'>>7143230
Abstract art is useful to galleries and museums because it allows them to substitute the assertion of beauty in place of beauty. It's no wonder that it's taken off the way it has. We've hitched art-production to market forces. In the old patronage model, the artist was forced to justify his art to whatever moron was wealthy enough to commission it. In the modern market-forces model, he is instead beholden to mediating institutions (museum, gallery, magazine) who will use him to push their agendas. Abstraction gives these institutions a blank slate upon which to project their values, and it allows institutions to browbeat customers with a fiction of beauty which they cannot perceive unaided. The more abstract art is, the less subject it is to the praise or censure of the public, who will naturally fear failing to perceive the beauty in something too complex for them to understand (as in a rube asking why Monet's paintings are so blurry). This gives institutions cover. They no longer have to find and judge beauty, an provide their customers with it; they just assert beauty in any old trash they find, and tell their customers to believe it. (I should know- I myself was a gallerist for a little while. I could spin a story for anything. There was more beauty in my words than in any of the art we sold.)';

'>>7143230
>>7143232
What abstraction ultimately fails to comprehend is that the job of the artist is to reveal beauty to the viewer. The artist must perceive beauty where it may be found and take action to render it visible. Beauty doesn't exist in an assertion, it exists in an actual arrangement of real things. They took all the wrong lessons from Impressionism; where the impressionists elevated art by catering it to an audience of greater intellectual sophistication, imparting it with a deeper, harder to grasp beauty, abstraction denies the reality of beauty, reduces art to a social contract between the viewer and the artist, a social fiction layered atop an irrelevant, dubious reality. Abstraction is nihilism.';

'>>7143230
Again with the Pollocks bait?

It's fine for people to enjoy whatever they please, but there's an issue when society at large celebrate overvalued low-input, low-effort work, because of what moral value it encourages.

You wouldn't raise your kids by indulging them whenever they throw a tantrum.';

'>>7143230
>>7143233
>What abstraction ultimately fails to comprehend is that the job of the artist is to reveal beauty to the viewer. The artist must perceive beauty where it may be found and take action to render it visible. Beauty doesn't exist in an assertion, it exists in an actual arrangement of real things.
>abstraction denies the reality of beauty, reduces art to a social contract between the viewer and the artist, a social fiction layered atop an irrelevant, dubious reality. Abstraction is nihilism.
Indeed';

'filtered.';

'>>7143230
>To create art is to create harmony. It is to demonstrate a relationship between the disparate elements of a thing by which those elements all accord with one another.
what if one cultural institution rejects this definition?';

'>>7143245
Found the authoritarian. Literally Hitler/Stalin';

'>>7143860
> It's fine for people to enjoy whatever they please
Definitely a totalitarian vibe. I'm soooo sorry:
> Break down the patriarchy!

You're baiting (well, 90% chance), but I'm sure many people would unironically agree with you. To them I'd say, alright, let's do it your way;I'll sit in a corner and wait 30, 50 years, then come out of hiding and laugh and they poor faces like a dumb monkey.';

'>>7143856
>no answer
go figure';

'>>7143856
>>7145739
Irrelevant.';

'>>7145742
>Irrelevant
>Abstract art is art insofar as cultural instututions say that it's art';

'>>7145748
>no answer
go figure';

'>>7143230
>An intelligent observer can decode Monet's work without knowing anything about Monet, and perceive that value.
And yet the reason we celebrate monet as "the" impressionist has little to do with subjective appreciation of his work either in his era or the modern day and everything to do with objective fact that his work specifically and generally the work of superficially similar artists from the same rough era was pushed by cultural institutions as a way to assert a new period of art, distinct from the era before it, and link that era of art with social/political happenings at the time (of which artists may of may not have been variously affiliated)';

'>>7143230
YOOO CAN I GET SOME EXTRA INTELLECTUAL ART

YEAHH I CAN TOTALLY FEEL IT';

'>>7143230
>If someone who had never heard of abstraction found a Pollock in the trash, he'd think it was some sort of test canvas. It's art that can only exist within a limited cultural context.
>This is distinct from art which is too intellectual for the average person to comprehend
>if normies with no interest in art beyond pretty pictures can’t appreciate it then it’s not art
Please tell me this is bait';

'>>7147609
You took quite literally the opposite message from what I wrote than what was intended. Kind of impressive. There's a whole digression about Monet that explains that your last greentext doesn't match my argument.';

'>>7143233
Nice blog post. I still like abstract though in part because i find it fascinating as a social phenomenon';

'>>7148472
>I like a thing because I find it fascinating
don't mean to be rude, but that's not really saying much of anything';

'>>7143230
Lol shut the fuck up';

'>>7144013
>It's fine for people to enjoy whatever they please
In an art gallery? Is that what that is? Egalitarianism through the few institutionally (via nepotism) anointed? lmao

Abstslop is trust fund kids rebelling against skill and buying their way into clout of artists without doing the deed. Rich and connected shits obstructing cultural exchange for the vast majority of people.';

'undefined';

'undefined';

'>>7148947
>In an art gallery? Is that what that is? Egalitarianism through the few institutionally (via nepotism) anointed? lmao
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

No, I, simply meant that different people will have different tastes. You can't regulate that, and it's a good thing: that's genuine liberalism, quite the opposite of egalitarianism.

