I'm not going to deny that there's a lot of crappy art out there. However, this article is such bullshit that I suspect the writer is just trolling.
For those who are nodding along with this article, consider the Obfuscated C contest: http://www.ioccc.org/
That's art. But it's art that most people in the world can't begin to appreciate. You need years of coding experience to really get it. You need context. When hackers sit down and study those works of art, they're not just posing.
A lot of modern art is like that. I look and scratch my head. If I go with a friend who understands the context, they can explain to me the history: movement Z is a reaction to Y, which in turn is a reaction to X. The artist is grappling with themes A and B, and exploring materials C, D, and E.
Many of us can do similar analysis with video games. Look at the Upgrade Complete series, which is a fun set of commentary on games at the same time it's a fun game. Look at the rise of the 8-bit look and sound that harks back to an earlier era. To an outsider, the 8-bit stuff could just seem like shitty graphics, but to many insiders it's awesome and nostalgic and charming. That's art.
Of course, Kongregate and GameStop are both full of shitty games. It'd be easy to write an article like this one, condemning all videos games as crap. But I and many other HN readers are willing to wade through the crap because when you find the gems, they're real works of art. Art requiring context to really understand.
I think modern art is what happens when your "understanding art" circuits get into a feedback loop of some kind, there's something going haywire in there. Modern art is the mental equivalent of an allergic reaction. So we get these famous artists who made things like big canvases of entirely purple, and we say it's art because art critics sneezed out a bunch of reasons why it's art.
Laypeople look at Rothko and wonder why a guy who made rectangle blobs on canvas is better than all the other guys who thought of making rectangle blobs on canvas. And then you wonder what's the point? The point of art is, depending on your philosophy, variously to improve the mind or the spirit or to provide aesthetic pleasure; it's not to satisfy the intellectual pretentions of art nerds. The obfuscated C contest is a difficult intellectual pursuit and this wouldn't be hard to understand to someone who doesn't know C, but it is hard to explain how Rothko's rectangle blobs or Pollock's scribbles improve the human condition more than anyone else's blobs or scribbles except that these artists happened to fall in the right confluent streams of intellectual nonsense at the right time. The obfuscated C contest is not a thing where you say, "my five-year-old can do that", or that any other Joe could do that should he rub the intellectual establishment the right way. But we live in a world where we take stuff anyone can do and put it in a museum because it has some neat context behind it or something. And so the layperson is completely nonplussed.
That makes very good sense. The problem is, a lot of us have been to modern art museums, where you'd think that next to every piece there would be an explanation as to the X, Y, Z, A & B that you mentioned. But there never is. So why is that?
You must admit, it's not a crazy idea that they are being intentionally opaque because the decision of what art is "great" and what is "crap" is not being chosen out of merit, but by the whims of an insider few. Is it really so hard to believe that the artists who are considered "hot" right now are just better at working over these insiders who pick the winners and losers?
Dude, honestly I think you are the one who is probably trolling. I can explain what's nice about ioccc codes to non-programmers easily enough to catch their attention - there's something real going on there. Upgrade Complete is an enjoyable game on its own right, even if you did not know the satire. You seriously think (that other people think) that Kongregate games are shitty and require historical references to begin to appreciate? Think again.
I'll bite...I know very little about art, but I'm willing to be educated. So tell me, by what criteria does one distinguish modern art from garbage?
Taking your Obfuscated C contests as an example, even if the source files look like gibberish to your average citizen (or average programmer), you could at least explain why it's special. And it wouldn't be that hard to see, for anyone, why creating a winning entry takes a lot of technical skill and creativity and that not just anyone could do it.
I think that there's a difference between art today and art a hundred and fifty years ago and I think that it's deeper than you suspect. In the Middle Ages, scholars believed that beauty was representational. They believed that something was beautiful exactly to the degree it represented (religious) truth. The more one depicted virtue in art, the more beautiful that art was, and effective representation was just one aspect of that virtue. The purpose of art was to make this virtue more accessible to the common people.
Fast forward to the beginnings of modern art and what we have is people like Monet and Van Gogh who demonstrate that aesthetics are necessarily tied to photo-realism. This leads to an eventual explosion is aesthetic experimentation, much of who's purpose was not any expression of the 'truth' but rather experimentation for experimentation's sake. As time goes on, the art community develops a tight feedback loop which ultimately leaves behind the idea of clarity in favor of novelty and ultimately forgets about accessibility which used to be one of arts most important attributes.
Art as experimentation isn't a bad thing, but it's an attitude that is radically different from that only a century and a half ago. People of a conservative bent often miss the old attitude and you'll notice that when the Right-Wing governments of the 30's took over, the first thing they did was resurrect it. (Ironically, the Soviet Union also did this.)
"movement Z is a reaction to Y, which in turn is a reaction to X. The artist is grappling with themes A and B, and exploring materials C, D, and E."
I don't want to see reactions. I don't want to see an artist grappling with themes. I don't want to see an artist exploring new materials.
I want to see a master displaying his work that exemplifies concrete themes and ideas. In other words, I would like to see defined, finished works as opposed to ambiguous, ill refined quasi-ideas.
Imagine if someone took programs written for the Obfuscated C contest and boxed them up for sale to the general public. Art that is "movement Z is a reaction to Y, which in turn is a reaction to X" might be fine for artists to circulate amongst themselves, but the problem is that it is sold to people who have no such insider knowledge, yet like to pretend it is somehow relevant to them.
The obfuscated C contest is very explicitly by and for C programmers - the layman isn't expected to know about it, much less have a positive opinion of it.
The obfuscated C contest is what it is. The contest isn't describing itself as about art and I imagine that almost none of the participants are even thinking about art. That's not even what it's about. What is the point in calling it art?
