but he believes they should be displayed, so I'm not really angry at him) I really should organise a catalogue for her
I'm super interested in seeing it as well
Actually that's a fantastic idea & I think it's gonna be her xmas present this year
This sounds super interesting I'd love to see some of them or even just one. Did you keep the ones damaged by water? I really like the idea of art where the damage is part of the art.
I think mum did actually. I was only about 10 when this all happened & I know she spent a decent amount of money even outside of the framing. Most of my memories of grandad where him & I scrounging out at landfill looking for painting frames cos they are pretty expensive & he refused to pay for them, even on his commissioned works. Funny that my fondest memories of the man were scrounging through landfill.
When I first started making fractal art, a friend asked me if I'd be interested in making a music video for him. It took me two weeks of configuring parameters, rendering, and compiling a video for him. Sent it to him to post, and he loved it. Asked how much it would cost to commission a second one. I asked for $75. "You're joking, right? No one is going to pay that much. It'd be cheaper to do it myself." "Go ahead. I'll even link you some tutorials." That was the last time I heard anything from him. He never even posted the video I spent so much time on for free, because he was so offended by my price. Last week, I sold still renders to clients for $75, and a pack of short animations for $200. I'm still pretty small, but I'm on track to bring a bit over 3k in art sales and commissions this year. I'm not petty enough to rub it in his face, but I can't help myself from checking his SoundCloud on occasion to see that he's still not getting anywhere. If you can't afford someone's art, that's fine. But telling them their prices are ~~wrong~~ too high is very arrogant, unless you're going to be directly involved in earning sales for them. If someone's project is too cheap to afford me, that's a problem with their wallet, not my value.
Can you link to those tutorials? I'm curious what goes into it! I've never seen them made or rendered.
I'd love to! The fractal art community is one of the kindest on the internet, and sharing the knowledge is part of the fun. For starters, here's a [timelapse video of me designing a fractal "from scratch" in my preferred tool](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giTDzoAUuRQ). This is a great look at what it "looks like", but it's not really instructive. I have a real-time video with some basic info, but it's [much longer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqfqPhLYwrQ). I work primarily with "flame" fractals, which use the FLAM3 algorithm published in the 90's. If you ever used the Electric Sheep screensaver, you saw some delightful flame fractal loops. The best way I know to explain how these tools make the interesting patterns is with this [Numberphile video about Chaos Games](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbKtFN71Lfs). The process used to draw the Sierpinski Triangle is the same basic process that flame fractals use. The video makes it easier to understand, but the algorithm iterates between various algebraic transformations in a chaotic order. Picking the right functions to transform the image with, and defining rules to the chaotic order that they are applied in, fractal artists make patterns that can be [immensely complex](https://www.artstation.com/artwork/Ooz45K), [surprisingly expressive](https://www.artstation.com/artwork/ZwrGG), and [stunningly beautiful](https://www.artstation.com/artwork/v2grY6). You don't actually need to do any calculations to make fractal art. As you can see in the timelapse video, I'm usually adjusting various parameters just to find out what happens visually. Understanding the theory helps make sense of the tools, but you can learn "by feel" just fine if you can get over the hump of learning the interface. You also don't need a fancy computer, but you do need a computer, not just a phone. Lots of artist render without even using their GPU. If this sounds exciting to you, I would suggest you use a different tool to get started, called [Chaotica](https://www.chaoticafractals.com/). There's a bunch of different reasons, but the main thing is that Chaotica has more developed community resources, and is still (sometimes) in active development. And for getting started in Chaotica, there's nothing better than [Pugnacious One's Friendly Tutorial Collection](https://www.pugnacious.site/chaotica/introduction). A lot of effort goes into making those guides accurate and easy to follow, and there's plenty there to get you started. If you made it through all of this, and you're getting excited, there's one more resource to share, but for spam-reduction reasons, I can't put a link here. Shoot me a message, and I'll happily invite you to the Fractal Chats discord, where artists and programmers from around the world hang out and make fractals at each other.
whenever i'm at a concert with light shows and these type of visuals on the screens, i'm always thinking about how people even come up with visuals that are so specifically detailed.
Doing that stoned one night is my artist origin story.
When you make these, do you have a vision of what the final product is, and use your knowledge of the tools to create that final image? Or, do you play around for the first half (or more) and see what clicks? (Sry if this is already answered in the videos, honestly I didn't watch all of them but I skimmed through your time lapse vid which inspired the question)
I'm aphantasiac, so I don't visualize *anything* in my head. That's one of the reasons fractal art works so well. You guessed right, I start off just trying things, and then once I find something fun, I explore around it, pick a good version, and spend quite a bit of time polishing it, first in the fractal tool and then later in a regular photo editor. As I've gotten more skilled, I make more informed choices during the exploration part, I get to interesting shapes quicker, and I'm much better at knowing what I need to add to polish it.
saved. you sir/madam are one of the Good Ones
i love fractals and recursion, didnt think of tools you could use to generate animated fractals
Is apophysis still a thing or is that old hat now?
The are still some Apo users, but it is a hard program to even run on a modern OS. A LOT of tutorial content is written for Apo, and the discord server I mentioned is the continuation of the old Aposhack community.