You're blinded by hate: galleries (there are thousands of them...) are still largely polarized by offer and demand. Look at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JFKAZ4eaD8
> LA ART SHOW 2024
I'm rarely a huge fan of modern art, but one is forced to observe that there are lots of representative art.

> Rich and connected shits obstructing cultural exchange for the vast majority of people.
Some people do that. There are still millions of people who don't enjoy abstract thing. There's money to be made here, and some people are quite happy to do so.

> b-but le rich Jeeeeewwwww is baaad
Grow the fuck up.

Yes, some people instrumentalise art for selfish purposes. Yes, some of them are Jews. And those are pretty happy that you come at them for being Jewish, because now they can play the crybabby antisemitism card and turn public opinion against you.

So childish.';

'undefined';

'>>7148975
No one here mentioned Jews you absolute schizo. How are you so /pol/broken that you assume anyone talking about the wealthy or society's institutions is secretly ranting about jews?';

'I don't understand why abstract art is so controversial. I think every single drawer has experimented with different texture, color combinations, or drawing things that look like something, but dont really look like anything. Not all shit has to make sense, it can be that you just had some fun and the end result looks good, a happy accident.

Or another way to put it, I imagine it as a musician making noise with a bunch of shit in his kitchen and recording it. Then he makes music using the sounds that suggests something. Thats it.

But hey, I understand your viewpoint. I read a question here about how to make something that looks stylized and the anon told in a reply that basically you make a really good painting and stop halfway, it was funny but true too.';

'>>7149271
Yeah, yeah, replace Jews by Rich, Nazism with Communism and it works™.

Of course it's easier to bicker on details, while ignoring the main argument.';

'>>7149320
Yeah, a class based analysis of social mores is more grounded than a racist one. Only a completely /pol/brained schizo would feel otherwise. Wealthy people tend to have shared values and the common denominator determining influence in powerful art institutions is money. Eg Basquiat wouldn't be famous if his art didn't sell, and it wouldn't have sold if wealthy people didn't like it. Painting that as conspiratorial thinking is asinine';

'>>7147488
>still no answer';

'>>7149332
>Wealthy people tend to have shared values and the common denominator determining influence in powerful art institutions is money
I'm not sure it's that unified. Not saying it isn't either.

For example some rich people upheld Christian values (consider some of the people talking at the "Alliance for Responsible Citizenship", an anti-Davos convention), but you never hear about them in movies or in the news. We only hear about bad guys. Same thing for art: many artists do regular portrait commission for wealthy people, but it's not what we hear about.';

'>>7143230
The fun thing is that you can research the actual way abstract art came to be and ignore midwit rantings like these';

'>>7149285
its the price people are willing to trade it for in my case. true or not, abstract art often looks easily recreatable by a common person, thats why valuating it so high seems more like devaluation everybody elses artistic side

I have no problem with the artwork, even if I dont see the aesthetic or beauty all the time I can believe and accept that others do.

I wouldnt mind such pieces hanging in offices or waiting rooms for example, but valuing it so much higher than the best craftmanship is absurd to me, and makes it seems to me like a scheme for untalented artists to get rich and rich people to flaunt their wealth another way';

'>>7151044
what, you mean this occurred as a natural extension of surrealist ideas and all the CIA did was pay for exhibitions, cause raw raw American art movement. No no, magic all powerful people who hate us made this.';

'>>7151782
In what sense is some squares on a canvas a "natural extension of surrealist ideas"? What exactly do you think the job of an artist is?
(Even if it WERE a natural extension of surrealist ideas, that just means those ideas result in bad art.)';

'>>7143230
>Abstract art is only technically art
>well no okay it is art, but it's inferior art
>all art is harmony [citation needed]
think I'll stop reading there, lemme know when your next draft comes out';

'>>7151782
>>7151899
Also no "magic all powerful people" need to be made up to assert that galleries, museums, and magazines artificially imbue abstract art with meaning it doesn't natively possess, brow beating the public into liking it. The art market and the institutions behind it are not democratic, it doesn't function efficiently to assign value based on public perception. Influence over what is seen as valuable is gatekept by institutions and money. If art was democratic and the public wasn't getting "brainwashed", Thomas Kinkade would be held up as the greatest master because he sold the most.';

'>>7151900
You're just not smart enough to understand my opinion. How could anyone possibly "cite" objective data to prove that their definition of art is correct? Are you a Redditor or just retarded?
Also my definition is drawn from Aristotle, Aquinas, and James Joyce. But that doesn't matter, you can disagree with my definition by providing your own, not bleating about citing sources like a fucking NPC';

'>>7151900
>>7151905
To clarify further, art is when an artist causes the viewer to perceive harmony in a collection of things.
Abstract art does this by having the artist, or a mediating institution, tell the viewer harmony exists between the items which make up the art. Normal art actually creates harmony between the items which make up the art.
Whether abstract art is "not art" or "worse art" depends on whether you believe harmony is an objective quality which can really be created between objects. If you believe it's objective, abstract art is "not art". If you believe it's subjective, abstract art is "worse art", worse because it is not timeless and cannot function independently of its social and institutional context.';

