Comment by tpm
3 years ago
Ignore the hype and go see it in person. Not Pollock if you feel it's not your thing, go see the Dutch masters or the famous Italian painters if you will. If you don't feel it moves you, then it might not be for you, but if you do, try to imagine someone is feeling the same seeing a Pollock (or Yves Klein, Rothko, etc.).
I used to think I liked a lot of art that on deeper reflection I’ve realized isn’t good. It was just me experiencing social psychology.
This is such a common human phenomenon that there’s a fable about it: the emperor who wears no clothes.
People will mercilessly ridicule the kid who says the emperor is naked. There is a bit of that type of ridicule in this thread. It’s silly. All reasonable people will agree that while you may be able to call anything art, not everything can be good art. Only an occasional isolated snowshovel or urinal (or 3 as it were) can be art, and only in the ironic it’s not really art but it is ha ha sense. Yet people insist that anything can be validly described as a work of art, none of it any better or worse than the rest.
Sorry, but that’s wrong, obviously so, and just deeply offensive to anyone who cares at all. It’s literally the negation of art, espoused by people who claim to love art.
> It was just me experiencing social psychology.
Well, that's you. Other people have other experiences. In my case peer pressure was pretty heavily against art in pretty much any form, being from a small agricultural town, with technical background and studying and working in engineering. I was ridiculed for my interest in music and later other art forms.
In my environment there was no Pollock hype, 95% people didn't know who he is and the rest thought 'that's not art'. Yet it indeed is art, as is Duchamp's urinal, and many other creations. It might not be for you, but it is for someone. There are many art forms and artworks I don't care for, but at least I don't claim to speak for "all reasonable people" because perception and understanding is subjective. Expertise in art can give you better understanding and change your perception if you want, but ultimately there is a big share of subjectivity.
It's offensive when you claim I am not reasonable and do not care at all, but more than that, it's quite obviously completely wrong.
Don’t take what I said personally. Many people have better taste than other people. You sound like one of the people who has better taste than I do so perhaps you’ll never have to reevaluate one of your favorites and decide they aren’t really so good. But you will be missing out on something if you don’t experience that. There is a real moment of transformation to be experienced when you see the emperor standing there naked and have to reevaluate your presuppositions. It allows you to find ever deeper levels of connection to good art. For me, this process of constantly refining my tastes and learning more about the techniques, history and economics of art all greatly increase the value of art in my life. I was exposed at a young age and was taught to appreciate Pollock and the rest. Critics and the art market are not efficient, to put it mildly.
A lot of the responses are inverting my point by assuming I don't like modern art or that I'm making a judgement on its value. What I'm pointing out is the condescending narrow-mindedness of the comment I was responding to. The commenter is seemingly unable to imagine that others could honestly not like it and is speculating instead that a psychological character flaw is their reason for not liking it.