both of those fake art things own. specifically they own because they engage with concepts of authenticity and 'realness' in a cool way and they are more interesting as art (not necessarily as objects but as art) than a lot of more 'conventional' abstract art with a 'genuine' artist's name attached to it. the chimp one is particularly cool. like, why shouldn't a chimp be able to make great art? in any case the dude who thought up the hoax is already making qualitative judgements about abstract art, and as some being better than others, because the chimp produced a bunch of paintings and the journalist selected 'the best four'. its really cool to think about
see i could almost get behind that, only the people submitting them clearly don't think they own/are interesting
idk maybe this is very lame and not-avant-garde of me but i'm just tired of people acting like the fact that a hoax object can be interesting means all modern art is worthless trash and the arts should not get funding
see i could almost get behind that, only the people submitting them clearly don't think they own/are interesting
idk maybe this is very lame and not-avant-garde of me but i'm just tired of people acting like the fact that a hoax object can be interesting means all modern art is worthless trash and the arts should not get funding
ya but does it matter what the people submitting them think? like maybe edvard munch thought the scream was garbage, we can never know, does that make a difference? like i said the dude who did the chimpanzee thing had to qualitatively judge the chimps paintings before he submitted them so if he was trying to calll avant-garde art meaningless and qwithout quality then he has kinda owned himself
the logical jump from 'anyone can make abstract/avant-garde art' to 'modern art is worthless and the arts should not receive funding' is a really dumb one to make with lots of holes in it which have been pointed out a lot, and i dont despair about it too much because i have noticed it benig much less of a prevalent opinion as time goes on. it is still the case that not everyone likes avant-garde or abstract art but it has been around long enough even people who dont enjoy it accept that there is something to it. probably there are some dumb 'we should only fund stem subjects blah bblah' fedoralords who want to throw all abstract art in the bin and not give art any funding but there is really no point in giving those people the time of day.
really i agree, if people liked 'fake' art then that shows the fake art has some aesthetic appeal to them, that is interesting
it's just whenever this gets brought up it's always in the context of 'and that's why modern art is literal garbage' and i'm just sitting here thinking 'that doesn't prove that at all'
it's not just a dead shark, it has a name: The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living
i see no reason why you can't consider the title part of the work. i take it at face value: the shark is the physical impossibility of death in the mind of someone living.
and i can kind of see it. You have this killing machine, rows of teeth on display, frozen in time, as though alive, and even though you know it's dead there's still that fight or flight impulse in the back of your mind, even a photograph of a predator can activate it
so when you look at the piece, in a sense, you're staring the mummified corpse of death itself in the face, and you can't quite believe it
this probably isn't what Hirst had in mind, also i have never taken a single art appreciation class and if this sounds like bullshit that's cuz obviously it kind of is
but i got something out of it, so the dead shark is fine by me
“So now we’ve gotta go through that entire rigamarole again, for one painting! And not even a good one—just a bunch of paint spatters! I could have made that one!”
“But you didn’t,” Trixie shot back, “and Pole Lock did! Several times, in fact. That’s why he’s an Artist and you ...”
everyone always seems to agree that Damien hirst is wank but has one good work, what the one work is, is where ppl do not agree. for me the good work is the skull covered in diamonds, purely because a skull covered in diamonds is cool as helll and i kinda read it as hirst taking the piss out of how valuable his own work has become
Man is a most complex simple creature: see what he weaves, and how base his reasons for doing so.
I used to be upset about the skull covered in diamonds but then I remembered that diamonds have no utility and the money's going some fucking where, so at least it's moving around?
Anyway. The thing we need to consider is that nobody is being conned, because you have to tell lies to con. All forms of art are made for an audience, and this form of avant-garde is made for this particular audience.
Everyone invents huge reams of mental shit for the stuff they buy. It's just modern art makes you invent more than normal.
Hirst said that the work was sold on 30 August 2007, for £50 million, to an anonymous consortium.[10] Christina Ruiz, editor of The Art Newspaper, claims that Hirst had failed to find a buyer and had been trying to offload the skull for £38 million.[11] Immediately after these allegations were made, Hirst claimed he had sold it for the full asking price, in cash, leaving no paper trail. The consortium that bought the piece included Hirst himself.[12]
In the 6 February 2012 issue of Time Magazine, Hirst elaborated, in his "10 Questions" interview: "In the end I covered my fabrication and a few other costs by selling a third of it to an investment group, who are anonymous."
