[OC] Personal opinion on Jackson Pollock's drip art
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I like it. Generally, when abstract and contemporary art is well executed, I find it to be thought provoking and exciting to experience. One of my personal favourite paintings is Asger Jorn's "Stalingrad".
It is entirely useless to look at that painting on a tiny screen on a search engine because it looks like shit online.
However, in real life, you enter the room where it is hanging and it is HUGE. Whites and blacks and blues ans yellows and reds in a turbulent mix on the canvas and if you sit down on the bench and soak it in, you start to feel the emotions Jorn was trying to evoke in the viewer. War is hell. War in the deep of Russian winters is worse than hell. It is blind, cold, desperate chaos and you're supposed to fight in this inferno while being able to tell friend from foe, but they all look the same, their blood looks the same in the snow and dirt beneath them.
I'm always exhausted when I look at that painting, but I do it every single time I'm at the Asger Jorn museum.
There definitely is shitty abstract and contemporary art out there. I have seen my fair share of bullshit pieces, but it is sad to me how some people entirely close themselves off to this aspect of art just because it is different. But, at the end of the day it is a taste thing, and that is okay.
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My favorite thing about art is that if you look at it and you hate it, that's still a completely valid take
Art museums became way more fun once I realized that
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Those art pieces are literally poison to a young aspiring artist's mind. It condemns them to a life in poverty, chasing dreams of becoming high profile abstract-postmodernist-whatever artist selling shits in jars, instead of focusing on making what the world really needs the most:
::: spoiler spoiler
gay furry porn
::: -
Pollock hits harder in person tbh.
Prints and photos don't really work; it ends up looking flat and empty. But in person, there's more "depth" in both a literal and figurative sense. You can see more of the intent put into the methodology.
Mind you, I agree with the idea that he's over hyped. He wasn't exactly breaking new ground, and there's plenty of other artists that explored abstract painting with more satisfying and effective results.
But I don't think it's accurate to call it shit either. As much as people love to say it, no a kindergartener couldn't do it. Even high schoolers have trouble making something that looks similar enough to carry the same visual effect. Some art students at a collegiate level can't.
Turns out you do have to have some degree of development in your techniques at the very least to get the same results, no matter how much raw talent you have.
Now, don't ask me if I really like his stuff. I mean, I'm going to say it anyway, but still. My take on his body of work is that he fully explored the "drip" technique way before he quit doing it, and likely could have stopped after the first one because the only real differences between them amount to nothing more than the difference between most hotel and doctors' office wall hangings. You see one, you've seen them all.
Don't get me wrong, I don't doubt that he got something more than money out of the process. I make bland and basic art myself, and IDGAF about the results as much as the enjoyment of making. Every art student I've ever known gets super into the process of creating and that's a wonderful thing; dissecting what they're doing as they do it.
But that value isn't something that carries on beyond the process itself.
Saw one in a museum last week. Still looked like shit.
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Never heard of that, but I love an actual (with evidence) conspiracy theory. Spare me any conspiracy hypotheses tho, please.
This exchange has quite a few sources in it.
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Pollock is popular because of this exact thing. He "challenged" the idea of art as the Dada movement had done. You can absolutely hate it but like Warhol it made conversations and questions about process and astetics. By making a meme about it you have in fact thought about what art is and aesthetics you prefer. A Pollock painting made you do that.
People saying he do not select colors or use technique is just false. He would use a pulley system for large scale canvases and spread the colors quite purposefully. Remember this is the time of "happenings" like applying body paint and rolling on canvases, cutting up the canvas and applying newsprint, burning things, etc.
I don't even like Pollock but not to recognize him in museums within a moment of abstract expression would be a disservice. I've had plenty of students say. "I could paint that!". But there are two points they always misunderstand. 1. Pollock was an established painter who drastically changed styles. Many artists show that they can paint or draw in the traditional style but choose to push what is even art. Some people at this time said the "process" was art not the painting hanging in the museum. 2. Everyone who tries to replicate a Pollock typically just uses some random paints with some bushes and just sort of flings it around. If you actually look at a Pollock in person up close. Yes you can see unevenness is created from not having full control of the paint on the brush but thought seems to go into exactly where the paint will land so that you have even coverage or at angles with different brushes. They is motion in how the paint drips. I can say that many of them I've seen are very much not "random" as you would think it would be.
