Topic: I will never get art snobs

[idolminds]

Because nothing they value makes any sense at all.

I'm flipping channels not long ago and stumble across a PBS show. Its some older guy talking about a particular artist. I have no idea what artist it was since it was the middle of the show and heaven forbid you repeat his name even once.

Anyway, this old dude is yammering about this apparently nameless artist, how great he is and the usual junk. They show him walk into an art gallery and sit on the bench in front of one of the artists paintings.

Its was a black canvas. Seriously, if you took a canvas and dunked it in a vat of black ink and then let it dry...congratulations, you've just created a forgery of this painting!

And the old dude is making shit up like how it makes you feel alone, what the artist was trying to convey, and all this intricate bullshit over a PITCH BLACK RECTANGLE!

I want to stab those pretentious fuckers.

[gpw11]

Do not get me motherfucking started.


Although I probably will anyways.

[Raisa]

lol art snobs usually turn out to be very self-absorbed hypocritical people... bitterness there? whatever.. i happen to know quite a few and have had some horrid experiences with them.

Haha though you know, probably that guy didn't know ANYTHING about art.. so far the awesome artists i know are really down to earth and totally not like critics who can't even draw a straight line.

[Quemaqua]

I'm an art snob to some degree, but definitely not with modern art.  Look at you, you drew triangles and lines and circles that are orange.  Fucking good for you.  That doesn't mean crap.  I can get into some stuff that's out there, maybe not so well grounded, maybe a little tough to wrap your head around, but there are lines to be drawn, and I draw them all over the place.  Modern art in many of its forms just doesn't do it for me *at all*, and I hate people that try to convince you of things that aren't really there.  Granted, one CAN make statements about aloneness and suffering and whatever with something like a blank canvas... so make all the statement you want, but don't try to tell me that's great art.  That's just being lazy.  The only way I can see that having impact is if the artist truly painted great, amazing things, but went through such a tragic event or was feeling so utterly hopeless and despondent that he created a piece of art and then blacked the whole thing out... that would be interesting and would be worth considering from the standpoint of comparing his other work and thinking about the events in his life that led up to that piece.  But you can bet that this is just some dude who painted a canvas black, which means he should be thrown out of his loft apartment window into the street where cars can run over him.

[Ghandi]

You people make me sick.

Now leave me alone, I'm gonna go back to drinking my wine and admiring blank canvases. You people just don't understand.

[ren]

You people just don't understand.

I understand

[PyroMenace]

That's deep, seriously.

[Ghandi]

Ren you should consider a career in art.

[ren]

I'm not bound by the canvas; all the walls in my house are painted a solid colour.

[W7RE]

I definitely agree. A black canvas by itself isn't art. The only way I could see it being creative or artistic (and this would actually be kinda cool), is if it was like, a pitch black, framed painting, hanging on the wall of in a movie or game of someone who's supposed to be feeling empty. Like in the background, and not obvious. Then when you see it, it would be like "woah, that's kinda cool. I never noticed that before."

[Antares]

I'm not bound by the canvas; all the walls in my house are painted a solid colour.

I totally respect and artist who is willing to defy the conventions set forth by modern society.  Forward thinkers like you should be worshiped.


When is your first gallery opening?

[Quemaqua]

I actually like what W7 said.  That to me is the kind of creative thinking that I find inspiring.  You can't call a black canvas art, but doing something like that with it would allow it to be used as an element *for* art.  Obviously it completely changes the concept of what it means to the point where it really isn't even a painting anymore, it's a statement used within a movie or game to highlight an emotional element, but... yeah.  It's still a fun idea.

[Ghandi]

See, but that isn't really art in itself. I agree, overall that concept would be art. But if you take the canvas by itself, it is meaningless. Like you said, it would be an element for art, not art in itself.

[Quemaqua]

Exactly.  And the same with what I said before - like within the context of an artist's life, depending on WHY he may have done such a thing could be interesting and could be worth considering on the whole for its artistic statement... but it would still just be a black canvas.  That still wouldn't make it good art.  That would merely make it one element in an interesting consideration.

[Ghandi]

Yes but the things is, we are still arguing different things.

Actually, maybe not. I've read over both you and W7's comments, and while it is clear you both agree with each other, I can't tell if you agree with me. You haven't properly defined whether or not it is actually art. Despite the fact that it would collectively be art if the subject was expressing interdependent emotions that, in turn, qualified the piece as art, the work itself would not qualify as art, as it would require these variables in order to be considered art.