There's a lot of truth in what you said but there is also the other side of that, which is disturbingly real, which is a bunch of yuppies looking at weird shit and playing along with the game because they were told it was classy and artistic. A prime example of this can be seen in the film 'Exit Through the Gift Shop'. It's a documentary about Banksy, the street artist, or at least it started out that way. Basically, this French immigrant to LA, Thierry Guetta was obsessed with street art, banksy, and filming his every waking moment. He went on a journey to find Banksy, did it, and then was kind of mentored by some in the street art scene.
At the end of the film Guetta himself is having this enormous underground art exhibit and famous people like Brad Pitt come! But Guetta is not an artist. It is obvious that he's posing. To say he's emulating his heroes is putting it very nicely. The guy is literally going around an abandoned warehouse throwing strange shit together for the sake of it being strange, calling it art, and then people eat it up going so far as to say he's a genius.
The point is, there was no context. It was strange for strange's sake but it got labelled as art. Everyone is an artist. We all have the ability to be creative and make our own art. That cannot be debated. But what can is how much of it really deserves recognition and what criteria does a work of art have to possess before we can hang it in a gallery and say "that's real art"? For me, real art has a message, it has skill, it is intentional, and the artist puts a genuine piece of themselves into it that you can just really sense. But I digress...
I highly recommend the film, it used to be on Netflix. I think it's a perfect compliment to this article.
>I'm not going to deny that there's a lot of crappy art out there. However, this article is such bullshit that I suspect the writer is just trolling.
Can we not accept people having different views than us (and quite reasonable ones at that) without bringing up the BS notion of "trolling"?
Trolling is what 15 year olds do at 4chan, not what a normal, adult, blogger does in an extended post with various examples and arguments.
>That's art. But it's art that most people in the world can't begin to appreciate. You need years of coding experience to really get it. You need context. When hackers sit down and study those works of art, they're not just posing. A lot of modern art is like that.
No. The obfuscated C contest is more akin to traditionalist art. It's not conceptual and it needs serious chops. It's just that the presentation of it is twisted (so, more like Dali, or Archiboldo, etc...).
Is an article in Vice magazine. Their raison d'être is cultural trolling. I tend to like a lot of their articles, but you have to remember that they are a free magazine with a shit ton of very expensive advertising that feeds on controversy in an attempt to appear relevant to the rich bright young things that they try to court.
This is the same magazine that ran a review of the drug adderall by mailing some to a Canadian farmer and asking him how much work he managed to get done while high. - http://www.vice.com/read/farmer-v12n4 - They are not the most serious of people.
The percentage of art qua art that is bullshit pretension simply used as a signalling device for an in-crowd of self-congratulatory people is not 100%.
But it's also not 0%.
Fortunately, I don't need to care. The art qua art crowd are welcome to their signalling parties and occasional strokes of insight, and I'm welcome to think the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer was really rather artistic, and by and large we two need not even cross paths to growl and yip at each other like two little teacup poodles viciously defending their turf on the matter of whose definition of art is correct. Viva la freedom.
I never got art until I started doing it myself. The internalization of the creative and technical processes of it are, IMO, crucial to "getting" it.
And like one might expect, I still only really "get" art that has a close enough analog to the work I do. So... sculpture? Right out.
And like others have brought up, art is contextual. One fundamental fallacy I see people make is that all pieces of work need to be conceptually complete and self-contained. A lot of good art can only be appreciated in aggregate.
FWIW, I don't "get" any of the art in the article either, save for the photograph of the woman. It's important to know that for photography geeks, it's often not about the subject, but rather about geometry, tonality, color, and more abstract notions. After all, there's a huge genre of photography dedicated to the everyday and the banal, whose only real claim to anything is beauty in composition and light.
As with all art though, there are territories that are incredibly facile, and therefore tend to be heavy-handed. Pictures of kissing couples, that "ring in a book with the shadow of a heart" thing wedding people use all the time, portraits of the homeless, etc etc. Stuff that's conceptually and technically been done to death, and IMO makes the artist appear more self-absorbed than anything else. Likewise, my gut reaction to the "money against the vagina" shot is "how obvious and ham-fisted", but that's just me. It's a me-too "exploration" of a topic that's been explored to death, without adding anything new to the concept or discourse.
In general, if you want art that you might find personal connection in, look at artists without an ego the size of the moon, and run far, far away from ones that do.
Well said. One of the first sculptures I was really moved by was by Antony Gormley. You should have a peek at his work if you want to dig some sculpture.
"After all, there's a huge genre of photography dedicated to the everyday and the banal, whose only real claim to anything is beauty in composition and light."
Yes, but I think the major difference between this and most modern artists that you'll find in galleries and museums is that photographers are far more likely to admit that their work is nothing but beauty in composition and light, without piling on claims of symbolic meaning or attributing some abstract concept.
I'm mostly indifferent to the work of most modern installation artists; it's the self-importance of it all that I bristle at.
I knew my wife was the woman for me when we visited the Tate Modern on our first date and both walked out after 30 minutes agreeing that it's all garbage. [and went to Greenwich park and observatory which is awesome]
Art is the ultimate example of social proof at work. Another great one is wine. I live in the Bordeaux winelands and the only difference between Premier Cru wines like Chateau Margaux at $400 a bottle and equally great non-premier cru wines is that everyone believes that Premier Cru is the best.
I believe modern art (which I am not into) suffers from an anti-intellectual approach anytime the subject pops-up in my circle of technical friends.
On the other hand I went to an art school for a year and met a lot of incredibly elitist wanna be into Klein and the like that would never show up in history of arts class where they could have learned why some weird paintings were important stepstones in art (but they were capable of admiring the piece for two hours in the museum, go figure).
