Child's painting sells for $86.9m

[mistermack]

There are people who are snobby about their tastes, no matter what they are.

There are people who instantly look down on someone who enjoys opera or concert music, because that person must be full of herself.

There are people who are snobby about listening to country and western music-- both for and against.

There are people who are snobby about graphic novels-- again, both for and against.

I like what I like. Other people may agree or not, and I may find their reasoning sound or non-existent, or option whatever. If you want to write me off as a snob for enjoying Rothko, that's your perogative. But you're the one being exclusive.

I think that you're being blind to what I meant.
It's not all the same, as you make out.

Declare that you find country and western music rubbish, and nobody's going to think that you lack culture.
Do the same about classical, and many people will, even if they don't say it to your face.

And people who are into modern art are just the same, even if they don't come out with it.

As far as I'm concerned, it IS bollocks. And my reasoning is flawless, as far as I'm concerned.
I have a perfectly good brain, and vocabulary. I may not be highly gifted, but I can understand lots of things that some others struggle with. So I EXPECT to get it, when someone explains something to me, unless it's way beyond the average intellect.

But when someone tries to explain what's special about modern art to me, it's like a verbal fog. Normal speech gets abandoned.
I refuse to accept that it's me. I therefore conclude that it's bollocks.

[hackenslash]

a comment from elsewhere:

'What I find really interesting in all this is the repetition of it all. After all, when JMW Turner first exhibited, he received may of the same criticisms, drawing such comments as 'nothing but daubs!'

I another 100 years or so, will Rothko draw the same reverence that Turner does now?'

[Audley Strange]

I have a perfectly good brain, and vocabulary. I may not be highly gifted, but I can understand lots of things that some others struggle with. So I EXPECT to get it, when someone explains something to me, unless it's way beyond the average intellect.

But when someone tries to explain what's special about modern art to me, it's like a verbal fog. Normal speech gets abandoned.
I refuse to accept that it's me. I therefore conclude that it's bollocks.

So, "I'm smart, but I don't get it, so it MUST be the art." Nah it's you. YOU don't get it. Don't devalue something's legitimacy just because of your own inability see the worth of it. That's snobbery, plain and simple. Though from the looks of it, the issue is that it is somehow you are alllowing it to challenge your perception of yourself as an intelligent individual, when really what it is is that you just don't get it. Like some people don't get modern jazz (It's just atonal noise) or doom metal (its just a drone) or ballet (its just people prancing about to music). That it doesn't make an impression is not what makes you stupid, what makes you stupid is getting annoyed because you think it should and then declaring the problem is not yours but the art.

That's mental.

I genuinely don't get musicals, I think they are all dreadful simply because the concept is preposterous, but I'd hardly go around calling Sondheim a charlatan and faker just because he and others do something with the dramatic arts that I don't get. I mean how much did that fucking movie of Sweeney Todd cost? How about the Broadway and London productions over the years? To me to complain about such a thing is just bizarre.

Most of us are not ascetics, we don't want to just stare at blank grey walls waiting for the alarm for our next endless shift in the machine. It's art that makes all that shit remotely tolerable. If we all got it all none of it would be special

[mistermack]

So, "I'm smart, but I don't get it, so it MUST be the art." Nah it's you. YOU don't get it. Don't devalue something's legitimacy just because of your own inability see the worth of it. That's snobbery, plain and simple. Though from the looks of it, the issue is that it is somehow you are alllowing it to challenge your perception of yourself as an intelligent individual, when really what it is is that you just don't get it. Like some people don't get modern jazz (It's just atonal noise) or doom metal (its just a drone) or ballet (its just people prancing about to music). That it doesn't make an impression is not what makes you stupid, what makes you stupid is getting annoyed because you think it should and then declaring the problem is not yours but the art.

That's mental.

That's an EXACT illustration of what I'm saying. It's beautifully put.