Harry Levy, vice chairman of the London Diamond Bourse and Club, said "I would estimate the true worth of the skull as somewhere between £7 million and £10 million."[11] Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs would expect £8.5 million in VAT payments, if Hirst really did receive £50 million.[11] David Lee, editor of The Jackdaw, commented "Everyone in the art world knows Hirst hasn't sold the skull. It's clearly just an elaborate ruse to drum up publicity and rewrite the book value of all his other work."[11]
i dislike the assumption that because the art can be replicated easily that makes it less interesting/worthwhile
i like the idea of art that anyone can make, from me to a toddler to a chimpanzee
Expression is an important thing for human beings to access but that's kind of separate to art. Protests are examples of expression that are significantly more important than art, but they are not art in and of themselves. Replicating a famous painting by hand is an enormous demonstration of skill, but it's not really much of a self-expression, and thus it isn't good art. (You can use similar arguments to say that portraits of rich barons or whatever realist painters got primarily paid to do was not good art (even if it was supremely impressive), and I wouldn't disagree.)
To me good art is a combination of skill and expression, and debates about "good art" should focus on what counts as demonstrated skill and what counts as eloquent expression.
Everyone is entitled to making bad art; you effectively *have* to make bad art before you can make good art. Unique and/or important expressions (or unique demonstrations of skill) can be found in bad art, but they are not exclusive to art either.
The point of the "fake art" is Poe's Law. It was about an entire subculture that went so far off the deep end that they weren't appreciating parody, and they weren't finding a couple praiseworthy qualities of something that happened to be stumbled upon by what was otherwise trash; they straight-up couldn't tell the difference between trolling and genuine effort. They were buying a used car.
There's a very real argument that fake art becomes "real" art taken in the context of the commentary it carries on authenticity and shallowness (and wouldn't even be the first piece of genuine modern art that did that), but that wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't praised for the openly horseshit reasons to begin with.
"it's not just a dead shark, it has a name: The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living
i see no reason why you can't consider the title part of the work. i take it at face value: the shark is the physical impossibility of death in the mind of someone living.
and i can kind of see it. You have this killing machine, rows of teeth on display, frozen in time, as though alive, and even though you know it's dead there's still that fight or flight impulse in the back of your mind, even a photograph of a predator can activate it
so when you look at the piece, in a sense, you're staring the mummified corpse of death itself in the face, and you can't quite believe it"
Yeah, but you could've attached that plaque and commentary to a Kool-Aid tank with a wrap from Green Burrito and it would've meant just as much. Probably would've had more visceral grossout factor too.
Hirst said that the work was sold on 30 August 2007, for £50 million, to an anonymous consortium.[10] Christina Ruiz, editor of The Art Newspaper, claims that Hirst had failed to find a buyer and had been trying to offload the skull for £38 million.[11] Immediately after these allegations were made, Hirst claimed he had sold it for the full asking price, in cash, leaving no paper trail. The consortium that bought the piece included Hirst himself.[12]
In the 6 February 2012 issue of Time Magazine, Hirst elaborated, in his "10 Questions" interview: "In the end I covered my fabrication and a few other costs by selling a third of it to an investment group, who are anonymous."
Harry Levy, vice chairman of the London Diamond Bourse and Club, said "I would estimate the true worth of the skull as somewhere between £7 million and £10 million."[11] Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs would expect £8.5 million in VAT payments, if Hirst really did receive £50 million.[11] David Lee, editor of The Jackdaw, commented "Everyone in the art world knows Hirst hasn't sold the skull. It's clearly just an elaborate ruse to drum up publicity and rewrite the book value of all his other work."[11]
i mean come onnnnn
oh dont get me wrong i dont like hirst either, but a skull covered in diamonds is a skull covered in diamonds.
lmao if he didnt even manage to sell the thing though and had to 'cover his costs' by selling a third of it to the Definitely Not Damien Hirst Investment Group
You are entitled to your opinion, but that wouldn't have been the same to me at all. Hirst may well be a bad person and a lazy artist, but i did like the shark, all the same, you're unlikely to change my mind on this.