Again I don't care for the work as there are plenty of other abstract expressions to choose from like Hans Hofmann, Helen Frankenthaler who used Pollock as an influence.
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Yeah, yeah op. You have no idea of the what's and why's or any context for why plenty of modern art looks like it does and why it is important in art history. You know what you like. And you like what you understand. And if you don't understand it, you feel intellectually lesser and have a knee jerk reaction to protect yourself - by taking a meme format that says you have all the smarts and people that understand it are below yourself.
You can keep doing that, or you can get curious and ask the what's and the why's and see if you can appreciate things from it that aren't immediately obvious. That is how people grow.
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I like it. Generally, when abstract and contemporary art is well executed, I find it to be thought provoking and exciting to experience. One of my personal favourite paintings is Asger Jorn's "Stalingrad".
It is entirely useless to look at that painting on a tiny screen on a search engine because it looks like shit online.
However, in real life, you enter the room where it is hanging and it is HUGE. Whites and blacks and blues ans yellows and reds in a turbulent mix on the canvas and if you sit down on the bench and soak it in, you start to feel the emotions Jorn was trying to evoke in the viewer. War is hell. War in the deep of Russian winters is worse than hell. It is blind, cold, desperate chaos and you're supposed to fight in this inferno while being able to tell friend from foe, but they all look the same, their blood looks the same in the snow and dirt beneath them.
I'm always exhausted when I look at that painting, but I do it every single time I'm at the Asger Jorn museum.
There definitely is shitty abstract and contemporary art out there. I have seen my fair share of bullshit pieces, but it is sad to me how some people entirely close themselves off to this aspect of art just because it is different. But, at the end of the day it is a taste thing, and that is okay.
wrote last edited by [email protected]Counter offer: that's all expectation bias.
You read
War is hell. War in the deep of Russian winters is worse than hell. It is blind, cold, desperate chaos and you're supposed to fight in this inferno while being able to tell friend from foe, but they all look the same, their blood looks the same in the snow and dirt beneath them.
then you conjure up the feeling with some art museum self-gaslighting. Maybe the art is the prompt?
Modern dance and modern art (including free form poetry etc) that try to leave rules/form/structure behind are, to me, rorschach content with accompanying flavor text that makes them smell faintly of the artists' farts. This is to other forms of art what whiteclaws are to flavor.
I quite strongly doubt that any abstract or contemporary art in isolation gives any specific, repeatable feeling to anybody outside of maybe "chaos". Its fine if you like it (I don't obviously) but I think adding specific feelings that you wouldn't get without the title is oversell and over-hype. It's like establishing the canon for a book or story using the fanfiction for that story or just the authors opinion: if you didn't actually write it in the main work, it doesn't count (I see you J.K. Rowling, Brandon Sanderson, etc). Put the story IN THE STORY.
But then, this is all just one man's polemic.
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Yeah, yeah op. You have no idea of the what's and why's or any context for why plenty of modern art looks like it does and why it is important in art history. You know what you like. And you like what you understand. And if you don't understand it, you feel intellectually lesser and have a knee jerk reaction to protect yourself - by taking a meme format that says you have all the smarts and people that understand it are below yourself.
You can keep doing that, or you can get curious and ask the what's and the why's and see if you can appreciate things from it that aren't immediately obvious. That is how people grow.
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Pollock hits harder in person tbh.
Prints and photos don't really work; it ends up looking flat and empty. But in person, there's more "depth" in both a literal and figurative sense. You can see more of the intent put into the methodology.
Mind you, I agree with the idea that he's over hyped. He wasn't exactly breaking new ground, and there's plenty of other artists that explored abstract painting with more satisfying and effective results.