Well... Let's get back in 1863, France for a little thought experiment:
s/Tate\ Modern/Salon\ des\ refusés/
s/Greenwich park/Jardin\ du\ Luxembourg/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_d%C3%A9jeuner_sur_l%27herbe That was a huge scandal at that time, people were screaming their children could draw better (yes, already in those times). Although a lot of social proof is going on as well it advanced art and few are calling it garbage nowadays.
To be clear I enjoy observatories much more than painting exhibition :)
Note: I think this wikipedia article lacks some important pieces of information and doesn't go very deep into the anlysis of that painting.
>> I knew my wife was the woman for me when we visited the Tate Modern on our first date and both walked out after 30 minutes agreeing that it's all garbage.
Appropriately, I remember "trash on floor" being one of the exhibits (second floor, I believe, just prior to the video montage of a gentleman's penis).
A lot of people (including in this thread) seem to have this idea that art is about realism. The more a piece of art, or its components, bear a resemblance to reality, or the more technically difficult the methods involved in its execution, the more worthy it supposedly becomes as "true" art.
But this is totally missing the forest for the trees. Art is ultimately about indulging in a perceptual experience. The true value of art is that it can do this not only by stimulating our senses in satisfying ways that are already familiar to us, but more so than this, art can fundamentally change the very way in which we perceive reality. Now it should be clear that in many cases even the definition of what constitute aesthetic beauty is fluid and often learned, as a result aesthetics become inseparably linked with the perception altering aspect of art.
This is what made the Renaissance artists truly great, not just more realistic looking pictures, but the shift in perception that allowed the realism to be seen. The invention of perspective is probably the best example and is such a fundamental shift we take it for granted today that perceiving it is not an innate ability but learned. As an example, people from cultures lacking contact with the modern world do not see realism in photography the way we do, they see what is actually in front of them: a flat surface with colourful smudges.
Realism has been done, it is fairly well established in the realm of the familiar. Many artists have moved on seeking new ways to open up and challenge our perceptions. It shouldn't come as a surprise that without foundation or context, the viewer sees nothing more than some "colourful smudges" in modern art.
This ability to make new things visible to us, is what makes art arguably as important to advancing our society as engineering or some other more "respectable" vocation.
All of this is not to say the world of art doesn't have its share of pretenders or rich people more interested in using art as display tokens of their status, rather than an actual interest in its meaning. However, it's very easy to succumb to the allure of denouncing anything we don't understand as therefore having no value.
PROTIP: not everything you find in a gallery labeled as "art" is necessarily GOOD art.
PROTIP: Your idea of what makes for "good" art may not coincide with someone else's.
I just came home from the Seattle Erotic Arts Festival. I hung out and listened to this year's judges talking about their decision process. Some pieces were unanimous decisions, some were the subject of arguments, some went in the show because everyone had a strongly REVOLTED reaction to them. Art's a complicated thing.
As a hacker, I think you'd benefit from spending some time appreciating art.
Good art (i.e. NOT Tracey Emin) challenges and rewards; it can
- expand your views beyond just coding
- challenge your opinions of yourself and humanity
- reward you for spotting complex references/patterns
- reward you for "solving" the meaning
- stimulate you purely by being visually beautiful
- make you sad/happy/joyous/nostalgic etc
- bring a new understanding viewpoint of important subject - especially politics, humanity
- make you laugh
- inspire you
- relax you… at worst if it's crap and you're staring at a wall for 3 mins, such a meditative break from work is good for you
I'd like to write a lot more about this (I've been contemplating "Introducing Modern Art for Hackers" post/series for a while) - @ me on twitter (same username as HN) if you think it'd be worth it.
EDIT: Three quick examples of accessible artists that give you much of the above: Antony Gormley, Jeremy Dellar, Gerhard Richter.
The art world is where the bleeding edge of culture can be found. Most of the cultural trends that are commonplace today have origins in the art world. The reason why art is hard to understand by pretty much everyone is that it usually disregards practicality in its original form, and then eventually overtime those same ideas are fused with a more practical viewpoint which brings it into the mainstream for the masses.
In some ways you could view it similar to the bleeding edge of scientific discoveries in that similarly many don't initially know what to do with them. Eventually overtime those discoveries are applied and brought to the masses through some form of productization.
Art, especially modern art is very contextual. Warhol's grocery carton sculptures were created during the golden era of advertising and globalization of trade, for example.
Art is also very subjective. Some like simplicity, some like complexity. Some like clarity, some like stories and implicit context. Some like subdued colors, some like saturated hues.
This makes art very complicated. That is why art history exist.
Art is just like any other type of human creative activity. There are various genres of it and no one is going to like everything.
Saying that you don't like something or don't understand something is cool. No one likes or understands everything.
Most art has a narrative behind it and to really understand what the artist is about you do have to know that narrative. Now a lot of older art, or art designed for a purely visual experience can become disassociated from its narrative and still appreciated. Or we can bring a new narrative to it.
This is not a new thing. It's always been that way in art. A lot of old art is appreciated for aspects that would confuse or even outrage its creators. (Also, a lot of old "junk" or popular art is now appreciated when in its day it was considered throwaway and trivial.)
Most people don't really care about the political situation in France in the mid 19th century. At least not the extent that they pick sides. But we can still appreciate Daumier's satiric political prints because we bring a new narrative to it. We can see ourselves and our current situations in it.
A lot of modern art is about art and the whole process of communication, perception, and expression. As such, the narrative can get pretty self referential and abstract. Recursive to a high degree. (I'll admit, after too many iterations, I start to loose interest myself.)