And no, i don't think the "fake" art shows that art critics are "off the deep end" at all, because there is no intrinsic quality that you *could* use to differentiate between an interesting object submitted in good faith and an interesting object submitted in bad faith.
Man is a most complex simple creature: see what he weaves, and how base his reasons for doing so.
I think of it like being in academia; to get in, you have to write for those kinds of folks, and their particular language, systems, and mores. You can't write for the layman.
it's not just a dead shark, it has a name: The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living
i see no reason why you can't consider the title part of the work. i take it at face value: the shark is the physical impossibility of death in the mind of someone living.
and i can kind of see it. You have this killing machine, rows of teeth on display, frozen in time, as though alive, and even though you know it's dead there's still that fight or flight impulse in the back of your mind, even a photograph of a predator can activate it
so when you look at the piece, in a sense, you're staring the mummified corpse of death itself in the face, and you can't quite believe it
this probably isn't what Hirst had in mind, also i have never taken a single art appreciation class and if this sounds like bullshit that's cuz obviously it kind of is
but i got something out of it, so the dead shark is fine by me
Here's the thing though, alright?
First off, maybe you can't quite believe that it's dead, but I totally can. That's a value judgment on neither of us, but it's worth mentioning.
Secondly, I don't really have a problem with avant garde art (certainly not abstract art) as an idea. I think Damien Hirst specifically is a boring douchebag, and maybe you disagree, and that's fine, but my opinion is not likely to change.
If you get something out of it, cool, but I do not get anything out of it.
I personally think that difference in experience (not even opinion really, you genuinely got something out of it and I genuinely did not) is fine, but my problem is that the kneejerk reaction on the part of avant garde art supporters is that I am somehow wrong in not getting anything out of it and preferring marginally more traditional media in the general sense.
What I don't like is the idea that we can somehow have it both ways. That both all art is meaningless on its own and comes down to experience but also that some art is Good and some art is Bad, and I hear this line of thinking fairly often.
I once (several years ago) referred to myself as a Stuckist. I know realize that that's wrong, because I'm not really that boring (I sometimes pretend to be) but also because I at least acknowledge that yeah at the end of the day nothing exists in a vacuum and shared experience can be a kind of art unto itself and can be a kind of good art unto itself. But I reject the notion, from both sides, that anything is, inherently, art. Or good art. Or bad art. I frankly think that's stupid.
But all of that said, I don't get anything out of what I consider Physical Impossibility to be, which is a dead shark.
Now, I do quite admire Thomas Chimes, who made paintings and drawings that a lot of people would dismiss as childish scrawlings. So I suppose you can call me a hypocrite if you want.
I have more to say on this if we turn the topic to music specifically, but we haven't done so.
I should point out that I actually do get something out of the Stuckist piece A Dead Shark Is Not Art. Namely, I think it's funny that its mere existence seems to offend so many people when it's something so totally innocuous.
A Dead Shark Is Not Art isn't that deep a parody. It's just another, different dead shark, in the same situation as the work being parodied. It's a dumb joke. Sort of a South Park of the fine art world.
because there is no intrinsic quality that you *could* use to differentiate between an interesting object submitted in good faith and an interesting object submitted in bad faith.
There is. Context. It's pretty crucial. It's what can make a toddler's scrawl worth more than a landscape, and what makes it acceptable to shout "I'm coming!" while chasing a bus but not while in one.
The critics who bought the fake art made no effort to discern the context of the work itself. They heard there was a hip new dead guy in the morgue and started coming up with reasons to praise him whole cloth. You might call that stone soup. I call it a used car.
who says people are looking for effort?
I'll grant that effort is not necessarily proportionate to value.
There is. Context. It's pretty crucial. It's what can make a toddler's scrawl worth more than a landscape, and what makes it acceptable to shout "I'm coming!" while chasing a bus but not while in one.
The critics who bought the fake art made no effort to discern the context of the work itself. They heard there was a hip new dead guy in the morgue and started coming up with reasons to praise him whole cloth. You might call that stone soup. I call it a used car.
Even if this is true wholesale, the problem is then the critics, not the art.
That's kind of like saying Neutral Milk Hotel suck because Pitchfork likes them.
