flux

Whoa! I’m so sad that digital deviant art copying Zawadzki and Beksinski painting styles sort of ruined it for you. It’s incredible that they are so good at painting it has a “digital art look”. I hate when saturation of a style diluits the original but I can’t blame them for wanting to make art like them. I remind myself that them being “spooky/dark” is the aftermath of war in Poland and time of unease.

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.

Absolutely. It’s funny for sure. Your preference which I share is totally valid as any art critics. One more thing I forgot is the scale of these. Seeing in a book is one thing but like the Raft of the Medusa or Mona Lisa (very tiny) scale produces a very different idea and reaction in person. People often don’t consider how things actually were/should be seen. Pollock could be considered a bit of a “troll” of the time I find it amazing he still gets a reaction good or bad. In a post post moden art world Warhol has just sort of been accepted as art across the board. Pollock, Rothko and Duchamp still making people question why they are in a museum.

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.