One way to look at a lot of modern art is to understand that it operates a bit like satire, only the without the joke aspect. Though not always. A lot of it is actually pretty funny if you can follow the conceit. Whether this is interesting to you or worth the effort is a personal choice or preference. Another way to look at some modern art is to approach it like jazz. It is artist riffing on themes and ideas that other artists have done. Again, a knowledge of the works being referenced is usually helpful.
No one said liking art was going to be easy.
But don't automatically assume that because someone else likes it, they aren't sincere or are chumps.
Edit: It just occurred to me that possibly the best way to explain art to the Hacker News crowd is to say that art is like hacking. Hacking perception. Hacking expression. Hacking communication. It doesn't have to have a point, though it might. You do it because you can, because you want to, or because you need to. Or, possibly the most fun, because you shouldn't.
From the engineers prospective, I understand the reason for what you are saying.
However, I've always made an effort to exercise the left side of my brain for balance. I played cello for a decade in childhood and toured Europe; currently, I compete in salsa performance (after having been the most lead-footed lame dancer four years ago).
What I've learned is that expressing my creativity allows for introspection. The expression of oneself through music, art, dance, etc. culminates like the completion a programming project, albeit using a different set of skills. While the extrospective nature of art galleries and concerts is exciting as an artist, it more provides a denouement of ones introspection as a project draws to a close.
Making this realization allows you to enjoy galleries and concerts more. It doesn't have to do with what is produced. These expressions of self allow you a direct route into the thoughts and feelings of the artist, and suddenly the question becomes 'why' more so than 'what.'
Heading back to 'hacking,' the most successful engineers, scientists, and programmers I know balanced the technical and the creative, and the latter allowed for approaching a project from a unique perspective.
My comments and arguments may sound abstract, but I do not present them as fact. I just request that you keep an open mind - do not view 'different' as inferior; instead, view it with an open mind.
That art seems boring to me. But 2001 was boring to me until I knew what went into the model work for the spaceships. I'm not sure I could appreciate this art if I studied art, but I'd be willing to try. This is what I usually think of when I think art: http://mkr.deviantart.com/favourites/
Maybe the author is going after the wrong kind of art. Not all of it needs a manual.
If Glen Coco (The author) never "got" art I'm not sure why he devoted so much of his life to it. I felt like this article was a farce.
I've often contemplated writing a blog post titled "Art analysis for the uninitiated". If you'd be interested please let me know.
Some analysis from an art student:
1st piece with the flowers: This looks to be an homage to still life paintings. Still lifes are about the cycle of life; Birth, Life, and Death. Seems pretty straightforward to me but then again I'm "initiated".
2nd piece with the woman in the desert: I couldn't tell you exactly what the artist was looking to portray but to debunk the "how quickly they'd be skipping over this photo if it was in their mom's holiday snapshots" line, I'd assume that is exactly the point. See Duchamp's Urinal fountain for more along this idea of "things out of traditional context".
the 4th piece (film): Art is either done without reason or with specific reason. The chairs, the screen and the video all have a reason for being the way that they are. It's your choice to interpret this but don't dismiss what the artist is saying because you are scared to "look like a twat".
I can go on and on but I think I've made my point. This has meaning. It may not be valuable to you but then again no one forced you to view this art.
I personally believe art's purpose is to create and distribute beauty. By extension, a secondary purpose would be to distribute that beauty to the masses, and to further increase the "net beauty" of the world, if you will.
In no way, shape, or form is "My cunt is wet with fear" beautiful. This is simply an artist trying to be shocking and radical, but without the courage to actually do so in a meaningful way, is simply couching it in "art".
I would argue that much of modern art (not to be confused with abstract art) is simply an excuse for the artists to be ridiculous without reprimand. If you look at the art of da Vinci, or Raphael, or even some modern artists (One could argue John Mayer's skill with a guitar constitutes art) they did not need to be shocking to have an impact- their work stood on its own.*
That, I guess, would be the crux of the matter. All these other comments explaining that we don't get the "context" or that we simply need to "understand the background" are more or less re-iterating the foolishness found in The Emperor's New Clothes. Art is meant to stand alone. The Mona Lisa does not require context to appreciate it's nuance of color, and the skill with which the expression is painted. Andy Warhol's (in?)famous Campbell's Soup Cans can be lauded on their symmetry and juxtaposition of color alone, while incorporating the mundane into the abstract. The Sistine Chapel can be admired simply by the scale and breadth of the murals within, not excluding the skill with which they were painted, or the beautiful imagery. I've even had non-religious friends admire it more than my religious ones.
One cannot simply say that "you don't get it". Beauty does not need "to be got". Beauty is inherent, and all perspective simply does is skew the appreciation of the beauty. I don't have to like Picasso to appreciate it, just as I don't have to like jazz to appreciate the beauty in syncopation.
Even if you do not agree with me, we can all concur that true art will stand the test of time. So I ask you, do you see people talking about this exhibit 20 years from now?
*This is not to say that bodies of work cannot heighten appreciation, or lend further enlightenment upon the individual works, however a broken bridge, a looped video, a sentence set in neon and various pots placed on pedestals does not constitute a cohesive body of work.
Art is like programming. The objective is to abstract the essence of something, and re-represent that in some other medium.
There are different degrees of that - obviously modern art attempts to represent the essence much more abstractly than, say, impressionism. And some artists accomplish this better than others (in fact only a very few do it really well - the 100x engineer theory applies to artists as well). But as with programming, there is a logic to all of it.
In fact, if you look at the history of Art, the progression appears to be from less abstract to more abstract. Probably because it's harder to do well, and takes time and experience for techniques like Cubism to emerge.
But once you start looking at all art from that framework, it starts making a lot more sense.