I personally think that difference in experience (not even opinion really, you genuinely got something out of it and I genuinely did not) is fine, but my problem is that the kneejerk reaction on the part of avant garde art supporters is that I am somehow wrong in not getting anything out of it and preferring marginally more traditional media in the general sense.
What I don't like is the idea that we can somehow have it both ways. That both all art is meaningless on its own and comes down to experience but also that some art is Good and some art is Bad, and I hear this line of thinking fairly often.
the idea that it is 'wrong' to not get anything out of avant-garde art is real dumb and i have not heard this argument that often really? though maybe you have. idk. taste is always different and the avant-garde in particular is definitely an acquired taste
i think my view on the second paragraph is less that art is meaningless and more than the meaning of art is not fixed and is fluid, and flexible. likewise, what is good art and what is bad art is also flexible, and can change. i think this is a more common point of view than 'all art is meaningless and some is good and some is bad', and i would say anyone who holds those two opinions simultaneously probably Doesn't Get It
i think my view on the second paragraph is less that art is meaningless and more than the meaning of art is not fixed and is fluid, and flexible. likewise, what is good art and what is bad art is also flexible, and can change.
I would say that these are two different ways of saying the same thing.
i think my view on the second paragraph is less that art is meaningless and more than the meaning of art is not fixed and is fluid, and flexible. likewise, what is good art and what is bad art is also flexible, and can change.
I would say that these are two different ways of saying the same thing.
that's interesting and had not occurred to me. i think i agree with you.
i don't like 'there is good art and there is bad art' because it almost always seems to go hand in hand with 'and you are plebs for liking the bad stuff'
and idk, i go back and forth on this but when people say it's ok to like bad stuff often i'm just like ???
cuz i don't think art quality has to boil down to just simple enjoyment, but at the same time i kinda feel like if you can like something but you're calling it 'bad', something has gone wrong with the definition of 'bad' somewhere
i don't like 'there is good art and there is bad art' because it almost always seems to go hand in hand with 'and you are plebs for liking the bad stuff'
and idk, i go back and forth on this but when people say it's ok to like bad stuff often i'm just like ???
cuz i don't think art quality has to boil down to just simple enjoyment, but at the same time i kinda feel like if you can like something but you're calling it 'bad', something has gone wrong with the definition of 'bad' somewhere
that's a massively contentious statement which i'm really not at all sure of myself so pretend it's wrapped up in several dozen more 'maybes' and comes with a long throat-clearing preamble with reference to my own ignorance and uncertainty
i don't like 'there is good art and there is bad art' because it almost always seems to go hand in hand with 'and you are plebs for liking the bad stuff'
and idk, i go back and forth on this but when people say it's ok to like bad stuff often i'm just like ???
cuz i don't think art quality has to boil down to just simple enjoyment, but at the same time i kinda feel like if you can like something but you're calling it 'bad', something has gone wrong with the definition of 'bad' somewhere
I think you can like something even if you don't like what the creator of that thing was actually trying to do, but I do agree that it's a strange way to phrase the sentiment.
also i wanna add that 'context' is not really what you'd call an intrinsic quality, and the critics who fell for the hoax art were supplied context, the context just happened to be grossly misleading
Even if this is true wholesale, the problem is then the critics, not the art.
That's kind of like saying Neutral Milk Hotel suck because Pitchfork likes them.
Saying they're not intertwined is like saying the problem with US politics is with bought politicians and not the system that encourages it. Shallow critics who'll nod and accept anything as long as the plaque jaws about restrained sexuality and eternal ennui will inevitably draw grifters. It creates a groundless institution of circular reinforcement held aloft only by its own momentum. And that just hurts artists who actually have something to say, because there's no way of knowing just how steeped the culture is in that kind of pretentious fraud when not even the critics can tell the difference.
Even if this is true wholesale, the problem is then the critics, not the art.
That's kind of like saying Neutral Milk Hotel suck because Pitchfork likes them.
Saying they're not intertwined is like saying the problem with US politics is with bought politicians and not the system that encourages it. Shallow critics who'll nod and accept anything as long as the plaque jaws about restrained sexuality and eternal ennui will inevitably draw grifters. It creates a groundless institution of circular reinforcement held aloft only by its own momentum. And that just hurts artists who actually have something to say, because there's no way of knowing just how steeped the culture is in that kind of pretentious fraud when not even the critics can tell the difference.
is there some kind of lack of opportunity for traditionalist artists that I'm not aware of?
