/lit/ - Literature

>>6915485
Let the bourgeoisie die in their museums, great whorehouses of capital.

>>6915532
We don't need the museums to be classical artists.

I like modern art! What's really died is painting, and I do mourn it. Maybe our last great classical painter was Rothko.

Prob with a lot of contemp art is it is pure concept--always a 'statement,' always a 'treatise'. Artists with a mind for self-expression go to other mediums--rock music, cinema, literature.

BTW I've seen those white canvasses and they're kinda beautiful. Brushstroke counts.

Define 'art' first. If art is bound to the natural world in abstract and non-abstract form, then 'art' shall die anyways. If by 'art', you mean an attribute attached to the divine, then 'art' shall never die.

>>6915485
>. Abstract colors and shapes do not require any education to appreciate, which is why they were famous.

That's just completely ass backwards though. The common herd absolutely fucking hates abstract art, whereas the educated artistic elite is obsessed with it.

Hegel couldn't really be expected to anticipate the rise of abstraction in the visual arts for the same reason no one else could; they rested on radical developments across many different disciplines, not just sterile Idealism. Without great steps in scientific discovery, we wouldn't have Cubism, and we wouldn't have most of the art we have today.

As for a political dimension to contemporary art, you're not making much sense. If the idea is that abstraction holds a greater capacity for being understood by the average person, there is ample of evidence of that being true and of that not being a bad thing whatsoever - in fact, liberating art from its bourgeois prison. But obviously, the course of post-modern history and late capitalism has greatly fucked that part up: artists became increasingly complex in their ideas and techniques, whilst the art market became increasingly corporatized and concentrated in the hands of the collectors and curators - not the artists.

As always, any time someone mentions Hegel and the end of art, gotta shouts out my man Arthur Danto

>>6915485
Modern art is just an experimentation phase. Look at Malevich, yes he is from 1922 but his paintings aare considered modern art. Suprematism, abstract impressionism and all those things make artists and people question what is art for, what is its definition and simply what the fuck is art. Same as the Luxus faggits with their weird ass music.

>>6916007
>Modern art is just an experimentation phase
>Modern art is
>is
>Luxus

>>6915992
>liberating art from its bourgeois prison.
Don't you see a problem with this? I mean how do we scan for quality?
If it were up to the masses Shakespeare would have been forgotten as soon as his English became dated.

>>6916011
Fug it was Fluxus.

>>6915485

>Abstract art does not require any education to appreciate

Are you kidding? Plebs hate abstract art precisely because they have no idea what its about. Why do you think millions of tourists will visit the Louvre, go straight to the Mona Lisa, and then leave? Because they have no idea what's good other than what other people tell them.

>>6916016
>Don't you see a problem with this?
no
>I mean how do we scan for quality?
hahahaha what?
>If it were up to the masses Shakespeare would have been forgotten as soon as his English became dated.
Do you honestly think Bill is still only studied because of the critical apparatus (such as Bloom, who you people love) and not because ordinary people of ordinary intelligence and medium to lower wages find something enjoyable about his work?

>>6916056
>hahahaha what?
How do we determine, for example, what is taught in high schools? We need a way to filter out the bad art.
>Do you honestly think Bill is still only studied because of the critical apparatus (such as Bloom, who you people love) and not because ordinary people of ordinary intelligence and medium to lower wages find something enjoyable about his work?
Yes, I do, and you're out of touch if you believe this. Even in universities, in which the average iq is much higher than in countries as a whole, only literature students (and not even all of them) will read Shakespeare voluntarily. The critical apparatus has been absolutely vital for the survival of Shakespeare.
Let's take a man for whom the apparatus has been much weaker: Christopher Marlowe. Who reads Marlowe among the common men? Who has even heard of him among them?

>>6916027
10/10

>>6916073
>How do we determine, for example, what is taught in high schools? We need a way to filter out the bad art.
The people who teach determine what is taught for whatever reason they choose - simple.
>Yes, I do, and you're out of touch if you believe this
I'd say the same thing back to you, because I've been to free productions of Hamlet in the large American South city I live in which was attended by lots of people, most of them just average people. Furthermore, the critical institution is not a hidden hand which orchestrates English curricula across the nation, and nor is the critical institution within universities itself even concerned with this high bourgeois mindset anymore as clearly evidenced by a focus in post-colonial and minority literature since the 1990s.