Hi. Amateur writer here. In my opinion, there's no such thing as "getting" art.
Why? There's a lot of differing definitions of art, but the one I like the most is Tolstoy's: art is about creating an emotional connection between the artist and the viewer [1].
Abstract art is made with this minimalist principle in mind - that one does not need to be realistic or even confined within the limitations of conventional artistic styles to develop an emotional connection with a viewer. That is, the viewer doesn't need to "understand" or compare a piece to reality to have an emotion from it.
For the most part, I think that classical art is enjoyed by those without an artistic background because there's at least an appreciation for the time and mastery invested into each piece. However, many people mistakenly believe that this appreciation is "getting" art. After all, you think "wow, that must have taken forever" when you see the Sistine Chapel.
However, that's just one emotion art can give you and it's a mistake to limit art to that. It's this belief that caused pieces that are potted plants on pedestals or red squares on large canvases to be alienating - "dude, I/my five-year-old could have done that!"
So let me put it this way - there's no such thing as "getting" art. Either it made you feel something or it didn't.
[+] [-] wpietri|13 years ago|reply
For those who are nodding along with this article, consider the Obfuscated C contest: http://www.ioccc.org/
That's art. But it's art that most people in the world can't begin to appreciate. You need years of coding experience to really get it. You need context. When hackers sit down and study those works of art, they're not just posing.
A lot of modern art is like that. I look and scratch my head. If I go with a friend who understands the context, they can explain to me the history: movement Z is a reaction to Y, which in turn is a reaction to X. The artist is grappling with themes A and B, and exploring materials C, D, and E.
Many of us can do similar analysis with video games. Look at the Upgrade Complete series, which is a fun set of commentary on games at the same time it's a fun game. Look at the rise of the 8-bit look and sound that harks back to an earlier era. To an outsider, the 8-bit stuff could just seem like shitty graphics, but to many insiders it's awesome and nostalgic and charming. That's art.
Of course, Kongregate and GameStop are both full of shitty games. It'd be easy to write an article like this one, condemning all videos games as crap. But I and many other HN readers are willing to wade through the crap because when you find the gems, they're real works of art. Art requiring context to really understand.
[+] [-] cynicalkane|13 years ago|reply
Laypeople look at Rothko and wonder why a guy who made rectangle blobs on canvas is better than all the other guys who thought of making rectangle blobs on canvas. And then you wonder what's the point? The point of art is, depending on your philosophy, variously to improve the mind or the spirit or to provide aesthetic pleasure; it's not to satisfy the intellectual pretentions of art nerds. The obfuscated C contest is a difficult intellectual pursuit and this wouldn't be hard to understand to someone who doesn't know C, but it is hard to explain how Rothko's rectangle blobs or Pollock's scribbles improve the human condition more than anyone else's blobs or scribbles except that these artists happened to fall in the right confluent streams of intellectual nonsense at the right time. The obfuscated C contest is not a thing where you say, "my five-year-old can do that", or that any other Joe could do that should he rub the intellectual establishment the right way. But we live in a world where we take stuff anyone can do and put it in a museum because it has some neat context behind it or something. And so the layperson is completely nonplussed.
[+] [-] bfrs|13 years ago|reply
If it needs a long sermon to proclaim it's art, it's probably bullshit [1]
Modern Art - A Skeptical View [2]
[1] http://www3.sympatico.ca/manideli/Artsp.htm
[2] http://www3.sympatico.ca/manideli/
[+] [-] starship|13 years ago|reply
You must admit, it's not a crazy idea that they are being intentionally opaque because the decision of what art is "great" and what is "crap" is not being chosen out of merit, but by the whims of an insider few. Is it really so hard to believe that the artists who are considered "hot" right now are just better at working over these insiders who pick the winners and losers?
[+] [-] altrego99|13 years ago|reply
If someone tries, he can inject enough meaning to any artform using historical context, including this http://www.viceland.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/img_85...
But the point is that art should not be confused with history.
[+] [-] macspoofing|13 years ago|reply
Taking your Obfuscated C contests as an example, even if the source files look like gibberish to your average citizen (or average programmer), you could at least explain why it's special. And it wouldn't be that hard to see, for anyone, why creating a winning entry takes a lot of technical skill and creativity and that not just anyone could do it.
[+] [-] astine|13 years ago|reply
Fast forward to the beginnings of modern art and what we have is people like Monet and Van Gogh who demonstrate that aesthetics are necessarily tied to photo-realism. This leads to an eventual explosion is aesthetic experimentation, much of who's purpose was not any expression of the 'truth' but rather experimentation for experimentation's sake. As time goes on, the art community develops a tight feedback loop which ultimately leaves behind the idea of clarity in favor of novelty and ultimately forgets about accessibility which used to be one of arts most important attributes.
Art as experimentation isn't a bad thing, but it's an attitude that is radically different from that only a century and a half ago. People of a conservative bent often miss the old attitude and you'll notice that when the Right-Wing governments of the 30's took over, the first thing they did was resurrect it. (Ironically, the Soviet Union also did this.)
[+] [-] pdeuchler|13 years ago|reply
I don't want to see reactions. I don't want to see an artist grappling with themes. I don't want to see an artist exploring new materials.
I want to see a master displaying his work that exemplifies concrete themes and ideas. In other words, I would like to see defined, finished works as opposed to ambiguous, ill refined quasi-ideas.
Maybe that's just me.
[+] [-] joseph|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nextstep|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] carsongross|13 years ago|reply
"It is not that the public has failed art; it is art which has failed the public."
[+] [-] unknown|13 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] neutronicus|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] slurgfest|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pseale|13 years ago|reply
http://underhanded.xcott.com/
[+] [-] crasshopper|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yaix|13 years ago|reply
As much as I would like to agree with you, but, no, it isn't.