Because NOW, you're going to explain in clear English exactly what I don't get about the OP picture.
You say that I'm stupid and mental, for getting annoyed, and not accepting that I don't get it.
Well, I would say that anybody who gets something, and can't explain what, why or how, has no right to call anybody stupid and mental.
Because the "getting" is in your imagination, if you can't say what it is. You've been suckered into thinking that you "get" something by the art world.

I genuinely don't get musicals, I think they are all dreadful simply because the concept is preposterous, but I'd hardly go around calling Sondheim a charlatan and faker just because he and others do something with the dramatic arts that I don't get. I mean how much did that fucking movie of Sweeney Todd cost? How about the Broadway and London productions over the years? To me to complain about such a thing is just bizarre.

Whether you like musicals or not, I refuse to believe that you don't get them.
But let me help.
It's a story, told by actors, set to music.
There, that wasn't hard, was it? Isn't the English language wonderful?

Most of us are not ascetics, we don't want to just stare at blank grey walls waiting for the alarm for our next endless shift in the machine. It's art that makes all that shit remotely tolerable. If we all got it all none of it would be special

Oh really?
I think I get the Allman Brothers Jessica, and it's absolutely special.
I get what Christopher Wren was about, when he designed St. Pauls. It's no worse for it.

The truth is, YOU don't get modern art either, but you're too suckered by it to say so.
Or else, say what's so great about it.
You say you don't want to stare at blank grey walls, how come you can, if someone calls it art?

[Thumpalumpacus]

It seems to me that one can like the piece in the OP without getting anything at all ... assuming you can simply look at it from the standpoint of the play of color in your eyes and no higher meaning or message, which it doesn't seem to have.

I don't think there's anything wrong with looking at something and simply saying, "That's pretty, I like that."

I don't think that's intellectual enough to qualify as getting it, but what does it matter anyway? Art is an inherently subjective field, and if I like something, that's good enough for me.

[mistermack]

It seems to me that one can like the piece in the OP without getting anything at all ... assuming you can simply look at it from the standpoint of the play of color in your eyes and no higher meaning or message, which it doesn't seem to have.

I don't think there's anything wrong with looking at something and simply saying, "That's pretty, I like that."

I don't think that's intellectual enough to qualify as getting it, but what does it matter anyway? Art is an inherently subjective field, and if I like something, that's good enough for me.

Well, you could apply that to any object. Why bother with art?
My foot is pretty. I like it. So is the tree outside.
Rothco's paintings come nowhere, in comparison to a photo of a pretty girl.
The question is, do you like it for what's there, or have you been conned?

[hadespussercats]

It seems to me that one can like the piece in the OP without getting anything at all ... assuming you can simply look at it from the standpoint of the play of color in your eyes and no higher meaning or message, which it doesn't seem to have.

I don't think there's anything wrong with looking at something and simply saying, "That's pretty, I like that."

I don't think that's intellectual enough to qualify as getting it, but what does it matter anyway? Art is an inherently subjective field, and if I like something, that's good enough for me.

Well, you could apply that to any object. Why bother with art?
My foot is pretty. I like it. So is the tree outside.
Rothco's paintings come nowhere, in comparison to a photo of a pretty girl.
The question is, do you like it for what's there, or have you been conned?

Wow. You could have been Duchamp, saying that.

Pretty clever. The first time.

[Audley Strange]

It seems to me that one can like the piece in the OP without getting anything at all ... assuming you can simply look at it from the standpoint of the play of color in your eyes and no higher meaning or message, which it doesn't seem to have.

I don't think there's anything wrong with looking at something and simply saying, "That's pretty, I like that.".

I think that is getting it. I think that if it initiates a repsonse either positive or negative, you've got it.

[Audley Strange]

Because NOW, you're going to explain in clear English exactly what I don't get about the OP picture.
You say that I'm stupid and mental, for getting annoyed, and not accepting that I don't get it.
Well, I would say that anybody who gets something, and can't explain what, why or how, has no right to call anybody stupid and mental.
Because the "getting" is in your imagination, if you can't say what it is. You've been suckered into thinking that you "get" something by the art world.

