[danielpal]

I'll explain. Most people who criticize contemporary are, usually use a combination of its just a bunch of random lines or a "5 year old could have painted that" - as if the complexity of difficulty of an art piece its what makes it valuable. But nothing is further from the truth, a simple piece, with a strong composition such as Number 17a, could look simple but its quite powerful and complex.

Let me use an analogy you can better understand. I am sure you can appreciate music. Most people who listen to the Marriage of Figaro by Mozart, can understand it's a master piece. Yet, it isn't the most difficult balad Mozart composer and many other musicians have created far more complex balads. Also a gifted 5 year old could probably learn to play it and reproduce it quite accurately. Does that diminish its value because a 5 year old can play it? It's even possible for an average 5 year old to invent a similar balad after listening to it. But could an average 5 year old create something like the Marriage of Figaro from scratch without ever hearing it? It takes a pretty special 5 year old, like Mozart to produce something like that. And its the whole composition that matters, not just a few notes - anyone can play a few notes.

The same happens with Pollock. He was the first drip painter. And while an average 5 year old could drip some paint in a canvas (play a few notes), they won't be able to create a powerful composition of colors that mirrors a full Pollock composition. Sure, there are amazing reproductions of Pollock made by very trained art forgers - yet that doesn't diminish the value of Pollock just because someone else after analyzing his technique is able to reproduce it.

The value is another story. It's worth $200M because of its size and scarcity. Pollock wasn't a big art producers and thus there aren't many paintings around. Yet there are many people who love his work and want to buy it. Supply and demand dictates the price. Sure you can buy something similar from an art forger, but its not the same, the same way that listening to a album on a set of speakers is not the same as having the artist play live for you.

[LudwigNagasena]

>as if the complexity of difficulty of an art piece its what makes it valuable

But it is true. Of course it is not the whole story, but complexity and difficulty influence how humans interpret and value things.

[watwut]

Realistic drawings are not considered difficult, not by artists. It is called fundamentals and you learn it in school. It takes effort to learn, but effectively it is just that.

Which is why more abstract drawings raised into prominence. And they are not so easy either - as much as five years old scribble, they don't create same effect not pleasing composition of colors or structures.

[longerthoughts]

Complexity is not exclusively visual. The complexity of modern art largely comes in the form of the effect it has on the observer and the meaning they derive from it.

[robocat]

> Sure you can buy something similar from an art forger, but its not the same, the same way that listening to a album on a set of speakers is not the same as having the artist play live for you.

That's not a double-blind standard - you are comparing pipes to chairs. Although I can understand that one may care for the homeopathy or placebo effect of having the "real" item.

But I believe that there are artists that could make a better Pollock than Pollock himself.

[umvi]

It doesn't take much to forge Pollock. It's like an author taking the output of monkeys pounding on typewriters and publishing it. Not hard to forge compared to JRRT.

Modern art is a sham. I only appreciate art that I recognize takes skill above my own to create. Anyone can come up with random novel "art". For example, I could buy a SpaceX rocket and launch a piece of feces into low earth orbit. "Poop in Orbit" would be extremely novel and random piece of modern "art".

Michaelangelo blows my mind. Pollock makes me roll my eyes.

[beat]

I can draw stick figures and call them forgeries of Michaelangelo. That doesn't make them good forgeries. Read the original article for some sense of the technical difficulty of forging Pollock in a way that couldn't be easily spotted by a Pollock expert.

[longerthoughts]

>I only appreciate art that I recognize takes skill above my own to create

Even if you had the skill to create a passable forgery of a Pollock, which you probably do not, you're attributing no value to the importance of concept and initial creation. A kid performing a Beethoven piece at a recital is not Beethoven.