[+] [-] lbotos|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] billpatrianakos|13 years ago|reply
At the end of the film Guetta himself is having this enormous underground art exhibit and famous people like Brad Pitt come! But Guetta is not an artist. It is obvious that he's posing. To say he's emulating his heroes is putting it very nicely. The guy is literally going around an abandoned warehouse throwing strange shit together for the sake of it being strange, calling it art, and then people eat it up going so far as to say he's a genius.
The point is, there was no context. It was strange for strange's sake but it got labelled as art. Everyone is an artist. We all have the ability to be creative and make our own art. That cannot be debated. But what can is how much of it really deserves recognition and what criteria does a work of art have to possess before we can hang it in a gallery and say "that's real art"? For me, real art has a message, it has skill, it is intentional, and the artist puts a genuine piece of themselves into it that you can just really sense. But I digress...
I highly recommend the film, it used to be on Netflix. I think it's a perfect compliment to this article.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit_Through_the_Gift_Shop
[+] [-] batista|13 years ago|reply
Can we not accept people having different views than us (and quite reasonable ones at that) without bringing up the BS notion of "trolling"?
Trolling is what 15 year olds do at 4chan, not what a normal, adult, blogger does in an extended post with various examples and arguments.
>That's art. But it's art that most people in the world can't begin to appreciate. You need years of coding experience to really get it. You need context. When hackers sit down and study those works of art, they're not just posing. A lot of modern art is like that.
No. The obfuscated C contest is more akin to traditionalist art. It's not conceptual and it needs serious chops. It's just that the presentation of it is twisted (so, more like Dali, or Archiboldo, etc...).
[+] [-] ktizo|13 years ago|reply
Is an article in Vice magazine. Their raison d'être is cultural trolling. I tend to like a lot of their articles, but you have to remember that they are a free magazine with a shit ton of very expensive advertising that feeds on controversy in an attempt to appear relevant to the rich bright young things that they try to court.
This is the same magazine that ran a review of the drug adderall by mailing some to a Canadian farmer and asking him how much work he managed to get done while high. - http://www.vice.com/read/farmer-v12n4 - They are not the most serious of people.
[+] [-] ferringham|13 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] drhowarddrfine|13 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] jerf|13 years ago|reply
But it's also not 0%.
Fortunately, I don't need to care. The art qua art crowd are welcome to their signalling parties and occasional strokes of insight, and I'm welcome to think the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer was really rather artistic, and by and large we two need not even cross paths to growl and yip at each other like two little teacup poodles viciously defending their turf on the matter of whose definition of art is correct. Viva la freedom.
[+] [-] potatolicious|13 years ago|reply
And like one might expect, I still only really "get" art that has a close enough analog to the work I do. So... sculpture? Right out.
And like others have brought up, art is contextual. One fundamental fallacy I see people make is that all pieces of work need to be conceptually complete and self-contained. A lot of good art can only be appreciated in aggregate.
FWIW, I don't "get" any of the art in the article either, save for the photograph of the woman. It's important to know that for photography geeks, it's often not about the subject, but rather about geometry, tonality, color, and more abstract notions. After all, there's a huge genre of photography dedicated to the everyday and the banal, whose only real claim to anything is beauty in composition and light.
As with all art though, there are territories that are incredibly facile, and therefore tend to be heavy-handed. Pictures of kissing couples, that "ring in a book with the shadow of a heart" thing wedding people use all the time, portraits of the homeless, etc etc. Stuff that's conceptually and technically been done to death, and IMO makes the artist appear more self-absorbed than anything else. Likewise, my gut reaction to the "money against the vagina" shot is "how obvious and ham-fisted", but that's just me. It's a me-too "exploration" of a topic that's been explored to death, without adding anything new to the concept or discourse.
In general, if you want art that you might find personal connection in, look at artists without an ego the size of the moon, and run far, far away from ones that do.
[+] [-] carsongross|13 years ago|reply
Like Picasso, Dali, Caravaggio and Michelangelo?
[+] [-] kennywinker|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] LargeWu|13 years ago|reply
Yes, but I think the major difference between this and most modern artists that you'll find in galleries and museums is that photographers are far more likely to admit that their work is nothing but beauty in composition and light, without piling on claims of symbolic meaning or attributing some abstract concept.
I'm mostly indifferent to the work of most modern installation artists; it's the self-importance of it all that I bristle at.
[+] [-] mmaunder|13 years ago|reply
Art is the ultimate example of social proof at work. Another great one is wine. I live in the Bordeaux winelands and the only difference between Premier Cru wines like Chateau Margaux at $400 a bottle and equally great non-premier cru wines is that everyone believes that Premier Cru is the best.
[+] [-] johnchristopher|13 years ago|reply
On the other hand I went to an art school for a year and met a lot of incredibly elitist wanna be into Klein and the like that would never show up in history of arts class where they could have learned why some weird paintings were important stepstones in art (but they were capable of admiring the piece for two hours in the museum, go figure).
Well... Let's get back in 1863, France for a little thought experiment: s/Tate\ Modern/Salon\ des\ refusés/ s/Greenwich park/Jardin\ du\ Luxembourg/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_d%C3%A9jeuner_sur_l%27herbe That was a huge scandal at that time, people were screaming their children could draw better (yes, already in those times). Although a lot of social proof is going on as well it advanced art and few are calling it garbage nowadays.
To be clear I enjoy observatories much more than painting exhibition :)
Note: I think this wikipedia article lacks some important pieces of information and doesn't go very deep into the anlysis of that painting.