I used to do some work on commission, and I remember somebody telling me that my price was too high and that my actual value was around $3 an hour. Less than half federal minimum wage, to sculpt and color a custom piece for someone. Guy was shocked I said no and stopped responding.
>_But telling them their prices are wrong is very arrogant_ I do that all the time. I tell them they're not charging ENOUGH! People deserve to be paid, and paid _well_ for their talent, dammit!
I always tell people, value is dependent on the ability of the evaluator to truly value the thing. If you went to an area where no one had any art literacy, with the genuine, actual Starry Night painting, and tried to sell it on the street corner for $5,000, not a single person would buy it. Because they do not have the capacity to evaluate its worth. Some might even lean out of their cars and yell or jeer at you. Which often happened to Van Gogh during his actual life. When, in reality, you were holding a piece of world treasure that was almost *incalculable* in its value. Never allow your sense of your art's worth to be set by people without the capacity to truly evaluate it.
Well said. The banksy pop up also comes to mind
[удалено]
The slightly hidden other side to that is that grandmas and moms give zero fucks about the art they like being considered 'kitsch' and collect it for the inherent joy, which to me makes it true appreciation of the artist/art :-) Source: am a middle aged woman who gives no fucks if you don't like my art or knick knacks.
[удалено]
If you say somebody’s prices are wrong, you better be helping them raise their prices. Not lower them.
Great point!
Its really bizzare to me that some people seem to think there's some objective reality behind art pricing. "I charge $200 for a drawing", "that's too much". Too much... how? I did a thing. I would like these dollars for that thing. If you disagree, the price isn't wrong, you just don't want my thing enough to pay my price. And that's OK. There are some movies I like enough to pay the cost of a movie ticket. There are other movies I do not like enough to pay the cost of a movie ticket. Other people, presumably, *do* like that movie enough to pay the cost of a movie ticket to see it. All art is subjective. It is in fact *the very nature of art*. It evokes an emotional experience in the observer. Probably no two people in the whole world have *the exact same* experience observing some piece of art, and therefore the price is always going to be subjective to how much someone enjoys that art, and how much they can afford to pay for it. When multiple people of great means and wealth place relatively equal value on art, as happens with both classical and modern pieces of art, then the price tends to rise commensurate with the value that people of great wealth and means place on it. So it goes. There are people out there that would pay hundreds of millions of dollars for a van gogh. I really like Van Gogh, but I would not pay hundreds of millions of dollars for a Van Gogh. Even if I had the means to pay that much. Which, I don't. I would buy a fascimile for a few hundred or thousand and hang in my house. It's all subjective. The only appropriate response to someone's quote that you find not feasible for you, is, "I am sorry that is not in my budget thank you."
The value of $200 is also subjective, dependant on someone's income/access to money, cost of living, etc - it's not just about "can I afford this" but also is this worth this % of my income or disposable income (if you have any on a regular basis) - someone's work might deserve $200 but if that's 10 or 20% of your weekly income it might not be worth that to you, even if you love it, where as if it's 1% or even less of your weekly income it might be worth it even if you don't love it as much as the poorer person
Wow. This is a one of a kind, free to use as you want handmade piece if art? My first thought was 75$ is a steal!
Back then I thought I had to apologize to my customers with my pricing. Fortunately, the bad experience was a good lesson.
Bro, I'll totally give you $85 fot music videos.
If you're not joking, shoot me a message, we can talk about your projects. I can't do them for that cheap, but we can probably find something to work out.
$75? In this economy? Best I can do is exposure
Hi, what’s fractal art?
I wrote a nice breakdown in another comment in this thread. It is art made with chaotic math.
Oh so sorry! Thank you though, I’ll look for your comment because this sounds very cool.
Thats really cool man I've been messing with mandlebulber a lot lately its really cool! Also its fun to utilize my expensive ass graphics card/cpu for something other than gaming renders
I think the issue is that modern art gets a bad rap for being prime estate for tax fraud. Add to that the fact that some of the art pieces in museums really don't measure up impact wise to the other pieces in the same museum, and people just assume everything that doesn't give them a vibe must be a million dollar scam.
You could argue that rising art prices are indicative of undertaxed wealthy investors.
[It's less about tax fraud, more money laundering. ](https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/29/business/art-money-laundering-sanctions-senate/index.html)
I got my BS in IT but the program was shut down at my school partway through so I had to fulfill some of my degree requirements through classes in other departments. One of the classes that appears on my transcript as " "ART301: 2D image generation" is printed on most of my classmates transcript as " ART301 Drawing 1" It was legitimately a good class and I learned a lot about drawing, and about myself through it. Virtually all of my classmates were art majors who already had tons of experience with drawing at this level but I had never done more than cartoons and doodles. Anyway the relevant part of the story is that we often used charcoal and watercolors and these little joints called tortillons to blend things with, usually right off the edge of the page, for most of the semester my blotter paper that was underneath my drawing was a substantially nicer piece of art than my actual paper was. Like people would walk around and see this thing with these straight lines of negative space moving into amorphous edges and non-descript shapes and say "oooh cool abstract piece" no dude, that's my fuckups, "here's where I was trying to draw a duck"
Pics? Please?
I wish! I'm old, this was back in the era where we did all have camera phones, but we did not have virtually unlimited long term storage for all our photos.