'>>7151910
so the actual artwork is the convincing of the viewer of its nonexitent harmony? sounds like a con no matter how you phrase it';

'>>7151975
It's only a con if harmony doesn't have consistent principles. If eg visual harmony has principles which are the same for most people, then an artwork which uses those principles will create harmony for most people. If a caveman would find a painting beautiful as much as a modern person, that painting might as well be universally beautiful.
You could even assert that the principles of visual and conceptual harmony are universal, and are based on epistemically necessary and self-evident principles. In that case, it isn't a con at all, because you're not convincing anyone of anything, you're just showing them something. That's how Joyce, Aquinas, and Aristotle conceive of beauty.
Abstract art is a con because it's beauty isn't based on principles which are inherent to human perception or universal principles; its based on an assertion the artist makes that the art contains beauty based on human perception or universal principles, which the audience has to be "sophisticated" to understand.
>abstract artists don't claim that
Most abstract artists claim their work either has a deep symbolic meaning, explores some aspect of sight and visualization, or reflects some aspect of their psyche. All of these are assertions of beauty through harmony, which is the correspondence of things that come together in a manner superior to those things beheld separately. Ie a painting with symbols combines the symbols to incode a message. A painting with blocks of color combines colors to represent a facet of vision. A painting reflecting subconscious contents combines elements to represent those contents. Abstract art claims to combine elements to achieve effects like these, but generally it would be impossible to decode what effect is intended without the words of the artist or a critic. The words assert a correspondence which doesn't naturally exist.';

'>>7151994
Also if you don't believe that any shared principles which can be used to create beauty or meaning exist, then you don't believe in art. If you can't create something more than the sum of it's parts by combining several elements, then an artist isn't actually doing anything by making art. The choices the artist makes carry no weight, because the audience won't derive any greater meaning from the artist's intervention than they would staring at a blank canvas.
If you DO admit that an artist can communicate meaning through art, then you can easily extract a system for appraising the worth of a piece of art- how much meaning the art communicates. I personally break this down into two components:
>how disparate the starting elements which make up the art are
>how obvious the harmony between the elements at the end is
A Picasso takes a disparate spread of elements to create harmony between, like different shades of blue which would normally clash. That makes it high art. A Norman Rockwell painting takes very accessible and resonant images and renders them very harmoniously. That makes it pop art. High art is more suitable to a refined palate which is suited to the medium, and pop art is more suitable for beginners who don't understand the medium. But the best artworks take very disparate, unharmonious materials and make them accessible to a wide audience. Picasso probably has some of these but what jumps to mind is Klimt. The kiss has broad appeal because it combines unconventional elements around an accessible theme. It's not the most advanced painting, but it does a good job of balancing accessibility with meaning, which is why its been overused to the point of cliche.';

'>>7152003
ugh im happy avoided the art scene and got into tech your rambling is obnoxious and your statements are unprovable

> but generally it would be impossible to decode what effect is intended without the words of the artist or a critic

what else is there to add? if you dont like the word con, how about voluntary hypnosis? *swearword*';

'>>7143230
>>7143232
>>7143233
>Needing words to explain art
lol';

'>>7152050
>niggas b tryna describe the ineffable 'n' shiet
goofy ahh dilettantes';

'>>7152010
>>7152050
>>7152057
This has gotta be the most midwit-ass R*ddit board I've ever seen in my life';

'>>7152112
ironic coming from you, sweaty';

'>>7151899
So surrealism is obsessed with the idea of the subconscious mind, in order to use that, they put together objects and scenes that make no logical sense together. Your brain forces a meaning on to it, but it thinks there must be a pattern there. This was called Automatism.
Abstract expressionist did the same thing, but believe iconography (renegotiable subjects) distracted from Automatism, so they want your brain to have no bias to objects to get in the way of free association.';

'>>7151903
would you consider Transformers, one of the best movies every? it made a billion dollars.
When you blew off the "magic all powerful people" you made a new set of magic all powerful people, that are in control and are the reason the some people like the art you don't like.';

'>>7153101
I have already addressed your transformers objection about elsewhere. Accessibility isn't the only category we can use to judge the quality of art. But art which is not accessible to literally anyone isn't meaningfully art. Look at a Pollock and tell me what it means. Compare it to what he says it means, then compare it to what a gallery says it means. You'll get three different answers. The artist isn't really doing anything.
People who claim to like abstract art don't actually like it, they're just playing out a social convention. They're lying about the beauty they infer in it to avoid seeming artistically illiterate, because institutions told them the paintings were beautiful.';

'>>7153119
Automatism is the idea that art isn't complete until its in a persons mind, The goal of an abstraction is to not explain what it means, so that each individual person free associates their own thoughts and emotion when looking at it.
look at abstracts like you looked at clouds when you where young.
also your ego is enormous to think no one can like something cause you don't';

'>>7153086
>penis joke
lmao';