First of all I cannot tell you why you don't like modern art any more than I can tell you why you don't like eating certain foods other than you don't enjoy them. Yes of course the "getting" is in your imagination, there is no objective standard to what constitutes good or bad art or good or bad taste, thus any art you appreciate is a cooperation between the creation and the imagination of the person perceiving it. If you do not appreciate it, there is no cooperation. If you choose not to or don't see how to cooperate with a work that's "not getting it."

I don't think it's the paintings that are your issue at all rather that you feel like your being left out of something. You're not unless you're excluding yourself.

You're under some impression that I've been conned? I doubt it, there are a lot of pieces and installations that do nothing for me that others get excited about and there are many works that I find evocative or stirring or challenging that others find obvious or banal.

Whether you like musicals or not, I refuse to believe that you don't get them.
But let me help.
It's a story, told by actors, set to music.
There, that wasn't hard, was it? Isn't the English language wonderful?

Sure and Rothko put paint on a canvas. That's not hard either. But you haven't explained why anyone would think that putting songs and dances into a narrative format when they specifically ruin the narrative format by taking the characters out of it is as preposterous as trying to express Marxism through armchair design, I'm not saying impossible, just why would you do that?

Or else, say what's so great about it.
You say you don't want to stare at blank grey walls, how come you can, if someone calls it art?

[/quote]

Asking me to tell you what's I think is great about modern art is too broad a question. It's too a huge and varied a field to just casually dismiss as bollocks because you don't like some paintings.

[Clinton Huxley]

It's either a pyramid of testicles that the detractors don't get OR it's a fantastic and sublime piece of pigmentary wizardry. There's only one way to decide, once and for all time which it is. And that's with a poll.

[hackenslash]

Rothco's [sic] paintings come nowhere, in comparison to a photo of a pretty girl.

Why would you make such a comparison? Are they somehow equatable?

I think you might have just demonstrated that you 'don't get it'.

[Robert_S]

I was looking for a great passage that I vaguely remember about the failure of Dada to finish off the art scene. I found this image instead:



I have a gut feeling that it is somehow apropos to this thread in some way.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Well, you could apply that to any object. Why bother with art?

Exactly. Appreciating beauty for its own sake is a wondrous thing, and how or why it came into being doesn't strike me as terribly relevant.

And sometimes, art is ugly, and that ugliness is relevant insofar as it bears a message.

But not all art needs to have meaning. Pleasurable sensations can and should be enjoyed for their own sake.

The question is, do you like it for what's there, or have you been conned?

I am not a fan of Rothko's but I do like the colors here; they're tangy, and tickle my eyes, and that's all I really ask of art.

Now, if I didn't like it for your approved reasons, would you look down on me?

[Svartalf]

It seems to me that one can like the piece in the OP without getting anything at all ... assuming you can simply look at it from the standpoint of the play of color in your eyes and no higher meaning or message, which it doesn't seem to have.

I don't think there's anything wrong with looking at something and simply saying, "That's pretty, I like that."

I don't think that's intellectual enough to qualify as getting it, but what does it matter anyway? Art is an inherently subjective field, and if I like something, that's good enough for me.

Well, you could apply that to any object. Why bother with art?
My foot is pretty. I like it. So is the tree outside.
Rothco's paintings come nowhere, in comparison to a photo of a pretty girl.
The question is, do you like it for what's there, or have you been conned?

Wow. You could have been Duchamp, saying that.

Pretty clever. The first time.

What if I set up a bottle tree saying "this is a urinal, of the field"?

[Rum]

It's either a pyramid of testicles that the detractors don't get OR it's a fantastic and sublime piece of pigmentary wizardry. There's only one way to decide, once and for all time which it is. And that's with a poll.

What people seem to miss is that the experience of art is a subjective one. A poll won't resolve anything.

There are too many rationalists on this forum!