Obviously, discussing Shakespeare or Marlowe is far off topic considering contemporary visual art and English Renaissance playwrights are so disparate as to not even be worth mentioning together, but there is also a disparity between wider tastes and literacy in visual arts that not only dictate accessibility, knowledge, and appreciation amongst different people for different mediums.

You're giving too little credit to ordinary people, too much credit to decades-past "taste-makers," and I'd be shocked if you were up to speed enough with contemporary art or literature for that matter to even raise the question beyond shallow abstractions.

>>6915485

Jesus this thread is shit.
/lit/ can't into fine art at all.

>>6915859

>painting is dead

that's been said for more than a hundred years. Try harder.

>Prob with a lot of contemp art is it is pure concept--always a 'statement,' always a 'treatise'.
>Artists with a mind for self-expression go to other mediums--rock music, cinema, literature.

I'm sure this sweeping generalisation expresses all aspects of the current art market.

>>6916007

>modern art
>experimental phase
>Malevich

How the hell are you confusing fluxus with modern art. Dadaism's deconstruction of formalism is directly a reaction to these hyper formal modern projects of abstraction. How can you possibly even conflate the two.

Need to get your head screwed on tight about what "experiment" art is.

>>6916084
>I'd say the same thing back to you, because I've been to free productions of Hamlet in the large American South city I live in which was attended by lots of people, most of them just average people.
This is so anecdotal. And the only reason they're performing Hamlet and not something by Moliere is...
Doesn't change the fact that that 99% of people will completely trip up if you ask them the first question about Shakespeare's Hamlet.
>Furthermore, the critical institution is not a hidden hand which orchestrates English curricula across the nation, and nor is the critical institution within universities itself even concerned with this high bourgeois mindset anymore as clearly evidenced by a focus in post-colonial and minority literature since the 1990s.
What is this supposed to prove? This mindset hasn't been in place long enough to foster any significant change, not to mention the fact that it's hardly universal.
>d I'd be shocked if you were up to speed enough with contemporary art or literature for that matter to even raise the question beyond shallow abstractions.
>shallow abstractions
My sides. Conduct a survery, ask half a million of you noble common readers to name a work by Aristophanes. Again, the Greek classics would be dead if it were left up the commoner, as will these more experimental pieces if it is left up to him.

ODD NERDRUM IS THE WORLDS GREATEST PAINTER

The real problem is the collapse of the divide between high and low art. Hegel was right about the nature of *good* art.

The death of art has more to do with the marginalization of metaphysical thinking and the rise of positivism, Marxist politicization of art, critics trying to make themselves more important than the art or artists they critique and so on. You can evoke Heidegger and Spengler to further Hegel's idea, with the loss of art as culture building in its relation to Being, and the decadence of the civilization phase respectively. Or with Adorno and Horkheimer and the notion that mass culture has replaced old culture forms. Especially in America, we preferred comic books and movies to get our mysticism and esotericism.

With that said, I find modern and contemporary art to be fascinating. There's a lot of interesting new things always going on, Jackson Pollock creating organization out of noise, Paul McCarthy subverting the Greek idea of a sculpture as a finished product but rather something that has no definite end, the pop artist as nihilist vs Joseph Beuys and Paul Thek as artist as shaman, the relation between modernist painting and integral consciousness, Damien Hirst's displaced religious icons spliced within medical and capitalist apparatuses, and so on. History is completely open to be reinterpreted and revised, I find it fascinating why so much time passes for someone to think of sculpture as an unfinished product or painting to be something you do on a horizontal canvas.

But the mere fact that "art" is irrelevant now thanks to pop culture makes people despise it automatically. Theres too much of anything including film and art that it seems unnecessary to most people, but I can still get inspired when seeing contemporary art in person. It's not that abstraction is easier to appreciate, I think it's easier to appreciate the nostalgia of a painting by the "old masters" and abstract or conceptual art that represents mental phase space is more difficult to "get".

In my experience, abstract art is generally not appreciated by the majority of people, but mostly by critics, academics and the consciously 'cultured'. So, if anything, I would say it's the opposite: that high art is marginalised because it has become too intellectualised and inaccessible, possibly as a response to the rise of mass entertainment media.

What's a good introduction to ideas about 'art' and discussions about it for a filthy pleb like me?

>>6916444
>abstract art is simply 2deep4u and that's why most people don't "get it"
>needing to have a full academic education before you can "appreciate" modern art
Absolutely hilarious. I bet you enjoy the work of Pollock.

Hegel wasn't wrong about art dying.

