When I go to an art museum, I want to see the craziest shit they can throw at me. I like looking at the old paintings and seeing the layers of paint and admiring the talent that went into it, but throw something titled Red #2 or Untitled and shit is about to get real. I want to have to figure out if there is actually art there or not. I want to look at the goddamn wall and think it’s art and have the curator tell me that it’s just a wall. I want the curator to tell me a dick joke and then tell me it’s part of an art exhibit. I want to eat pasta and look at paintings of absolutely nothing.
I totally get the bitter reaction a lot of people have to modern art, the banal “i could have done that”, which really means more “i don’t get how some people can fill their lives making these useless and unproductive things that don’t even seem to require technical skill but i have to work 40+ hour a week and if I’m not productive i get fired and can’t pay my rent or eat”. But if you want to get anything out of it, and there’s a lot you can get out of it, which I know from personal experience, you need to rise above that first reaction of bitterness (although it’s obviously something you should keep in mind when interacting with any sort of art).
It’s obvious that the democratization and proliferation of art that modern artists tried to bring about didn’t happen, but the fault was not in them for trying to imagine a different future. Once again, it’s capitalism that squandered and misused any of the potential modern art has had.
everyone I’ve met who does the “i could have done that” in regards to art then proceeds to not do it. If it’s so easy, then do it. Make art if you want, no one will stop you. Make it as weird or low effort as you want, if someone likes it, then you succeeded. Yeah it’s a shame that some artists become obscenely wealthy while most people toil for basic necessities. But at the same time more people doing art would be a good thing. I get the bitterness though, like I make noise music and I doubt i’ll ever get widespread recognition or even money compared to someone who loops distortion through a no-input mixer
most of the time when people are dismissive of abstract/conceptual art they’re coming from a position that art is mostly a technical skill with one’s hands, rather than a skill at presenting a perspective or communicating ideas. I wish art weren’t graded in terms of money or fame
GOOD post
Unironically DeviantArt and AO3 are the greatest realizations of this ideal in the current world. Also shit like Garry’s Mod, in which people have been contributing and creating and sharing for eighteen years now, is an incredible realization of the concept.