But I don't think it's accurate to call it shit either. As much as people love to say it, no a kindergartener couldn't do it. Even high schoolers have trouble making something that looks similar enough to carry the same visual effect. Some art students at a collegiate level can't.
Turns out you do have to have some degree of development in your techniques at the very least to get the same results, no matter how much raw talent you have.
Now, don't ask me if I really like his stuff. I mean, I'm going to say it anyway, but still. My take on his body of work is that he fully explored the "drip" technique way before he quit doing it, and likely could have stopped after the first one because the only real differences between them amount to nothing more than the difference between most hotel and doctors' office wall hangings. You see one, you've seen them all.
Don't get me wrong, I don't doubt that he got something more than money out of the process. I make bland and basic art myself, and IDGAF about the results as much as the enjoyment of making. Every art student I've ever known gets super into the process of creating and that's a wonderful thing; dissecting what they're doing as they do it.
But that value isn't something that carries on beyond the process itself.
Its paint splatters. Which the artist has no control over.
Only if it is deliberate can you claim it has depth. Otherwise it is nothing more than a happy accident that it looks to have depth.
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Counter offer: that's all expectation bias.
You read
War is hell. War in the deep of Russian winters is worse than hell. It is blind, cold, desperate chaos and you're supposed to fight in this inferno while being able to tell friend from foe, but they all look the same, their blood looks the same in the snow and dirt beneath them.
then you conjure up the feeling with some art museum self-gaslighting. Maybe the art is the prompt?
Modern dance and modern art (including free form poetry etc) that try to leave rules/form/structure behind are, to me, rorschach content with accompanying flavor text that makes them smell faintly of the artists' farts. This is to other forms of art what whiteclaws are to flavor.
I quite strongly doubt that any abstract or contemporary art in isolation gives any specific, repeatable feeling to anybody outside of maybe "chaos". Its fine if you like it (I don't obviously) but I think adding specific feelings that you wouldn't get without the title is oversell and over-hype. It's like establishing the canon for a book or story using the fanfiction for that story or just the authors opinion: if you didn't actually write it in the main work, it doesn't count (I see you J.K. Rowling, Brandon Sanderson, etc). Put the story IN THE STORY.
But then, this is all just one man's polemic.
That's a fair point of view, but that is literally the point of art. Not just abstract and contemporary art. The more context you have with a piece of art, the more it will make you feel and think about what it is trying to communicate.
Try and look up the painting Stańczyk by Jan Matejko.
In isolation, you'd look at that painting and see a sad jester in a chair. You may feel something, but it won't be very deep.
When the context is added for that painting, it starts taking on a completely and much more complex meaning. The most basic takeaway with context is "while the politicians, kings and nobelmen are partying, only the jester is understanding the severity of the country's predicament."
But if you take the time and start diving into the meaning of the comet outside the window, the cultural and historical significance of the court jester Stańczyk to Poland's history and culture, the letter on the table, the fact that Matejko used his own face as a reference for the jester, dive into Matejko's own life and his views, interests and concerns you will get a much greater and much more nuanced interpretation of what you're looking at. It will basically educate you on something you most likely know nothing about.
That is what art does.
Asger Jorn's Stalingrad is the same for me.
It is so miss the point of art to think that you should be able to just glance at it briefly and get anything out of it.
Art is also not supposed to be pleasant or pretty. It is supposed to move people. There is tons of art out there that bores me to tears or that I think is bullshit, but others may connect with it where I couldn't and that is worth something.
Are there bulshitters and bulshit art out there? Absolutely. One of my favourite horror satirea Velvet Buzzsaw very much takes the piss out of the art scene and the silly snobs in it.
But I think it is a mistake to think that having context for an art piece is somehow cheating when all art ever made has a title and an intent and context by default.
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I upvoted the OP message. And I upvoted yours too, because both of you are so right.
The OP message you responded is a person in the middle of the curve bell that things they are at the end of the curve, while they are in the middle.
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Counter offer: that's all expectation bias.