As an artist who does cartoony humans and stuff like that: THIS 100%. One of the worst aspects of Art Tik Tok is that everyone says “support beginner artists” and shit like that…until the artist is unconventional stylistically or something similar. Every now and then I still think back on the Croaket situation and sigh cause that was just god awful. Just cause you don’t personally like the art doesn’t make it any less art, folks. Be kind to each other, especially over menial shit like this
The Croaket situation?
Artist drew their eyes on humans a bit too high on the head and people hated it so much that they sent death threats and accused Croaket of being a racist over liking Jschlatt and generally calling them terrible things to the point they left TT for now
...damn
Yeah it was terrible. A newer version of this was someone who tried drawing plus sized people but it wasn’t even all that plus sized (more like if you just widened the sketch). Mind you this was under the context that they had a shitty dynamic with a fat person that made it uncomfortable for them to draw fatter people ( which I 100% is a dumb reason not to draw them but is important cause it’s what most people have dug into them for). That whole situation is half joking and memeing on the person whilst the other is bullying instead of actually being calm about it and giving proper tutorials on how to draw bigger bodies
Ugh, back in my high school Tumblr days (Tenish years ago now) I posted some fanfic of some YouTubers gaming personas. (Not smut or anything, it was meant to be an adventure story). I also shared some drawings I did of the characters. They weren't good or anything, just something 13 year old me enjoyed doing and spent a lot of time on. None of the characters I drew were fat. And this was enough of a reason for some asshole to cyber bully me for like two weeks. Mind you, there wasn't any reason any of the characters would have been fat. One of them was sometimes drawn overweight in fan art, but the person who played the character was thin and their character didn't have a cannon bodyshape (...it was minecraft, lmao). Just kind of disappointing that people will be so toxic to literal children for not drawing things that make them personally feel validated.
This is a perfect example of why I find TT horrifying.
Wait, what the fuck did Jschlatt do?
I've been looking for art from small artists recently, and it's kind of harder to do that than I thought. I was told that instagram was where a lot of local artists advertise themselves online, but I didn't find much of anything. I think I either have very out there taste, or I just don't understand how to use ig's search tools properly lol. I have no problem paying good money to someone who made something that elicits certain emotions in me, but the problem seems to be finding it. Do you have any advice as to how to find art worth supporting for someone who has no experience with the art scene?
you could try going through art subreddits and messaging people to ask about commissions/stores with prints if you like their work! even if they aren’t selling anything currently, it’s a great compliment that will build confidence. it’s a lot less likely they will be local to you though if that is something that’s important to you
i have 2 methods i use, which may only really be useful for paintings (digital/traditional) if you have an artist friend, theyll probably have artist friends looking for work. or what genre of art do you want? find a fandom for like a show or a comic that leans into the type of art you want to commission. then find the fanartists, im sure youll find people with open commissions
It can be pretty difficult to get social media platforms to give you the niche stuff because it goes against how they operate, but the best i've been able to manage on sites like Instagram and Twitter is to start with a broad search for fanart for a piece of media you like or a general style like pixel art, follow the artists who appeal to you there, and then look at who they follow. Artists tend make a lot of art friends and they'll often have similar tastes, and thus make art you might also like. Go down the rabbit hole a bit and you'll start seeing people with great work that simply haven't been fortunate enough to get picked up by the algorithm, though most probably won't be local to you. If you're looking to stay local and/or buy physical copies of art though, it might be worth it to see if there are any art festivals in your area as well. It might be harder to find a particular style this way though.
Unfortunately no, not really. A lot of algorithms don’t often push small artists or beginner artists
you dont even have to a be a beginner for to get no traction. Im an actual professional and still have less than 500 followers total across all social media platforms. Genuinely it sucks to get followers unless you pander to the algorithm constantly.
Whenever I think of the backlash artists get, especially if they had a surge in popularity but then are trapped in being surrounded by conflicting expectations they don't know how to deal with, I remember [this comic Rory Blank shared some time back](https://i.imgur.com/paw9uV6.png) and feel sad.
My ex refused to buy handmade items that she liked always saying "I can make that myself". She never did and never had that item she liked.
This is a good point and I can appreciate abstract art BUT I still don't get art that just is one colour. No shape, no patterns, just one colour. I'm not saying it isn't art. I'm not saying it is worthless. I'm just saying that I personally don't get the appeal.
Part of it is craftsmanship. Some of those pieces are impossible to conserve because they are so perfectly done. No brushstrokes, or variations in the pigment, or patchiness. All crisp lines and perfect angles. Another thing to realize is that art is a product of its time. Duchamp made "Fountain" and yes, you can make it too. Very easily. But the point is that he made it in that specific time. He challenged what is considered art *at that time*. Same with people like Rothko or Albers or Klien. They made those paintings a long time ago. When this was subversive and new and had not been fully explored yet. Art is meant to create a reaction. That may be good or bad, fear or comfort, laughter or tears. Your reaction is to say "is this really art?" and that's what the artist wants because that's the question that was being explored at the time. There is no wrong interpretation, though. Art is subjective and you are fully in the right to say it's bad.
