Modern, abstract art makes me angry
I wanted to share something I’ve experienced most of my adult life but never quite realized: modern abstract art makes me angry.
There is something about it that makes me unable to even tolerate it. When I go visit the modern art section of a museum, I get annoyed. No problem with the other sections, there is classical art that I like, some that I don’t, but it doesn’t make me angry the way modern abstract art does.
Thinking about it, I wonder if it’s not the fact that it feels like massive waste and absolute snobbism. Thinking that a museum spent hundreds of thousands or even millions on a bunch of material that has no depth or meaning beyond the BS the artist (scammer?) came up with, when that money could have been better spent on virtually anything else (classical art, poverty, climate change…) really gets me.
Or the ridiculous “explanations” about the piece that pretend to be way deeper and smarter than it really is. Chill, it’s just some paint splatters on a surface, it doesn’t mean anything and there is no depth or layers to it.
Or monochromes. Come on. That’s just plain lazy and disrespectful to even call this art and put it on the same level as the masters’ classical paintings.
I’m not only talking about paintings, but also sculptures or installations. I was standing in front of broken glass recently and that was “art.“
I’m sharing this here to discuss, see what others think and feel on that matter.
Feeling some level of disdain towards abstract art is pretty standard for a normie but then why engage with it?
You can just not walk into those exhibitions if they make you angry.
Or is your point a much more severe one, that abstract art should not exist, hence your anger? That would be unreasonable.
I like abstract art, always have, but
all of this happens, and on top of that I can confirm that art students these days often (not nearly always, I'm not even sure if it's a majority, but it is common) do this broad category of art because they want to skip the part where they gain skills in traditional techniques, so they do abstract art not entirely by choice but also due to their own limitations. Regarding the made-up meaning, I remember my friend telling me, shortly after she got her masters of arts degree in painting, that she feels the art professors' insistence on being able to explain and defend all her works made her art worse. But sadly this is a trend, people demand it, and on top of that there's a ton of shallow trendy political activism in it.
That said, none of those things are a rule, and the fundamental nonsense is saying that abstract art cannot have meaning or depth. Most music is abstract, it's not trying to imitate anything specific, it's just making sounds for the sake of making sounds because it sounds interesting. Surely you can accept that the same thing exists in visual arts - something can evoke feelings or images while still being abstract. After all human feelings and experiences are often too chaotic and complex to be properly described by words or realistic descriptive images.
Yeah, there is a line to draw, some art truly is just low quality nonsense, and each of us has the line located somewhere else, but certainly good abstract art exists before the line. I think it's also a good idea to try to accept that there are genuine attempts that just failed to produce something good, but maybe helped the author to learn from that and move on to something better - not everything is cynical or lazy, though some certainly is.
I was also standing in front of a broken glass pane that was called art just yesterday: in a room full to the brim with historical and current glass objects, everyday use and purely decorative, showing about 100 years of history of various sides of this art & craft, one of the glass boxes that were otherwise full of stuff was empty, glass smashed and titled "Riot is beautiful", signed by a well known local artist/activist.
Such a thing exhibited on its own would be surface level pseudo-deep crap, but it was made specifically for this exhibition, to be viewed in this context. I know the dude's other work, so I know he has a sense of humor, and also he does genuinely interesting and ballsy things that are political and provocative without being trendy or stupid. So I believe this small bullshit art serves as a something of a reminder that although we're in a museum where every piece is protected, labelled and later archived and the air is climate controlled to conserve the (other, non-glass) objects, there's a real world out there where specifically these kinds of items get used and abused and everything is temporary, and it also aims to give you the thought of what it would feel like to smash all those dumb kitchy golden-rimmed cognac glasses on shelf 37.
It doesn't give you the same feelings as watching a painting from an old master, but it certainly gives you some thoughts despite being a piece of smashed glass with a title and nothing more. I admit that knowing the author is not an idiot, and therefore it makes sense to expect some thoughts to exist behind it, does help.
I couldn't disagree more, modern abstract art is where all the good stuff is. Reproducing reality is a very limited method of conveying meaning, sometimes to really get an idea across or give the viewer something to really think about, you have to go for more of a vibe.
Your opinion is your own, of course. If you don't like it, you don't like it. Certainly not all of it is pleasant to look at -- that's not the intent of much art, I don't think art necessarily means "pretty" so much as "evocative," -- but again taste is very personal.
Keep in mind, though, that most of the weirder stuff wasn't really intended for you -- "you" meaning a casual viewer who likes art for the aesthetic and not the meaning. Marcel Duchamp's famous la Fontaine (a signed urinal) was never intended to go in someone's house to look nice. It was aimed at the art world itself, designed to provoke the exact question about the meaning of art. You need the context to appreciate it, but that doesn't mean that it's inherently stupid. Lots of things in life only make sense in context. Should an elegant bit of programming irritate me because I don't know how to code? Is a poem in Arabic objectively unbeautiful because it sounds guttural to me, not knowing what it means?
Again, this is all taste so if you don't like it, you don't like it. The only thing I'd really reject is the suggestion that money spent on art could've gone to a better cause. Nothing survives that test, and just because you don't think abstract art is worthwhile doesn't mean it's objectively worthless. (Think of all the things you like that could easily fail that same test. Music? Video games? Films? Fine dining?)
There's probably a survival bias at play, people looking at modern art from 21th century in 200 years (if we make it there...) will probably think it's great, because they'll look only at the few good pieces.
That said we also live in very self-aware, cynical, merchant society, so our art reflect that, so maybe it won't age well at all.
