There's a lot of very valid criticism of the modern high art market, which is mainly a way to launder money or evade taxes, but a lot of people on here ought to investigate their own views and consider why they have the same view of art as facists. The CIA did fund the Iowa writers workshop and other modern movements, but if your critique is something akin to "It's ~~removed~~ uhh reprehensible and stupid. All of it. No I don't need a deeper analysis to explain why Rothko is bad, it just is." Then you really need to stop and reconsider why you think that.

Who's afraid of modern art: Vandalism, video games and facism is a great video essay on the subject.

I love how, more than a century after some French alcoholic put a toilet in an art gallery, artists have been continually asking the question “what is art, really?” only to discover the answer is that high art is a way for bored rich people to simulate meaning in their lives by turning the entire exercise into a contest of personal popularity and ego.

They emptied their own golem of meaning and that’s why empty canvases are now considered art.

I totally get the bitter reaction a lot of people have to modern art, the banal "i could have done that", which really means more "i don't get how some people can fill their lives making these useless and unproductive things that don't even seem to require technical skill but i have to work 40+ hour a week and if I'm not productive i get fired and can't pay my rent or eat". But if you want to get anything out of it, and there's a lot you can get out of it, which I know from personal experience, you need to rise above that first reaction of bitterness (although it's obviously something you should keep in mind when interacting with any sort of art).

It's obvious that the democratization and proliferation of art that modern artists tried to bring about didn't happen, but the fault was not in them for trying to imagine a different future. Once again, it's capitalism that squandered and misused any of the potential modern art has had.

I went to a modern art museum once. There was a video of a woman talking about why having sex with horses is good which was about half an hour long. There was a man who stood there the entire time and a couple who brought their very uncomfortable child, who couldn't have been older than ten, and wouldnt let him leave the horse sex room. Then I had a cold croissant for four euros. It was terrible

One of my favorite sculptures is Cloud Gate, or as most people know it, the Chicago bean. Anish Kapoor fucking hates that people call it the bean and take pictures if themselves reflected in it and so on. I love that that bougie fuck's overwrought overpriced big-ass statement piece has had its original intention taken away and recontextualized by the masses that visit it as a funhouse mirror shaped like a bean. It's not a big fancy sculpture, it's an interactive piece that's free to see and touch.

When I was in grad school, my mom came out to visit me in New York and we went to MOMA. They had this huge inflatable sculpture made out of like mesh cloth that was kind of shaped like an abstract castle. For some reason (drugs) we just assumed it was an interactive installation. We took our shoes off very respectfully, went in, and started jumping around. The security guard who came to get us out was trying very hard to be stern but could not stop laughing.

I think modern art is interesting in the ways it challenges one's idea of art and forces us to confront that most definitions of art are fragile and malliable.

Plus it makes a certain kind of reactionary absolutely ballistic which is always funny.

Heck yeah. Though I share concerns about the monetary side of the art world, I totally agree. Modern art (like all art) is fun and neat and philosophical.

I frequently find people who criticise this the pretentiousness of the art world have rarely ever gone to a gallery and immersed themselves in it. My advice to those people is try it! Read a bit about the artist and the movement and the context of the piece, and though you'll absolutely see some hacks and bougie nothingness and boring stuff, you'll also typically find something you can understand and/or relate to.

I actually only very recently discovered how dark, depressing and complicatedly critical 'pop art' is, after always thinking it was just silly colours and copies of things. I took short browse through a pop-art section of a gallery expecting happy soup cans and came out feeling extremely uncomfortable.

This but unironically

Bullshit, bullshit, derivative

I want to look at the goddamn wall and think it's art and have the curator tell me that it's just a wall. I want the curator to tell me a dick joke and then tell me it's part of an art exhibit.

That actually sounds like fun. I like my local museum but there's none of that kind of dynamic. It's mostly either historically important but boring pieces (such as portraits of George Washington or whatever the fuck), abstract sculptures that I swear are mostly about showing off how well the artist can make a wacky looking thing stand up (fair enough, I am impressed), and statues / statuettes of naked ladies.

I was once at an art museum in Pittsburgh, and one of the pieces was a 15 minute long video of a beaver taking a bath.

Fuck yeah

Look I fucking love modern and contemporary art. They are my favorites. But shit like this is really just gallery world people trying to replicate the bombastic success of Rothko and alike. It’s just trying to be edgy in the right way to sell millions. No siree, none of that for me. Please and thank you.

I really should do an effort post one day about the irreversible damage Andy Warhol and his thugs did to our perception of art and how artists work and earn a living.

Robert Rauschenberg rocks btw. Those aren't my favorites, but he's made some great work. I love this shit for example:

I love seeing the same anti-bit a thousand times and being called an idiot if I don't fucking fall all over myself for it

I want the curator to tell me a dick joke and then tell me it's part of an art exhibit.

-Claes Oldenburg, I Am For An Art, 1961

more like the damn hack rooms. sorry i don't mean that i just have to make a post to mod myself again