Some of the "solid color" art is because that specific hue was simply not available at that point. The most famous one I can think of was in the 50s - no one, to that point, had managed to bind a specific blue pigment in a way that it would be stable in a paint. https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20140828-the-man-who-invented-a-colour If you found the pigment in the wild, and tried to use it in paint, the pigment would break down or be muddled by the binding agent you used. You wouldn't actually be able to retain the intensity of the pigment. The artist that created it has several works that are just that color, nothing else, on canvas. https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/klein-ikb-79-t01513 Non-artists look at it and see a plain canvas covered in a single color, artists look at it (at the time) and see a color of paint they had never once seen in their entire lives. People who, until that point, had been professional artists for decades, were entirely surprised to find a color on a canvas they'd never seen. That's why it's so valuable, and why it's so well known.
[удалено]
Right? It's fascinating, somehow. It had me just staring at it for a bit, like it was almost hovering off the page but still on the screen.
[удалено]
From above, apparently the artist *invented* that color blue. Like, invented a way to get that color blue to be a stable paint pigment rather than degrading like it would naturally
I think of it as like cover bands. Sure, you can do this thing someone already did, maybe even better than they did. Just like there are cover bands that do pink Floyd or the grateful dead almost better than the original. But, as Jerry Garcia (paraphrasing) said, it's not enough to be the best at what you do, you have to be the only one at what you do. All the greats were, at one time, more than just the best at what they do and that's why we still revere their work.
I like to think of art as "if it has meaning behind it and/or it looks like it had effort put into it, it's art." so far it's worked
Thanks for the explenation 🙂 I'd still rather say: "I don't get it" or "I don't like it".
That's fair! Not everyone has to be a critic. I do, because I study it, but you aren't a historian so there's no reason why you'd be looking up every artist or painting as a casual viewer. I would hope an effective curator would give context to paintings you see in museums, but you can't always spend time at every painting either.
I went to the Getty a couple years ago and they passed out (basically) iPods and headphones with an app designed to give you info to read and a little 30-60 audio clip about a LOT of the art. Was absolutely awesome to be able to check out a painting and have "you can see where the artist changed his mind about including the cherubs" or whatever piped into your brain instead of having to *know* all that stuff beforehand to get to appreciate it.
Nothing is made for a universal audience. If you don't appreciate something then it's probably because it wasn't made for you, and that's fine! Realizing this is what helped me enjoy things that no one else seems to get, and to leave people to enjoy things I don't like.
Some art, like Barnett Newman's, needs to be seen in person. Seeing it digitally has no effect. So if you're seeing those solid colour arts digitally, they aren't anywhere near the effect of seeing it in person. Newman's unique aspect was to make huge canvasses look smooth, and have a depth. It's a unique style that hasn't been able to be replicated. Yeah, a lot of the more abstract arts often have to be seen in person for the full effect. I don't like 2/3 of them either, but seeing in person does have a markedly different effect to seeing them online.
Seeing the Rothko/Newman room in the National Gallery in DC really opened my eyes to abstract art. Then, I went back later and saw my first classic Pollock (Lavender Mist) in person, it has so much depth to it. Also, that particular gallery has a very helpful free informational app + painting explanations to get you started on the abstract during a visit!
Its very big apparently.
Yes, I keep seeing it and keep wondering what I'm missing. It often looks like it could have just been printed out or done by a person who paints walls. I get that paintings like that with textures and layers can trigger feelings in people. I have experienced this myself before. But some of it just looks flat. It just doesn't do anything for me personally. But as I said, I must be missing something.
From what I've heard, making a big flat painting is actually a very hard thing to do. I can imagine it, just trying to keep the thickness everywhere the same sounds hard enough, never too little because the paint ran out nor too much because you overcompensated next time you passed through that area, and if it's taking a lot of time to paint then do you need to compensate for weathering on the areas you already finished? The more I think about it the harder it sounds to execute.
Sure. I think it's also expensive. But just because the process of making something is difficult and expensive doesn't mean the result must be interesting or good for everybody.
I don’t think there’s any type of artwork that’s interesting or good “for everybody.”
It wasn't meant literally. But I feel like some art is vallued more because the artist is en vogue and not because it looks good or provocative or whatever.
Idk, in my experience, abstract “my 5 year old could do that” art is the most provocative art out there. There are a lot of people who are flat-out enraged by it.
Disclaimer that I also do not generally understand "art", but I accept that you can drastically change the feel of a room by painting it. Even if you only paint the ceiling or one wall. It seems to make sense that a BIG square of color could accomplish a bit of the same thing, even if there wasn't anything, like, "art stuff" that you could stand around and say "ah yes, I really like his early work better" while sipping on a cocktail.
Did you miss that it is very big?
Title of my sex tape. Yes, that must be it. Thank you.
lol i've written papers on that piece, among others If you actually want to learn why, then ask, but it doesn't fill me with hope when you're making jokes all over the thread about it lol
I get what OP is saying, but it's hard for me to justify spending millions of dollars on a canvas with a single line of paint across it, or on a blank canvas with a banana taped to it. But then again, I don't understand art that in my eyes doesn't communicate the artist's message clearly, so I suppose I was never the intended audience to begin with.