You read
War is hell. War in the deep of Russian winters is worse than hell. It is blind, cold, desperate chaos and you're supposed to fight in this inferno while being able to tell friend from foe, but they all look the same, their blood looks the same in the snow and dirt beneath them.
then you conjure up the feeling with some art museum self-gaslighting. Maybe the art is the prompt?
Modern dance and modern art (including free form poetry etc) that try to leave rules/form/structure behind are, to me, rorschach content with accompanying flavor text that makes them smell faintly of the artists' farts. This is to other forms of art what whiteclaws are to flavor.
I quite strongly doubt that any abstract or contemporary art in isolation gives any specific, repeatable feeling to anybody outside of maybe "chaos". Its fine if you like it (I don't obviously) but I think adding specific feelings that you wouldn't get without the title is oversell and over-hype. It's like establishing the canon for a book or story using the fanfiction for that story or just the authors opinion: if you didn't actually write it in the main work, it doesn't count (I see you J.K. Rowling, Brandon Sanderson, etc). Put the story IN THE STORY.
But then, this is all just one man's polemic.
Also forgot to mention that one of my all time favourite contemporary art pieces was a long table in a small room with let's say 50 identical white vases lined up on either side. Next to the vases, on the table lay a bunch of cheap permanent markers. Out of the 50 identical white vases stood maybe 10 white vases with gold leaf patterns on them.
All the vases were scribbled over with drawings and words except the vases with the gold leafs on them.
I picked up a marker myself and drew on some of the plain vases, but it took me a bit of courage to start drawing on one of the gold leaf vases. At least one other person had drawn on one of the gold leaf vases but only on the white parts. I found myself instinctively doing the same.
It made me think about a lot of things. What we put value to, why, even when we are given the go-ahead, most of us still hesitate to destroy something that we perceive to be valuable even if the only difference between it and the other pieces is cheap gold patterns on the side.
Furthermore, nowhere did it say that you weren't allowed to smash the vases, but nobody had done it. You could probably do whatever you wanted to do to these vases, ans yet people only allowed themselves to do the safest form of vandalism.
I thought about the other people who had written and drawn on the vases. I felt their presence and the thoughts they had gone through when interacting with this piece. I thought about the artist and their intentions with it. The fact that I interacted with their piece made it very clear that all the thoughts they had put into their piece was realized in me as part of the installation.
I have no idea what the made of that piece was. Not a clue. But it still affected me because of how well it was executed and I understood the message(s) the artist intented. Maybe not all of them, but the main point, I got.
Contemporary art can be so amazing if one opens themselves up to it.
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You know when everybody on both Lemny and Reddit are up in arms that American mainstream culture celebrate anti-intellectualism?
This here is a prime example.
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Some people at this time said the "process" was art not the painting hanging in the museum.
I would assume that most people who criticize modern forms of art are criticizing the painting hanging in the museum. The more someone likes modern art, the more likely they are to learn about the artist and the process. The less someone likes modern art, the less they're going to learn about that, so the more the focus will just be on the painting itself.
By making a meme about it you have in fact thought about what art is and aesthetics you prefer. A Pollock painting made you do that.
That's "Pollock the influencer". Influencing has always been part of art, I'm sure. Would Dali's paintings have been as influential if Dali hadn't also been a moustache artist? Probably not. However, I think you invite chaos if you consider things other than the painting hanging in the museum.
Why? Because if "you thought about their art" is a major criterion, then Hitler is an important artist. Look how often people have made memes about Hitler and his art. If you go by how often the artist's art is posted, Hitler's probably a more important artist than Picasso.
Hitler didn't kill millions of people to make you think about his art. Pollock intentionally wanted to create art that makes people think about what counts as art. His methods certainly worked.
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Also forgot to mention that one of my all time favourite contemporary art pieces was a long table in a small room with let's say 50 identical white vases lined up on either side. Next to the vases, on the table lay a bunch of cheap permanent markers. Out of the 50 identical white vases stood maybe 10 white vases with gold leaf patterns on them.
All the vases were scribbled over with drawings and words except the vases with the gold leafs on them.
