Bad Art, We All Know It When We See It, Don't We?

Rothko was much influenced by Turner.
Look at this painting by Turner of a stormy sea with a blazing shipwreck.
Not only was Turner the first impressionist, but he could also be described as the first abstract impressionist.

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The Tate had an exhibition of the two painters together in 2009.

"When Rothko saw an exhibition of Turners at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1966, he joked, 'This guy Turner, he learnt a lot from me.' "
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/...ive-joint-billing-at-Tate-for-first-time.html

 

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I think you nailed it, "In the end it is a question of taste". That has been my point all along in this thread. What Picasso did required imagination and skill and was interesting and/or pleasing to the eye. Rothko's early work is supposed to be good. I have not seen it. But his Black on Black painting I saw at the National Modern Art Gallery was more shocking than art in my view. I generally don't see the value in staring at wall painted black. So in my view, it is bad art if one wants to call it art.

Sometimes I think bizarre behavior is used as a substitute for talent in all the arts, not just the visual arts. I think shock value in many instances is used as a substitute for creativity and talent. And I see it in the performing arts as well as in the visual arts (e.g. Tom Green, body fluids in art, etc). The cult of the bizarre seems to be perpetuated by a dedicated cult following. Lord forbid anyone should ever be critical of the cult of the bizarre. Unfortunately, we also see it in American politics where the bizarre becomes reality and dangerous (e.g. Michelle Bachman, Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, et al.)

 

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Good painting.

 

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Yes.

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That has been one of my beefs for quite some time now. Ever since Andre Breton told the early surrealists to "go out and shoot pistols into crowds" and "publicly insult priests" it has been spiraling along pretty much everywhere as "free expression". Freedom of self - expression seems to have gotten confused with anarchy...and nobody remembers what that is either. :shrug:

 

I largely agree with your sentiment here, but... Well, keep in mind that you and I live in a nation in which a significant portion of the populace find the idea of a woman's bare breast on television outrageous and offensive, consider homosexuality a monstrous and depraved aberration, etc. IOW for a lot of people, "bizarre" means "different from how I do it."

 

Reading this thread, I'm reminded of one of the things which I both love and hate about living in the U.S.

On one hand, Americans by and large are hostile and antagonistic towards everyone from skinny people to homosexuals--and pretty much everyone between, including artists, musicians, bicyclists, "brown" people, poor people, academics, even scientists (Global warming? Evolution?). Anyone who disputes this: I suggest you venture out of your coastal city or "progressive" smaller town into some of the "nether regions" of America. And yet, wherever you go, you will always find at least some of these people and those who are supportive of them--and perhaps as a consequence of the dominant hostility, their "passion" about their subjects is rather intense.

As a musician, I pretty much have to travel to Europe or Asia in order to make decent money (or figure out how to get bigger grants)--not that I mind, just the idea that I have to is kinda weird. Yet I still love performing in the States, especially in more remote locales, as people tend to make it overwhelmingly clear that they care and that they are interested. Seriously, a lot of people really go out of their way in order to demonstrate how much something means to them.

But why do people get so worked up about something which they admittedly are not interested in and do not like, especially something which clearly presents no threat to their own life or livelihood? Of course, some try to make it a threat, i.e., in previous decades homosexuals were made out to be child molesters, nowadays I guess they are simply "destroying family values," or some such nonsense.

 

I think the reason why bizarre behaviour is so often used, is because everyone loves a freak show, the media has something to fill their news gaps with, and the loony extremists get a platform.
And shocking things get strong reactions, and many Artists want people to react strongly to there work. It's better than being ignored.

Be it Politics or Art the masses will always gravitate to the shiniest new best thing that will make their lives fabulous.

And I'll tell you what it is for a small fee

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A great painting.
But a child of seven could paint a more realistic painting of the scene.
It isn't simply a painting of a shipwreck.
It's a painting about fear, loss, danger, despair, and he's done it with what are almost blocks of colour.

 

LOL, I think you nailed again Scary.

 

I agree, I would certainly love to have it in my home. But this is thread about bad art. And thus far the discussion has been limited to paintings.

 

I thought it was about the cultural phenomenon of collecting poorly done amateur art from thrift stores.