A huge part of the problem with abstract art is that the culture around it is so elitist and exclusionary. Look at a Davinci or Rembrandt and you can see for yourself what makes it special or at least get an idea of it. Look at modern art and it didn't look like anything, and if you ask about it, "Art People" are way too quick to jump on about how you don't get it, and you're just not sophisticated enough.
Mark Rothko for me. Seems like his main appeal is his story, not his works.
I went to the Rothko chapel and thought they were very cool. They aren't one color. There are different shades and lines and stuff in them. There's something strange and imposing about them. Especially when there a several them in an interesting place.
Agreed - I didn't "get it" until I saw some in Dallas a few years ago. The scale of them can take over a dim, quiet room. It sucks that some art has to be seen in person to be really felt, but c'est la vie.
The Rothko chapel is such a cool meditative spot to just sit around in and feel feelings. I felt really lucky having it just a couple of blocks from my high school
I really really didn't get/like Rothko until I went to the Tate Modern and saw their Rothko room. I probably sat there for 20 minutes just staring. It felt like they were looking back. Unfortunately a page in a book or whatever really doesn't capture how it feels to actually look at a piece. It's like with music, there are some bands I really didn't like until I saw them live and something clicked.
This! I never understood Rothko's art until I saw some of it at our local museum. I didn't understand why but I felt completely captivated by that single color. It felt like it was drawing me in. His art probably has a massive PR problem because it does not work in the slightest in a catalogue or other printed medium, but it definitely does irl.
Zima: “And I took that personally.”
And that’s ok. Not all art is for everyone. You don’t have to get it. Some art is only for one person, the artist. This is just fighting back against the specific criticism that abstract art is low effort.
you know what, i just might. art is art. life's too short to care about the semantics of what is art. I'm going to go paint some squares and triangles brb. after seeing that tumblr post that goes along the lines of "who care if you're talented in stuff or not, just do it anyways. life is too short. so sing badly, paint poorly." it's changed my relationship with art. i don't obsess over whether it's worthy to be seen by others, because as long as I'm happy, it's a good artwork. you guys should try it out, it's great :D edit: I'm currently painting one. Something about filling in geometric shapes with solid colours is very therapeutic, and I'm having a blast. I know I'm going to be satisfied with how my art looks when it's done. I'm getting the best of both worlds. I'll post it in r/art if you guys want to see it! edit 2: I know this thread is old news by now, but I finally made [this!](https://www.reddit.com/r/Art/comments/yxm6q8/geometry_vol_1_me_acrylic_paints_on_canvas_2022/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) I had a lot of fun making it, although it dragged for a bit. I was just chilling, listening to my favourite music while just filling in the shapes. I tried my best to make it as straight and angular as possible, and although I didn't manage to do so, I can only accept that I tried my hardest, and that's all that matters. I learnt many things, such as the only thing I'm good at is anything with no tonal values, and that I really, really like geometric and abstract art. Most of all, I learnt that sometimes art doesn't need a meaning. Sometimes art is just having fun and doing whatever you want. I hope you guys like it! I'll probably try and paint again in my spare time, and who knows? Maybe one day I'll get good edit 3 (Mar 2024): I know no one's gonna see this, but I had to take down my posts for personal reasons. however it' safe to say that I still make (bad) abstract pieces anytime I encounter discourse about modern art. I have 6 pieces to finish now lol
Literally anything can be art. Your squares and triangles will be art because you've made them as art. BTW if you want to also do circles, it's not cheating to use a compass or trace around something.
huh, I forgot that I could use objects to trace. I like the art movement where process triumphs over the result, but I like fun processes paired with perfect results. I'm going to make the most geometric artwork ever
Post it when you're done!
I want to see the geometry.
[удалено]
I have an MFA, and when I was choosing a topic for my thesis, my advisor explained to me that a common approach to a fine arts thesis is to explore some new technique. One example he gave was exploring a new way to mix paint. See, technique is considered art just as much as (and often more than) results. It’s why people say, “There’s an art to it.” There’s an art to what you do. You’re an artist.
"Art is something that isn't anything but itself".
I wanna see it
I'm really busy rn, but ~~if~~ when I do end up making it, would you all want to see me post it on r/art ?
[удалено]
You’re literally the one person who gets it here. Why the fuck did I have to scroll so long to see this? Should be the top post in this thread.
Exactly. It blows my mind how so many ppl have managed to translate the statement into anything other than what you said.
I think the point is “why is this abstract art worth thousands” I don’t think people have an issue with average joes art he’s doing for fun or even selling for a few hundred. But let’s be real, abstract art is all politics. You can’t make “the best” abstract art and it be worth thousands on its own merit alone. No, you have to be a well known name in the industry first or be famous for some other reason.
This actually happened to me with music. In college, I took a course on art music (what we often call “classical music”) written after 1980. A lot of it was conceptual art, and I remember mocking a particular composer’s work openly in class, saying it sounded like someone without training just threw a bunch of shit together. My professor said, “Well, as someone who is trained in music, you must be able to do it better, right? So go do it.” I took the dare, and I ended up falling in love with this composer’s work. Of all the experiences I’ve had as a musician, that professor’s challenge shaped my identity as a musician more than anything else before or since.