[+] [-] doktrin|13 years ago|reply
Appropriately, I remember "trash on floor" being one of the exhibits (second floor, I believe, just prior to the video montage of a gentleman's penis).
[+] [-] shrikant|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] abdelazer|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] planetguy|13 years ago|reply
Video Of Naked Guy Punching Himself In The Face Repeatedly While His Genitals Wibble Back And Forth, for instance, has been put away.
[+] [-] hetman|13 years ago|reply
But this is totally missing the forest for the trees. Art is ultimately about indulging in a perceptual experience. The true value of art is that it can do this not only by stimulating our senses in satisfying ways that are already familiar to us, but more so than this, art can fundamentally change the very way in which we perceive reality. Now it should be clear that in many cases even the definition of what constitute aesthetic beauty is fluid and often learned, as a result aesthetics become inseparably linked with the perception altering aspect of art.
This is what made the Renaissance artists truly great, not just more realistic looking pictures, but the shift in perception that allowed the realism to be seen. The invention of perspective is probably the best example and is such a fundamental shift we take it for granted today that perceiving it is not an innate ability but learned. As an example, people from cultures lacking contact with the modern world do not see realism in photography the way we do, they see what is actually in front of them: a flat surface with colourful smudges.
Realism has been done, it is fairly well established in the realm of the familiar. Many artists have moved on seeking new ways to open up and challenge our perceptions. It shouldn't come as a surprise that without foundation or context, the viewer sees nothing more than some "colourful smudges" in modern art.
This ability to make new things visible to us, is what makes art arguably as important to advancing our society as engineering or some other more "respectable" vocation.
All of this is not to say the world of art doesn't have its share of pretenders or rich people more interested in using art as display tokens of their status, rather than an actual interest in its meaning. However, it's very easy to succumb to the allure of denouncing anything we don't understand as therefore having no value.
[+] [-] egypturnash|13 years ago|reply
PROTIP: Your idea of what makes for "good" art may not coincide with someone else's.
I just came home from the Seattle Erotic Arts Festival. I hung out and listened to this year's judges talking about their decision process. Some pieces were unanimous decisions, some were the subject of arguments, some went in the show because everyone had a strongly REVOLTED reaction to them. Art's a complicated thing.
[+] [-] JofArnold|13 years ago|reply
Good art (i.e. NOT Tracey Emin) challenges and rewards; it can
- expand your views beyond just coding
- challenge your opinions of yourself and humanity
- reward you for spotting complex references/patterns
- reward you for "solving" the meaning
- stimulate you purely by being visually beautiful
- make you sad/happy/joyous/nostalgic etc
- bring a new understanding viewpoint of important subject - especially politics, humanity
- make you laugh
- inspire you
- relax you… at worst if it's crap and you're staring at a wall for 3 mins, such a meditative break from work is good for you
I'd like to write a lot more about this (I've been contemplating "Introducing Modern Art for Hackers" post/series for a while) - @ me on twitter (same username as HN) if you think it'd be worth it.
EDIT: Three quick examples of accessible artists that give you much of the above: Antony Gormley, Jeremy Dellar, Gerhard Richter.
[+] [-] moocow01|13 years ago|reply
In some ways you could view it similar to the bleeding edge of scientific discoveries in that similarly many don't initially know what to do with them. Eventually overtime those discoveries are applied and brought to the masses through some form of productization.
[+] [-] mynegation|13 years ago|reply
Art is also very subjective. Some like simplicity, some like complexity. Some like clarity, some like stories and implicit context. Some like subdued colors, some like saturated hues.
This makes art very complicated. That is why art history exist.
[+] [-] commieneko|13 years ago|reply
Saying that you don't like something or don't understand something is cool. No one likes or understands everything.
Most art has a narrative behind it and to really understand what the artist is about you do have to know that narrative. Now a lot of older art, or art designed for a purely visual experience can become disassociated from its narrative and still appreciated. Or we can bring a new narrative to it.
This is not a new thing. It's always been that way in art. A lot of old art is appreciated for aspects that would confuse or even outrage its creators. (Also, a lot of old "junk" or popular art is now appreciated when in its day it was considered throwaway and trivial.)
Most people don't really care about the political situation in France in the mid 19th century. At least not the extent that they pick sides. But we can still appreciate Daumier's satiric political prints because we bring a new narrative to it. We can see ourselves and our current situations in it.
A lot of modern art is about art and the whole process of communication, perception, and expression. As such, the narrative can get pretty self referential and abstract. Recursive to a high degree. (I'll admit, after too many iterations, I start to loose interest myself.)
One way to look at a lot of modern art is to understand that it operates a bit like satire, only the without the joke aspect. Though not always. A lot of it is actually pretty funny if you can follow the conceit. Whether this is interesting to you or worth the effort is a personal choice or preference. Another way to look at some modern art is to approach it like jazz. It is artist riffing on themes and ideas that other artists have done. Again, a knowledge of the works being referenced is usually helpful.
No one said liking art was going to be easy.
But don't automatically assume that because someone else likes it, they aren't sincere or are chumps.
Edit: It just occurred to me that possibly the best way to explain art to the Hacker News crowd is to say that art is like hacking. Hacking perception. Hacking expression. Hacking communication. It doesn't have to have a point, though it might. You do it because you can, because you want to, or because you need to. Or, possibly the most fun, because you shouldn't.
[+] [-] philip1209|13 years ago|reply
However, I've always made an effort to exercise the left side of my brain for balance. I played cello for a decade in childhood and toured Europe; currently, I compete in salsa performance (after having been the most lead-footed lame dancer four years ago).