[Quemaqua]

Yeah, I thought we both said that.  It in no way could be considered art at all... it could merely be an interesting way of expressing something in the right circumstance.  But it's just a black canvas.  That's really just an *object*... nothing more.

[Ghandi]

Alright, I just wanted to clear up the difference between *art* in the right circumstance and an *object* for art in the right circumstance.

Even still, it's clear that staring at a black canvas in ordinary situations is absolute bullshit.

[W7RE]

Yea, I agree with you. A pure black painting in an art gallery is fucking stupid.

[Cobra951]

I've paraphrased Red Green before in relation to music.  In this case, it's a direct quote.

"My definition of art is, if I can do it, it's not art" - Red Green

I'm pretty sure I can paint a rectangle a solid color--very sure, actually.  So, by this common-sense, common-man lithmus test, the solid color fails.

Edit: Come to think of it, even a monkey can do this.  Just give him a canvas, a brush, a bucket of paint, and whatever time it takes.  Everything else in the room may end up one solid color too, but that doesn't matter right now.

Edit 2:  You realize, of course, that if a canvas painted a solid color is art, then every blank canvas sold is also art?

[idolminds]

I would love to see an artist hang a blank canvas in an art gallery, just to see the art snob theories come pouring in...

"Its a symbol for life. Life is like a blank canvas, waiting for you to do something with it etc etc"

"Its a commentary on peoples laziness. The artist was 'too lazy' to paint for you, just like you are blah blah blah"

[Quemaqua]

I'm quite sure that's been done before.  It goes back to the same thing - it *could* be an interesting statement, but a statement doesn't make art.  It just makes a statement.

[sirean_syan]

I can dig a lot of modern/abstract art out there simply because I think it looks cool. There's a lot of bullshit going along with supposed meanings, but I'd be willing to bet a lot of artist who did works that typical of what is called modern art just started making cleaner images and liked the look and went with it. A lot of the big modern artists have early works that proved they knew how to paint in the more traditional fashion, but they probably just wanted to do something new or with the times. The bullshit probably got tacked on to promote the stuff and intellectuals fell for it.

Really though. I think this is just neat to look at. I'm not going to say it talks about life or anything like that, but I really don't expect that of art.

Edit: Come to think of it, even a monkey can do this.  Just give him a canvas, a brush, a bucket of paint, and whatever time it takes.  Everything else in the room may end up one solid color too, but that doesn't matter right now.

And an Elephant can do it too.... damn it, I'll have to pull out a Thailand picture. Gimmie a sec.
*shuffles around*
There

[Raisa]

oh wow.. and they say elephants/animals can't think and are not alive?

hello!!

[Quemaqua]

Heh, I saw that on TV a while ago.  It was pretty awesome.

[idolminds]

Damnit, that elephant draws better than I do.

[WindAndConfusion]

Hey, Sy, did you see those elephants paint those start to finish, or were they already somewhat complete when you started watching? Because I notice there's a dramatic difference in skill between the paintings of some elephants and other elephants... It makes me skeptical, especially after I saw this video:

[sirean_syan]

Start to finish. I guess some just have more talent than others. At least, some remember more strokes than others.

[Cobra951]

It looks like Ratatouille in reverse.  I think the guy is guiding the elephant by the tusks.  An elephant doesn't need to move its whole head to move a small object at the end of his trunk.

[WindAndConfusion]

Start to finish. I guess some just have more talent than others. At least, some remember more strokes than others.

And did you pay attention to what that guy was doing behind the elephant's head?

See, that's the part I'm skeptical about. In the YouTube video I linked earlier, it looked like the guy holding the elephant's tusk was the one actually doing the painting.

[Quemaqua]

I'm sure that's all it is.  They likely just train them to recognize simple patterns in relation to certain colors and are then led by somebody to do it properly.  It's still pretty cool.

[Ghandi]

Nonsense. Anyone who disagrees with the premise of an artistic elephant is retarded.

[PyroMenace]

What are you trying to prove, Thailand elephants can't paint? Oh dear god, what a catastrophe!!!

[gpw11]

This is more related to the Ebert thread:  But I fucking hate it when people argue about something as abstract and subjective as what is and isn't art.

[Ghandi]

Well, I take it that when you pose naked for Pyro, and he sculpts your naked figure out of bronze, that it is not art? Or should we not argue about that?

...Or was I supposed to keep that a secret?

[ren]

I really wish that actually happened.

[Xessive]

We should arrange a viewing of movies like Art School Confidential and Cashback!