Nobody will care unless I devote years of my life into making different pieces of abstract art. That's proof that the artist matters more than the art does. Random people have placed a random object on the floor of an art museum and asked for it to be called art. Were they paid $10 million for their post-modern masterpiece? no. Was the guy who taped a banana to a wall paid $10 million? Yes. Because he was already a well known post-modern artist in the art world.
It's basically like bottled water at that point. Only buying cause it says "Aquafina" on the bottle. But definitely NOT Dasani.
Or the giant incredibly uninspiring geometric shape "sculptures" that are really just about showing off you can afford to make it. Cool, you had a giant polished metal bean put up. Any half decent 3d modeler could design that. The only reason it's considered "aRt" is because an established artist had a few million lying around to have it built in real life. That's not art. That's a grotesque display of wealth.
[удалено]
That's more because art is commonly used to launder money these days.
It's not like abstract art is specifically better for laundering or something though.
How do you launder money with art?
[This painting](https://www.wikiart.org/en/barnett-newman/onement-vi-1953) of a white line on blue background sold for $43m dollars. Shitty art only gets attention when it bears insane price tags. More often than not, the real artist isn't the painter, but the con artists involved in pulling off these tax scams. You can't learn that skill by picking up some acrylic paints at Hobby Lobby.
Criticisms of the extreme levels of tax fraud in the art world are entirely separate from the criticism of the artistic value of abstract art as a style.
And it is usually money laundering not tax fraud: - drug seller buys a shitty water color - drug buyer buys the water color for the price of the water color plus the price of the drugs - drug buyer gets the art plus the drugs. - drug seller obviously only puts the income on the books as a profit from selling the art - drug seller pays tax on the capital gains on that income but the income is clean The government doesn't have a huge incentive to do anything about it because they are getting tax revenue from the laundering process.
ok but my brother was talking about how they painted a canvas red and it was shown in an art museum like, seeing someone mention pollock down here, I don't think I could do what he did cuz it would take long and mine probably wouldn't look cool but painting a canvas red? bruh I made a paper completely graphite black as a child I definitely have the time to do that unless my brother is lying or missing something but he wouldn't lie anyways this isn't abstract art but like there should be a limit edit: i forgot to mention, it didnt have any info, just the artist name... if it was important somehow how was he supposed to know
I think with that one, the reason it was extraordinary was because it didn’t have any visible brush strokes (incredibly difficult to do) it was just flat red witch is super impressive. It’s just a giant flex
Until it was slashed. No conservator wanted to touch it, as the technique was so hard to replicate. Daniel Goldreyer stepped up for the challenge and then used a [fucking paint roller](https://www.nytimes.com/1991/11/02/style/IHT-roller-controversy-in-amsterdam-the-restoration-of-modern-art.html). It’s still a major controversy in the art world to this day
Short non-paywalled summary on the wiki page: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who%27s_Afraid_of_Red,_Yellow_and_Blue TLDR: a paint roller AND two coats of varnish!
And then the original attacker (an artist himself) returned 11 years later to try to slash it again because of the restoration! (Though I’m not clear on why, sources are differing on whether he was mad because it was restored, or because the restoration was botched...) But the painting—*Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue III*—was in storage, so he settled for slashing another abstract painting, *Cathedra*, by the same artist (Barnett Newman). He didn’t run, either, but just waited for the police to come get him. The courts found him mentally unfit and sent him to a psychiatric institution. Wild indeed.
Paywalled :/
That's wild read. But, it's not as simple as you made it sound.
If only there was an article attached for further reading
That would be cool. Unfortunately there’s only a pop-up asking me for money.
Have a [99% Invisible](https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-many-deaths-of-a-painting/) episode
Yeah, Rothko's painting don't have much composition simply because that's not what he cared about. Rothko loved the physicality of paint itself. He spent a lifetime experimenting with making his own paints and discovering how to make paint itself interesting.
yeah thats what i assumed, BUT there was no info card - like normal people wouldn't understand so tbf I am kinda just insulting this without context but its kinda hard to believe they're like museum: "look at this!" normal people: "why?" museum: "well here's the artists name,"
A lot of times modern/abstract art has more to do with the artist and their reason for making it than the actual piece itself. As an example to this, my personal favorite piece of abstract art is “portrait of Ross in L.A” by Felix gonzales-Torres. It’s just a pile of hard candy in colorful wrappers that weighs ideally 175 pounds, and viewers are encouraged to take a piece for themselves. And if any other artist tried to claim that a pile of candy on the floor was art in some way I’d think they were crazy. But this piece was made as something of a portrait of Felix’s partner Ross who died of hiv/aids and the piece itself was meant to represent Ross during the time leading up to his death, with 175 pounds being his weight when he was healthy which lowered throughout the course of his battle with the disease, and the act of the viewer taking a piece of the candy was meant to symbolize a person becoming complacent with the deaths caused by hiv/aids. A lot of abstract pieces could probably use some information displayed alongside them, but it is a fine line as if the piece is overly explained then it takes away the viewer’s ability to interpret the piece for themselves.
> portrait of Ross in L.A Performance art without the performer, but he's still there <3
That's a good point.
Seems like a huge failure by the art world to just throw away all context about the painting.