As someone who only somewhat recently started appreciating the more recent art waves - @Evie I'd love to see your take on this
Personally, sure, in that set there's got to be a subset you subjectively won't vibe with. But there's also great things too.
For instance, the amazing @faye_luna recently told me about Yves Klein's blue painting, where he mixed a pigment for the first time in history (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Klein_Blue), and I think that painting is beautiful and has a strange charm to it even if it is just monochrome. Or, Faye once also told me about Teresa Margolles's "Bandera I", basically a flag dyed with blood collected from execution sites in Mexico. They're just monochrome, sure, but they have a lot of subjective art value and merit for me. Or, again, see @faye_luna's photography work "Gash" from last year's timasomo. It's easy to go "oh, it's just a polaroid with a string in it, everyone can do it", but it evokes an emotional response to me and it actually speaks to me in some way. How is it meritless art?
Then there's the other stuff. It's easy to go, "oh, it's just meaningless bullshit made to launder money and scam people", and surely such examples exist, but it doesn't have to be like that. There is plenty of "modern art" that can mean something to you, once you're ready for it. I can look at some of those sculptures and installations and be like, yeah, that honestly does describe how I feel right now.
Do you not see any hypocrisy between declaring that modern art shouldn't be called art, and calling its proponents "snobbish", despite you bring the one with the more restrictive definition of art?
Not to sound like I'm accusing you of anything, because I'm not and I think a lot of people have this innate dislike or disinterest of modern art (for classist reasons I suspect), but it might be worth reading up about this other group of people who infamously didn't like modern art and seeing why you're drawing similar conclusions to them.
Personally, I've little love for classical works of art. Once you've seen one portrait of white Jesus you've seen them all, it's all too Christian for me.
Godwin's law achieved within about 90 minutes!
I don't fully understand the reference. The Nazis had a whole thing about "degenerate" art (for obvious reasons), not about aesthetically unappealing art. What lessons is the OP supposed to draw about themself from reading about this?
My opinion has nothing to do with race, or a particular country’s art being superior to all others, nor am I calling for censorship (or worse). The only common theme here seems to be modern art.
I can find some abstract paintings at least aesthetically pleasing, but "controversial art" like the banana duct-taped to a wall really feels like insulting the audience.
I would go to more art expositions if it weren't always about some low-effort snob. I saw many times "artists," who basically record their exotic vacations in a blurry way and sell it as a deep, life-changing experience, for me, art should represent some beauty, tragedy, or emotion in a clearer way since it is exposing the view of someone else to teh public.
Interesting questions. I’d say as long as I can remember it annoyed me that we’d consider this art. But anger feelings are more recent.
Personally, I draw the line based on how tenuous the relationship is between the artifact and its explanation, along with the amount of work and craftsmanship required to produce it. Of course this very loose “definition” can be stretched and bent to the absurd to demonstrate that it’s invalid, I’d argue it’s more of a heuristic I use.
Go watch "Jacob Geller - Who’s Afraid of Modern Art: Vandalism, Video Games, and Fascism".
I would posit that this post displays a much higher degree of snobbism than any piece of modern art.
It seems as though you're accusing artists of... lying about the meaning of their work? It's difficult to respond to this in a way that isn't much harsher than I would like to be over the internet. This talking point is pretty well established as blatant anti-intellectualism, I would implore you to at least try treating these works with the same minimum level of respect that you treat "classical art".
You should really watch the video I linked above. I think calling colour-field painting "lazy" is a great example of the Dunning-Kruger effect. Many of these painters are putting incredible amounts of effort into getting the particular qualities of their work.
I'd really love to hear more about these "levels" of art that you've mentioned. By what standard or metric is this nebulous authority ranking artwork?
Ignoring the fact that the amount of money that galleries are spending on modern artworks pales in comparison to the amount of money that it would take to tackle those existential crises, is preservation of culture not worth spending money on? Like it or not, modern art is a part of modern culture. Also, you're barking wayyyy up the wrong tree if you're worried about missapropriation of funds, there are better places to start than modern art.
I can kind of agree. I am not a particularly artistic guy, so Im maybe not a great person to weigh in on what constitutes artistic merit. But I think of abstract art as similar to that avant garde style of fashion where models come out wearing bizarre impractical clothing. Its not really meant to be taken as an outfit people would actually buy and wear its more intended to spark someones creativity by being weird and different than the norm. Like art intended for other artists.
I guess the issue that I take with it is that I feel that not just anyone could successfully make abstract art, you have to already be accepted as a valid artist for people to put that kind of consideration into your work. Any kind of art could be considered deep as long as the audience is willing to think deeply about it, but only certain artists are considered important enough to be worth that effort. This is the common complaint you will hear from casual art observers, that anyone could make a splatter painting or tape a banana to a canvas, and its only considered high art when an established artist does it.
This ties in to the suspicion that people have that high end art is a money laundering scheme for the rich. This is conspiratorial thinking, but whenever I see an expensive piece of modern art I have a suspicion that some rich guy is artificially manufacturing hype around that artist, because they already have purchased other pieces from that artist for cheap, and if they make them famous they can instantly turn those pieces into multimillion dollar assets. Which is kind of a corruption of artistry, if true.
It's true that a lot of people do believe this, but it's actually one of the most policed aspects of the intersection of art and taxes.
A few things helped me to add some nuance to my appreciation of art in general.
If I had only one recommendation for you, it would be to read The Story of Art by E. H. Gombrich. Nothing has changed my perspective on art like this book has. It dispels many misconceptions (such as the one about art evolving towards more realistic representations) and enables deeper appreciation of artistic movements and techniques by putting them in their historical context. Honestly one of the most important books I've ever read. It's thick but totally worth the time and about half of it is pictures.