Modern art should not be supported...

The post that was quoted here has been removed

Erm. Dada did exactly that, and with malice aforethought. Predictably, Dada is rubbish (sometimes literally), and Dada has spawned a lot of equally rubbish follow-ups. Emin is a Dada heir; so is Hirst. Both are, indeed, rubbish.

But Dada is not all of modern art. It's just the most (in-)famous part.

Richard

Originally posted by Seitse
... at least not with public money.

It is utter nonsense and those who say they like it
in reality are just striking a pose to appear cool.

Ergo, it is a waste of money and it serves no purpose
other than give something to do to some untalented
weed smokers.

Discuss.

Why is "modern art" utter nonsense?
I presume you're referring to abstract art and the likes?

When you look at a painting of a beautiful woman, are you enjoying the painting or what the painting represents?
The only way of actually making sure you're enjoying only the painting is to make sure the painting doesn't represent anything.

That's the goal.

Originally posted by shavixmir
Why is "modern art" utter nonsense?
I presume you're referring to abstract art and the likes?

When you look at a painting of a beautiful woman, are you enjoying the painting or what the painting represents?
The only way of actually making sure you're enjoying only the painting is to make sure the painting doesn't represent anything.

That's the goal.

So would a painting that doesn't represent anything be totally black or totally white?

After reading this thread I feel the need to make comment.

I got into Oxford University (John Ruskin college to be exact) in 1984, and I turned it down. I turned it down primarily for 2 reasons. 1. I wanted to design cars, and use my maths and physics A'levels, for which I had studied so hard. 2. I went to Ruskin college, after they accepted me, for a visit, 2 months before I was due to enrol. I couldn't believe what I saw. My own work had been with mixing plastics and crayons with water colours to achieve special effects, which the college loved.
I considered my work to be somewhat loose, but still tight with visual representation of understanding of what one was visually seeing, and not needing to create psychological BS to interpret it.
Upon my first visit to Ruskin College (which I think since dissolved) I WAS horrified. I saw Coke cans smelted together, as well as elastic bands knotted together hanging from a ceiling looking like mucus from a nose. I WAS told this is art, and I shall be a part of it. I was bemused, and left never to return.
However, even after years of disliking what I saw, my attitudes changed slowly. I honestly couldn't be doing with tax payer's money being spent on piles of bricks (2 million quid to that artist!), and a sectioned cow in preservatives that also cost multi-millions. But then, if you think about it, the artist is using today's medium - even technology. Comparing today's wrok with the impressionists is not relevant, because they just changed subject matter to real life, whilst continuing in the same mediums. They moved away from the all God and Church continued subject matter to the streets, restaurants, working girls (a la Degas), theatre, beaches and fields and so on.
I, personally, still have problems with what is termed 'modern art' - but it can't be argued that it is modern.
With regard to Seitse's initial idea, that it shouldn't be funded by tax payer's money, I can't agree more. There are few tax payers who can even afford the entry fee to 'special exhibitions' and see what they have contributed to, and even to see if it is paletable to their own understanding.
A pile of bricks I don't see as art, but a sectioned cow may one day be seen as modern day impressionism for the year 2000.

-m.

If I have to suffer paying taxes that go toward the military so Republicans can have their little wars, then Republicans are going to have to shut the hell up and suffer having some dollars going toward supporting modern art.

Originally posted by shavixmir
The only way of actually making sure you're enjoying only the painting is to make sure the painting doesn't represent anything.

Dude, that's called "decoration" and it can be
obtained at IKEA for only £ 9.99

Originally posted by Seitse
... at least not with public money.

It is utter nonsense and those who say they like it
in reality are just striking a pose to appear cool.

Ergo, it is a waste of money and it serves no purpose
other than give something to do to some untalented
weed smokers.

Discuss.

y freind, you sound like a real dolt on this one.

Originally posted by shavixmir
Why is "modern art" utter nonsense?
I presume you're referring to abstract art and the likes?

When you look at a painting of a beautiful woman, are you enjoying the painting or what the painting represents?
The only way of actually making sure you're enjoying only the painting is to make sure the painting doesn't represent anything.

That's the goal.

They don't know what they're talking about. Vapid peices of flesh is what these fools are.

Originally posted by Shallow Blue
Erm. Dada did exactly that, and with malice aforethought. Predictably, Dada is rubbish (sometimes literally), and Dada has spawned a lot of equally rubbish follow-ups. Emin is a Dada heir; so is Hirst. Both are, indeed, rubbish.

But Dada is not all of modern art. It's just the most (in-)famous part.

Richard

I'm not sure about that I see the novelty to some extent, but I don't buy their own myth that they were creating something ex nihilo. Zurich Dada was essentially an extreme expressionist mutation (it's my favourite manifestation because it's so raw and unformed there;, Paris Dada had to enter an arguably already crowded avant garde scene and we see strong echoes of Symbolism in that formation as a result; and Berlin Dada harked again strongly to an expressionist heritage.

But I suppose the First World War change everything forever, and dada was unfortunate enough to be part of the emerging avant garde scene at precisely that time. (Hugo Ball would have stayed a tortured mystic obsessed by Catholicism and Kandinsky, Picabia would have found another outlet for his self-advancement and Richter would have been a minor expressionist...

Originally posted by rwingett
It sets the tenor for what kind of society we want to fashion for ourselves. A robust governmental support for the arts suggests that these things have an intrinsic value, which, in turn, will foster a more culturally literate population who aren't so damnably intimidated by 'modern' art.

Why do you question my assertion, unless it's simply to disagree with everything I say?

Music can be made largely without government funding. Why do other arts need my taxpayer money?

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
Music can be made largely without government funding. Why do other arts need my taxpayer money?

Symphony orchestras routinely receive a cut of the government dole, as they should. So too should the visual arts. The purpose of any society is not to raise mere bean counters, but fully rounded human beings. Support for the arts is an integral part of that. Certainly more so than a host of other things that governments routinely waste mountains of money on.

Truth is modern art is nothing else but a consolation
prize for the ignorants, so they memorize a few words
and then show off talking about something that could
mean one thousand different things. Anything goes:
big words, Latin terms, name-dropping, etc. The point is
to "feel knowledgeable".

Modern art is, like, mmmhhh... like the UEFA cup: a
chance for the losers to win something while the real
teams battle in the Champions League.

Originally posted by Seitse
Truth is modern art is nothing else but a consolation prize for the ignorants,

And you should know.

People who like modern art are pretentious ignorants. People who like Shakespeare are pretentious ignorants.

What are you going to troll about next, Beethoven? Or are you going to join the Phlabby "science fiction is for pretentious ignorants" camp?

Richard

Originally posted by Shallow Blue
And you should know.

People who like modern art are pretentious ignorants. People who like Shakespeare are pretentious ignorants.

What are you going to troll about next, Beethoven? Or are you going to join the Phlabby "science fiction is for pretentious ignorants" camp?

Richard

Hi, dick. Still boozing?

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
Music can be made largely without government funding. Why do other arts need my taxpayer money?

Well, the problem is that the kind of "music" which can be made without government funding is Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga. The equivalent in the visual arts would be poker-playing dogs on black velvet and dirty seaside postcards.

Richard