>>6916217
This was well put and i agree with you, art will never cease being interesting imo. People whining over the death of art are just navel gazing intellectualizers who need to stop talking out their asses

>>6916471
http://www.quia.com/files/quia/users/dring/Why_Is_That_Art_early_pages.pdf

>>6916487
I never made a value judgement, fag.

>>6916444
Abstract art, and the inability of non-experts to appreciate it, predates mass entertainment media by several decades.

>>6915954
Not true. The general form of art in that regard is a simulacrum. Our current understanding is wrong.

Just look at the "art" architecture of highway underpasses, of new buildings built in the corporate and the universities, where the art doesn't exist in it's contained little art history class, it's far removed from anything classicism.

Apparently a concrete wall with Palm trees and wavy patterns is better to look at than just concrete.

As for ""the elite"", art critics don't fucking matter, artists do, and regular people do. They are the ones who matter

>>6915768
Of course you do.

>>6915992
>liberating art from its bourgeois prison.

Lenin plz go back to your mausoleum and stop.

Nobody who matters cares about abstract art.

>>6916027
>Plebs hate abstract art precisely because they have no idea what its about.
That's just the fucking problem. At least the colored shapes get people to react. People trounce through the Louvre (I was just there a few weeks ago) and don't even bother hating the art.

Being considered > not being considered

Hegel foresaw the death of fart.

>>6916007
>>6916017
>>6916089
>They think Malevich is Fluxus
>my shapes when

>>6917257
YOU'LL NEVER STOP THE REVOLUTION

>>6915485
imo a lot of it has to do with post-structuralism.

When the intent of the creative presence becomes secondary, or in some cases, non-existent, art is considered great based on the people who experience it. Lauded art today is, imo, a reflection of abstract meaninglessness we feel in ourselves.

Or maybe we're all plebs and there is no great reflective meaning.

That being said, I've always been drawn to the power of a Rothko.

Art is an example of intellectuals chewing more than they bit off

>>6915485
>As Zizek notes,
Uh...

>another retarded "art" thread
Shut the fuck up and read On the Genealogy of Art Games already.

>>6916217
>I think it's easier to appreciate the nostalgia of a painting by the "old masters" and abstract or conceptual art that represents mental phase space is more difficult to "get".
I disagree. So many damn paintings are directly in reference to Greek, roman and Christian mythology. That right there excludes the entire proletariat population.

Maybe it's because, today, the Greeks are less important to academics?

>There's a lot of interesting new things always going on, Jackson Pollock creating organization out of noise, Paul McCarthy subverting the Greek idea of a sculpture as a finished product but rather something that has no definite end, the pop artist as nihilist vs Joseph Beuys and Paul Thek as artist as shaman, the relation between modernist painting and integral consciousness, Damien Hirst's displaced religious icons spliced within medical and capitalist apparatuses, and so on
That's clearly stuck in the romantic mindset of struggling with the medium. Jackson pollock is the perfect example of colored shapes bruh, any form you see is imposed yourself.

>>6916444
That's exactly your limited meme understanding of art.

You treat every "commoner" like they're seeing a picture of "the fountain" in an art history class they've never been in. Look at the art people actually consume and experience.

Gaddis was very preoccupied with this. The Recognitions deals a lot with legitimacy in art and "copies of copies", and Agapē Agape is a 100 page paragraph basically saying plebs will ruin everything citing the beginning of the end as the player piano. It may have been released in the 90s but it (the book) is mentioned in JR so he was kicking the idea around since at least the late 60s.

>>6917291
What do you see in Rothko?

"Power" means nothing concrete in this context.

>>6917314
>another retarded one-liner one-up

Thanks for the referral but you're a putz

>>6917349
By "power" I mean the feeling you get from looking into the eyes of a serial killer or something. For me, Black in Deep Red gives me the creepy-crawling feeling of looking into Wittgenstein's eyes.

>>6917415
I don't have any feelings when looking at either of those.

>>6916217


g8 post m8, not meming

Contemporary art is awesome dude, i read Juxtapoz and Hi-Fructose all the time and both of those magazines blow my fucking mind. So many people doing totally radical ideas and off-the-wall shit with their paintings/drawings/etc, i highly recommend both of those mags, whenever i lost faith in art they were there to blow me away agin

>>6916487
Possible bait but Pollock's work is dope. You may not appreciate it but that doesn't mean it's not good. If you wanted a better example you could have said Jasper Johns, an official hack

>>6917551
Sounds like a personal problem.