What I've learned is that expressing my creativity allows for introspection. The expression of oneself through music, art, dance, etc. culminates like the completion a programming project, albeit using a different set of skills. While the extrospective nature of art galleries and concerts is exciting as an artist, it more provides a denouement of ones introspection as a project draws to a close.
Making this realization allows you to enjoy galleries and concerts more. It doesn't have to do with what is produced. These expressions of self allow you a direct route into the thoughts and feelings of the artist, and suddenly the question becomes 'why' more so than 'what.'
Heading back to 'hacking,' the most successful engineers, scientists, and programmers I know balanced the technical and the creative, and the latter allowed for approaching a project from a unique perspective.
My comments and arguments may sound abstract, but I do not present them as fact. I just request that you keep an open mind - do not view 'different' as inferior; instead, view it with an open mind.
[+] [-] mkr-hn|13 years ago|reply
Maybe the author is going after the wrong kind of art. Not all of it needs a manual.
[+] [-] lbotos|13 years ago|reply
I've often contemplated writing a blog post titled "Art analysis for the uninitiated". If you'd be interested please let me know.
Some analysis from an art student:
1st piece with the flowers: This looks to be an homage to still life paintings. Still lifes are about the cycle of life; Birth, Life, and Death. Seems pretty straightforward to me but then again I'm "initiated".
2nd piece with the woman in the desert: I couldn't tell you exactly what the artist was looking to portray but to debunk the "how quickly they'd be skipping over this photo if it was in their mom's holiday snapshots" line, I'd assume that is exactly the point. See Duchamp's Urinal fountain for more along this idea of "things out of traditional context".
the 4th piece (film): Art is either done without reason or with specific reason. The chairs, the screen and the video all have a reason for being the way that they are. It's your choice to interpret this but don't dismiss what the artist is saying because you are scared to "look like a twat".
I can go on and on but I think I've made my point. This has meaning. It may not be valuable to you but then again no one forced you to view this art.
[+] [-] joejohnson|13 years ago|reply
It's good to see that the irony of VICE has been largely lost on the HN crowd here as we discuss what makes "good" art. Haha.
[+] [-] stfu|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pdeuchler|13 years ago|reply
In no way, shape, or form is "My cunt is wet with fear" beautiful. This is simply an artist trying to be shocking and radical, but without the courage to actually do so in a meaningful way, is simply couching it in "art".
I would argue that much of modern art (not to be confused with abstract art) is simply an excuse for the artists to be ridiculous without reprimand. If you look at the art of da Vinci, or Raphael, or even some modern artists (One could argue John Mayer's skill with a guitar constitutes art) they did not need to be shocking to have an impact- their work stood on its own.*
That, I guess, would be the crux of the matter. All these other comments explaining that we don't get the "context" or that we simply need to "understand the background" are more or less re-iterating the foolishness found in The Emperor's New Clothes. Art is meant to stand alone. The Mona Lisa does not require context to appreciate it's nuance of color, and the skill with which the expression is painted. Andy Warhol's (in?)famous Campbell's Soup Cans can be lauded on their symmetry and juxtaposition of color alone, while incorporating the mundane into the abstract. The Sistine Chapel can be admired simply by the scale and breadth of the murals within, not excluding the skill with which they were painted, or the beautiful imagery. I've even had non-religious friends admire it more than my religious ones.
One cannot simply say that "you don't get it". Beauty does not need "to be got". Beauty is inherent, and all perspective simply does is skew the appreciation of the beauty. I don't have to like Picasso to appreciate it, just as I don't have to like jazz to appreciate the beauty in syncopation. Even if you do not agree with me, we can all concur that true art will stand the test of time. So I ask you, do you see people talking about this exhibit 20 years from now?
*This is not to say that bodies of work cannot heighten appreciation, or lend further enlightenment upon the individual works, however a broken bridge, a looped video, a sentence set in neon and various pots placed on pedestals does not constitute a cohesive body of work.
[+] [-] SkyMarshal|13 years ago|reply
There are different degrees of that - obviously modern art attempts to represent the essence much more abstractly than, say, impressionism. And some artists accomplish this better than others (in fact only a very few do it really well - the 100x engineer theory applies to artists as well). But as with programming, there is a logic to all of it.
In fact, if you look at the history of Art, the progression appears to be from less abstract to more abstract. Probably because it's harder to do well, and takes time and experience for techniques like Cubism to emerge.
But once you start looking at all art from that framework, it starts making a lot more sense.
[+] [-] temuze|13 years ago|reply
Why? There's a lot of differing definitions of art, but the one I like the most is Tolstoy's: art is about creating an emotional connection between the artist and the viewer [1].
Abstract art is made with this minimalist principle in mind - that one does not need to be realistic or even confined within the limitations of conventional artistic styles to develop an emotional connection with a viewer. That is, the viewer doesn't need to "understand" or compare a piece to reality to have an emotion from it.
For the most part, I think that classical art is enjoyed by those without an artistic background because there's at least an appreciation for the time and mastery invested into each piece. However, many people mistakenly believe that this appreciation is "getting" art. After all, you think "wow, that must have taken forever" when you see the Sistine Chapel.
However, that's just one emotion art can give you and it's a mistake to limit art to that. It's this belief that caused pieces that are potted plants on pedestals or red squares on large canvases to be alienating - "dude, I/my five-year-old could have done that!"
So let me put it this way - there's no such thing as "getting" art. Either it made you feel something or it didn't.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_Art%3F
[+] [-] tintin|13 years ago|reply
Some might say Tracey Emin is a bad artist. But I think here message is very clear: pain from being raped and losing 2 kids. It's a sad message.
Like Hugh MacLeod (gapingvoid) I like to say: "Worrying about “Commercial vs. Artistic” is a complete waste of time.".
[+] [-] philwelch|13 years ago|reply