I picked up a marker myself and drew on some of the plain vases, but it took me a bit of courage to start drawing on one of the gold leaf vases. At least one other person had drawn on one of the gold leaf vases but only on the white parts. I found myself instinctively doing the same.
It made me think about a lot of things. What we put value to, why, even when we are given the go-ahead, most of us still hesitate to destroy something that we perceive to be valuable even if the only difference between it and the other pieces is cheap gold patterns on the side.
Furthermore, nowhere did it say that you weren't allowed to smash the vases, but nobody had done it. You could probably do whatever you wanted to do to these vases, ans yet people only allowed themselves to do the safest form of vandalism.
I thought about the other people who had written and drawn on the vases. I felt their presence and the thoughts they had gone through when interacting with this piece. I thought about the artist and their intentions with it. The fact that I interacted with their piece made it very clear that all the thoughts they had put into their piece was realized in me as part of the installation.
I have no idea what the made of that piece was. Not a clue. But it still affected me because of how well it was executed and I understood the message(s) the artist intented. Maybe not all of them, but the main point, I got.
Contemporary art can be so amazing if one opens themselves up to it.
That sounds like a different kind of art altogether. The experiential kind of art where the point is the unspoken discussion between the artist and the audience, or just a commentary on the audience, is pretty cool. Marina Abramović is an icon of art in that category I would say.
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That's a fair point of view, but that is literally the point of art. Not just abstract and contemporary art. The more context you have with a piece of art, the more it will make you feel and think about what it is trying to communicate.
Try and look up the painting Stańczyk by Jan Matejko.
In isolation, you'd look at that painting and see a sad jester in a chair. You may feel something, but it won't be very deep.
When the context is added for that painting, it starts taking on a completely and much more complex meaning. The most basic takeaway with context is "while the politicians, kings and nobelmen are partying, only the jester is understanding the severity of the country's predicament."
But if you take the time and start diving into the meaning of the comet outside the window, the cultural and historical significance of the court jester Stańczyk to Poland's history and culture, the letter on the table, the fact that Matejko used his own face as a reference for the jester, dive into Matejko's own life and his views, interests and concerns you will get a much greater and much more nuanced interpretation of what you're looking at. It will basically educate you on something you most likely know nothing about.
That is what art does.
Asger Jorn's Stalingrad is the same for me.
It is so miss the point of art to think that you should be able to just glance at it briefly and get anything out of it.
Art is also not supposed to be pleasant or pretty. It is supposed to move people. There is tons of art out there that bores me to tears or that I think is bullshit, but others may connect with it where I couldn't and that is worth something.
Are there bulshitters and bulshit art out there? Absolutely. One of my favourite horror satirea Velvet Buzzsaw very much takes the piss out of the art scene and the silly snobs in it.
But I think it is a mistake to think that having context for an art piece is somehow cheating when all art ever made has a title and an intent and context by default.
Very succinctly so I don't end up writing another wall, I generally agree with you on these points. Where we differ I think is that I feel context can add depth and richness (as in the Jester painting) but that the work itself should contain some INTRINSIC depth and richness.
The analog discussion I think we are having is "are placebos good medicine?". Do you feel better after taking them? Sure. I suppose that makes it hard to say they are not medicine. At the same time, it's the act of consuming them that gives them the effect, not anything to do with the content.
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My favorite thing about art is that if you look at it and you hate it, that's still a completely valid take
Art museums became way more fun once I realized that
This is very true for me. Same for a lot of history museums, which are full of historic arts and crafts.
Like, some native art is just old craft, not actually good art to me, but some ancient cultures had a wild perspective and the art matches.
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Some people at this time said the "process" was art not the painting hanging in the museum.
I would assume that most people who criticize modern forms of art are criticizing the painting hanging in the museum. The more someone likes modern art, the more likely they are to learn about the artist and the process. The less someone likes modern art, the less they're going to learn about that, so the more the focus will just be on the painting itself.
By making a meme about it you have in fact thought about what art is and aesthetics you prefer. A Pollock painting made you do that.