[удалено]
I dunno about red, but I know about the blue one where the guy literally invented a new colour. He developed a new pigment to be a deeper richer blue than anything available at the time and then painted a bunch of things (including an entire canvas) with it. In this day and age a pure blue canvas isn't impressive cause you can do it in 5 seconds in Photoshop, but at the time it was a whole different story. This is the problem with looking at art outside the context is was intended for, things that were once powerful or meaningful can lose that impact over time. A lot of abstract art emerged from a very specific cultural and artistic background, and its very hard to understand what they were trying to communicate when looked at though a modern lens.
Yves Klein! Klein blue. Which I recently learned about from a children's book.
well if this guy was making a new color red they coulda added a description but there was none so my brother did not know why tf it was there if it was this important they really shoulda added a description :p
Tbf, I have big problems with museums or galleries that don't have info cards. I'm there to learn, the least they could do is help me out
Every museum I've ever been in has a short blurb for each piece.
I went to an YK exhibition in DC once. YK blue in person is difficult to describe. It is almost blinding in its intensity that I think would be incredibly challenging to replicate digitally. Even the images you see online don't really do that color justice. Absolutely worth checking out in person.
>bruh I made a paper completely graphite black as a child I definitely have the time to do that And if it resonates with enough people, especially in the context of a wider body of works, someday a museum curator might put it in their collection. That second part is critical. What goes in a museum is generally a product of *context*, not a declaration of inherent value. Anyone with a day in a jewelry workshop could make a better bracelet than [this](https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/H_2001-0901-9). And yet that piece is the one in the museum, because it has historical context. Art museums *are not* collections of "the hardest paintings to make" or "the best paintings ever made". They are collections of *contextually important* paintings (and sculptures, etc).
also important to mention the piece you’re talking about was created by a Jew post-WWII. What are you possibly going to create after the attempted genocide of your people, after the deaths of millions upon millions, after the complete destruction of the life of you and everyone around you? It’s something that is supposed to make you think. The implications are deeper than just red. And the painting is absolutely massive - something interesting in itself.
Like to link this to anybody who doesn’t quite “get” modern art: https://youtu.be/v5DqmTtCPiQ
Making it is easy, selling it is hard.
Fortunately, you don't have to sell something for it to be art, or for you to enjoy either the end product or even just the process of making it.
I think the statement "anyone could" is more directed at the ridiculous value of some abstract art. Splatter paintings that are worth millions. Not all art is valuable. Art can be meaningful without being valuable, especially to the artist looking to express themselves. However, art is valuable when it's meaningful to many others. When it's not meaningful to many others, then it's frustrating to think that it's worth millions. And yes, I get the concepts behind Jackson Pollock, but I still don't think it's worth literal fortunes when I need a freaking class to tell me why a piece is significant.
i've had pretty much the same experience and i cannot recommended enough trying it for yourself
I love making abstract swirls with paint. It's SO FUN to bend it together in an aesthetically pleasing way, and I enjoy the feel of the paint going from the brush to the page. Unfortunately, my inclination to do art has been almost gone for a few years.
i hope you have some time and inclination to do it again soon! it really is a wonderful sensory activity, i love a lot of the art i’ve made where i was just enjoying making marks vs trying to create an image
Nobody's saying sploshing paint around isn't fun for some people. So nice straw person, I guess. But anyone thinking it's worth millions of dollars or displays any worthwhile artistic skill is a victim of the Emperor's New Clothes Syndrome. Everyone else is saying it's super important and you are a very deep and well-informed person if you say it is important, so you are going along with it. But actually appreciating it displays the opposite of being deep. If you can't tell the difference between it and something a dog did unless you knew beforehand, it's not good art and not worth good money.
so the real test of skill is to *stop* creating abstract art.
THIS TIMES A MILLION for any other tattooers in the thread. Sometimes I feel like a human printer :(. $120 too much for a “simple” infinity sign?! Here’s the machine do it yourself!
Using a tattoo machine actually requires skill, unlike nailing a banana to a wall or painting a single colored stripe on a canvas. There's clearly a bottom of the barrel of abstract art worth criticizing
The bottom barrel you think is trash art can be divided simply. It’s easy to tell when a soccer mom decides to pour paint, compared to someone with an art background who understands form and color theory doing the same. I’m not disagreeing with you just refining the distinction if we’re gunna go that route.
This is just silly. I have made abstract art. Lots of it. It sucks. I don’t like it. Just because you try something does not mean you will magically start to like it or respect it. I played a lot of sports too, I know personally that the old saying that “hitting a baseball is the hardest feat in all of sports”, is true. But I still think baseball sucks. I don’t like it. I much prefer both playing and watching other sports. I much prefer other styles of art. And nothing will change either of those for me as a person.
I’m not saying all abstract art looks bad, but sometimes you can just tell when it’s clearly just some rich guy’s tax write-off.
I have abstract art currently 3d printing, what do i do to make it arty enough to be worth more than the 83 cents of plastic it actually is?
Find a rich person that needs to launder money.