>>6916217
>Marxist politicization of art
Art was politicized long before Marxism, the Marxists merely recognized it as such.

>>6917600
Hardly a problem.

>>6917600
When I listen to Beethoven's 9th, the hair stands on the back of my neck and I experience bliss. Looking at Van Gogh's Wheat Field with Crows in person makes me want to cry.

Rothko and that photo of Wittgenstein do nothing.

i picked romantic art on purpose so you won't think I'm a classicist

>>6917610
Yes, art always was political, but general egoist politics (like sophists, by analogy)

Marxism is unaesthetic as fuck. It's pleb: the ideology

>>6917754
Well when I listen to Mahler's Firetruck Symphony, the hair stands on the front of my neck, m'lady.

>>6917599

Hope you are not implying the pic you posted constitutes interesting art.

>painting a graphic that looks like some shitty vaporwave image.
>b-but its really big

wow such art.

What will they think of next? maybe someone will do bill nye's portrait in legos that would be so epic :^)
where can i buy that t-shirt!

>>6916093
TBH this man is right.

It's not that the common man is incapable of understanding good art, it's that he lacks the education and discipline to engage with it. 90+% of people on the street simply do not think about anything beyond their work, their day to day life, and the entertainment they partake in. Art is simply an anxiety reliever for many people. It resides on the same shelf as sports, alcohol, and club dancing. My parents are a fine example of this. My dad reads books, but he does so for entertainment and "self help." He's read 5 books in the past year: a couple of those Bill O' Reilly "Killing Jesus" books and some Matthew Kelly books. My mom hasn't read anything since she read the Fifty Shades books 2 years ago.

I have no problem with this on an individual level and I really don't care if most of the world never engages with art, but to say that MANY average people even care is a vast exaggeration and seems politically motivated.

If you actually want the bourgeois to experience art you will have to implement statism on a wide scale--take away children from their parents at birth and send them to state boarding schools. That's the only way to make the common bro care, and frankly I don't see the point.

>>6915485
Zizek doesn't give two fucks about whether the common man understands art. Besides, who cares? A happy society means a society where people have the right to be stupid.

The only one to blame for the death of art is the artists themselves. If they really want "patrician" art it's up to them to make it and not put it on the shoulders of the masses.

Pro-tip: plebs have always been plebs, no exceptions. Your average Roman during the Renaissance didn't give a second thought to the Pieta if he saw it. He was too busy thinking about the bomb ass spaghetti his mom was making and whether or not he would get to fuck Maria after his street fight with Geraldo's gang that night. It's nothing more than historical romanticism to think that most people have ever had time or effort to think about "high art," and that is just fine. If intellectual buffs want to feel better about their beta male status by jacking off to a Rothko, let them--no one of importance will notice or care.

>>6917754
I'm the one who posted the Rothko.

Sounds like we just have different taste.

>>6915485
>Do we just accept that plebs will dominate art at the end of history?
The pleb/patrician dichotomy isn't real, you silly reactionary.

>>6917291
Art pleb here but here's my two cents.

When I look at abstract art I feel any feeling or meaning I assign to it is from an external. For example, looking at the Rothko you posted, I feel it eminates a sense of violence and depravity because of the association with Blood Meridian (the violence and depravity of the book against the red sky).

More classical art however, such as the Birth of Venus, seem to have a more inherent meaning because they you don't need to look elsewhere to comprehend them.

>>6917885
> A happy society means a society where people have the right to be stupid.

All that means is happiness is not to be valued.

Read some Nietzsche and actually consider what revaluation of all values means

>Your average Roman during the Renaissance didn't give a second thought to the Pieta if he saw it.

David was meant to be put on top of a building, but the people loved it so they didn't.

>>6917940
Mine are better.

>>6917960
THIS tbfqh
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>>6918009
uhh you absolutely need an understanding of greek mythology to read the birth of venus, otherwise it's just some chick floating on a seashell with a couple heralds flying around.

>>6918073
>being this fucking disgusting
Cosmopolitanism and blurring human hierarchy is the very core of what's wrong in humanity.

>>6918073
to be fucking quite honest?

>>6918228
Go find a gutter to rot in, temporarily embarrassed billionaire.

>>6918253
"frankly"

>>6918278
>Go find a gutter to rot in, temporarily embarrassed billionaire.

Hahaha quite a leap there in logic don't ya think, Lenin?

modern "art" is shit tbh