That's "Pollock the influencer". Influencing has always been part of art, I'm sure. Would Dali's paintings have been as influential if Dali hadn't also been a moustache artist? Probably not. However, I think you invite chaos if you consider things other than the painting hanging in the museum.
Why? Because if "you thought about their art" is a major criterion, then Hitler is an important artist. Look how often people have made memes about Hitler and his art. If you go by how often the artist's art is posted, Hitler's probably a more important artist than Picasso.
wrote last edited by [email protected]First thanks to everyone engaging! Having a great time with some real cool people here.
|"However, I think you invite chaos if you consider things other than the painting hanging in the museum."
Not true. A huge amount of art is the preservation of an artifact from something previous and not about the "thing" hanging on the wall. Also "conceptual art" is just that the art is the "concept" not result. Ice, kinetic sculptures, happenings, change over time. You can see different art at different points in time. They invite you to consider what it was before and after. Sand mandalas are created in art spaces and then destroyed. When is it "art"? When they pore the sand into shapes or sweep it up? The answer can be "all" because it happened and "none" because it doesn't exist or even when I think it looks like art.
|"Why? Because if "you thought about their art" is a major criterion, then Hitler is an important artist. Look how often people have made memes about Hitler and his art. If you go by how often the artist's art is posted, Hitler's probably a more important artist than Picasso."
Maybe I'm not explaining well here. Have you ever seen a movie you sort of disliked but you couldn't stop thinking about it? It sort of continues to impact your thoughts, I'm talking a month later you are thinking about it and still debating if it was good or bad or keep remembering the way it made you feel. That is what I mean. Maybe that was the point of the movie/art. Haneke is my favorite filmaker who creates almost movies that "haunt" you. I would say Hilters paintings didn't engaged us. They didn't expand our understanding of art through his paintings. He is famous for being the fascist Nazi leader but his paintings are a result of his fame as a figure. Jim Carrey's art will likely never be in famous museums, most likely never push or be part of an important art movement, etc. but It gets lots of press because a famous person is making paintings. I'm speaking more of the impact of the art not awareness it exists.
Dali would absolutely be famous as an artist. His brush work is comparable to that to the old masters. His ideas , compositions, colors are incredible. He was a figurehead in the surrealist movement. Maybe not the pop icon without the branding of the mustache and "look". but that came later.
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Counter offer: that's all expectation bias.
You read
War is hell. War in the deep of Russian winters is worse than hell. It is blind, cold, desperate chaos and you're supposed to fight in this inferno while being able to tell friend from foe, but they all look the same, their blood looks the same in the snow and dirt beneath them.
then you conjure up the feeling with some art museum self-gaslighting. Maybe the art is the prompt?
Modern dance and modern art (including free form poetry etc) that try to leave rules/form/structure behind are, to me, rorschach content with accompanying flavor text that makes them smell faintly of the artists' farts. This is to other forms of art what whiteclaws are to flavor.
I quite strongly doubt that any abstract or contemporary art in isolation gives any specific, repeatable feeling to anybody outside of maybe "chaos". Its fine if you like it (I don't obviously) but I think adding specific feelings that you wouldn't get without the title is oversell and over-hype. It's like establishing the canon for a book or story using the fanfiction for that story or just the authors opinion: if you didn't actually write it in the main work, it doesn't count (I see you J.K. Rowling, Brandon Sanderson, etc). Put the story IN THE STORY.
But then, this is all just one man's polemic.
Speaking here as an art noob who generally knows nothing of what the pieces are supposed to mean or what their societal context was when they were made and what forces they were pushing against etc:
When my arty partner drags me into art museums with huge abstract modern art pieces with just big splotches of heavily textured color (I’m thinking in particular of one giant piece filling a wall with jagged black heaps of paint) they do in fact make me feel feelings.
In my case, as in OP’s case, they were really bad feelings. I would prefer not to feel really bad and I don’t like that art. But I certainly couldn’t call it ineffective fart-huffing!