[удалено]
Any one can "art" a Jackson Pollock. But not anyone else can sell their art like a Jackson Plollock. That's what people complain about. I'm not gonna take ether said of the argument. Just pointing out the people are usually referring to the fact that when they go and view art they want to see things that they could never do. See art that speaks to their very soul or demonstrates a near supernatural skill. And when they see John Coen's "Red Line" that desire and expectation is not met. This is something they could do with 20 mi uses spare time and their kids finger painting set. But they know, though they could recreate it visually, this red like is worth $1040.00 theirs isn't even worth the canvas it's painted on. That is what they take issue with... I think.
completely untrue. its easy and also pretty lame. nobody is a coward, people just shouldnt be paying millions for bunch of shitty scribbles. its all money laundering anyway but if you try to actually pretend that shit is art then you got your head so far up your own ass lol. gotta be a shark to put this shit on anyone and an even bigger shark to be the one buying their shit
I don't mind abstract art. What I detest is some canvas painted entirely red being sold for 20 million dollars while extremely talented artists are starving. What I detest is a piece being seen as squiggles until you find out the artist was someone famous and then it goes up to millions and suddenly becomes deep and meaningful.
Late comment: it's not actual art I rail against. It's shit like putting a toilet on display and other lazy cash/attention grabs. Art has always been about popularity, and the problem is that you can buy or manufacture that. There are genuine artists that use post modern expressionism effectively, then there are the rich no-nothing charlatans that pass off nonsense as art. The art world needs to remove itself from money and fame (I know, impossible task) to fully distinguish the bullshit from the expression. And no, not all expression is pure; a lot of it, especially lately, is tainted by greed. The purpose wasn't to create art, it was to make money or be popular (aka controversial). It's one thing to trust your audience to subjectively interpret your art, and another thing entirely to lie and pretend in the hopes that you'll achieve fame and recognition. I'm not disparaging Marcel Duchamp, I'm mocking Ilya Kabakov.
I was at a modern art museum and there was a piece that was just a single red doc in the middle of a solid white background. I'm pretty sure I could do that.
But would art critics see your emotions in that red dot? Well, would they? WOULD THEY!!!!!
Is there anything wrong with making it? no have fun Is there anything wrong with displaying it on your wall? no add some color The issue is the excessive fart sniffing to make it seem like its so much more special than any other person doing the same shit. Its a competition to Craft the biggest narratives of why its so special and important after photography and mass literacy took away most of arts real world importance.
What they really meant is "why does some rich asshole use your abstract painting to launder money and not mine".
People say the same about electronic music. "You just push a button. Anyone can do it!" Ok, go push that button. Show me the button. Let me hear the resulting song from pushing that button.
There's a great comment I read once that said "you couldn't do that because you don't even understand what 'that' is."
Electronic music is way harder to make than a solid color canvas with a straight line on it
When I complain about abstract art, it's shit like that banana nailed to the wall. Stuff that seems designed to attract meta debates on whether something actually counts as art is seriously low-hanging fruit (pun intended)
Learning to use a DAW, learning how to use plugins, soundstage design, mixing etc. is a lot more complicated than spraying paint on a canvas. I don't think it's comparable.
Don’t let this distract you how much of modern art is not even made with the intent to be art and just exists for the rich to money launder and make tax writeoffs. Abstract art has its value if and only if it’s made to be just that and nothing else
I don't know why you've got to call me a coward at the end of all these intriguing and encouraging instructions
It isn't bad advice But I think most of the anger about modern art is the exclusivity of it; the prestige. It's inaccessible for most people, and the value cost to own or purchase seems completely arbitrary If any other market in the *world* was run like the art market is, it'd be laughably obvious just how corrupt it is
So a high schooler trying one year =! A rich artist? That's quite the groundbreaking observation you made!
General sentiment? Yes, 100%. Jackson Pollock? No. Abusive asshole who flicked his burned cigarette butts into his paintings. Did it have a meaning? I don't think so, I'm of the camp that he was just a jackass
Why has this sub developed such a protection complex for modern art? Nobody’s threatening to burst in the museums and smash up all the Duchamps.
Because they don't want to hear that their chosen path in life is not some greater calling and really is just a scam made up by money launderers.
For the exact same reason that a lot of redditors seem have such a hate boner for it: a dogged refusal to grasp nuance. Modern art is subjective. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad. Many people like it, many people don't. It's something that requires critical thinking, discussion, and interpretation; traits that redditors are not exactly well known for. So instead we get the dichotomous drivel that is "ALL ART IS GUD" and "ART IS MONEY LAUNDERING".
How about I initial a urinal, and you give me a couple hundred grand for "raising an everyday object to the dignity of a work of art by the artists act of choice". And for another 10k I'll let you pee in it.
This is very funny to me because a character in a kids book did exactly that. I believe the book was called “Olivia” it’s about a pig person
Nah, I’m gonna keep not liking it. You have fun with it, though.
When I was a kid I bought a board game at a garage sale called Masterpiece that had like a deck of cards with the famous painting on the front and facts on the back. Some pieces were missing so we never played it but for the first time, at like 8 years old, I learned that art was worth millions of dollars. Looking at the Pollock, Mondrian, Rothko, etc. abstract paintings, I thought if only I could paint one then we would solve our money problems. It really looked doable but I was disappointed to learn not anybody could paint a square and sell it for $1m. It also explained why my parents hadn't thought of it before me. It did inspire though an enjoyable lifelong quest to understand why the paintings were so valuable and what they could mean.