I know that's the popular narrative but I have no idea if it's actually true. I don't work at a museum.
Incidentally, it's insanely pretentious to claim you're better at judging art objectively (or pseudo-objectively) than people who went to college to learn how to judge art properly.
Unless you just think the humanities on the whole are worthless, in which case, well, fuck you.
It's an interesting thing, context can completely change how you look at a work
reminds me of a story by Borges called Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote, maybe you've read it? It's kind of a funny story, probably not intended to be taken entirely seriously, but it's an interesting concept that does make you think.
Comments
idk maybe this is very lame and not-avant-garde of me but i'm just tired of people acting like the fact that a hoax object can be interesting means all modern art is worthless trash and the arts should not get funding
the logical jump from 'anyone can make abstract/avant-garde art' to 'modern art is worthless and the arts should not receive funding' is a really dumb one to make with lots of holes in it which have been pointed out a lot, and i dont despair about it too much because i have noticed it benig much less of a prevalent opinion as time goes on. it is still the case that not everyone likes avant-garde or abstract art but it has been around long enough even people who dont enjoy it accept that there is something to it. probably there are some dumb 'we should only fund stem subjects blah bblah' fedoralords who want to throw all abstract art in the bin and not give art any funding but there is really no point in giving those people the time of day.
really i agree, if people liked 'fake' art then that shows the fake art has some aesthetic appeal to them, that is interesting
it's just whenever this gets brought up it's always in the context of 'and that's why modern art is literal garbage' and i'm just sitting here thinking 'that doesn't prove that at all'
it's not just a dead shark, it has a name: The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living
i see no reason why you can't consider the title part of the work. i take it at face value: the shark is the physical impossibility of death in the mind of someone living.
and i can kind of see it. You have this killing machine, rows of teeth on display, frozen in time, as though alive, and even though you know it's dead there's still that fight or flight impulse in the back of your mind, even a photograph of a predator can activate it
so when you look at the piece, in a sense, you're staring the mummified corpse of death itself in the face, and you can't quite believe it
this probably isn't what Hirst had in mind, also i have never taken a single art appreciation class and if this sounds like bullshit that's cuz obviously it kind of is
but i got something out of it, so the dead shark is fine by me
“But you didn’t,” Trixie shot back, “and Pole Lock did! Several times, in fact. That’s why he’s an Artist and you ...”
To me good art is a combination of skill and expression, and debates about "good art" should focus on what counts as demonstrated skill and what counts as eloquent expression.
Everyone is entitled to making bad art; you effectively *have* to make bad art before you can make good art. Unique and/or important expressions (or unique demonstrations of skill) can be found in bad art, but they are not exclusive to art either.
lmao if he didnt even manage to sell the thing though and had to 'cover his costs' by selling a third of it to the Definitely Not Damien Hirst Investment Group
And no, i don't think the "fake" art shows that art critics are "off the deep end" at all, because there is no intrinsic quality that you *could* use to differentiate between an interesting object submitted in good faith and an interesting object submitted in bad faith.
It's just another, different dead shark, in the same situation as the work being parodied.
It's a dumb joke.
Sort of a South Park of the fine art world.
i think my view on the second paragraph is less that art is meaningless and more than the meaning of art is not fixed and is fluid, and flexible. likewise, what is good art and what is bad art is also flexible, and can change. i think this is a more common point of view than 'all art is meaningless and some is good and some is bad', and i would say anyone who holds those two opinions simultaneously probably Doesn't Get It
and idk, i go back and forth on this but when people say it's ok to like bad stuff often i'm just like ???
cuz i don't think art quality has to boil down to just simple enjoyment, but at the same time i kinda feel like if you can like something but you're calling it 'bad', something has gone wrong with the definition of 'bad' somewhere
that's a massively contentious statement which i'm really not at all sure of myself so pretend it's wrapped up in several dozen more 'maybes' and comes with a long throat-clearing preamble with reference to my own ignorance and uncertainty
like it's terrible
just keep this in mind while embalming the guy
It's an interesting thing, context can completely change how you look at a work
reminds me of a story by Borges called Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote, maybe you've read it? It's kind of a funny story, probably not intended to be taken entirely seriously, but it's an interesting concept that does make you think.