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.
This is a good example. That's why only time can tell apart the real art from posing art. A piece of art is like a finding in science, the value of it is defined by its influence in the history going forward.
> 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.
This is exactly right, in my opinion.
There is obviously a continuum from 'bad' to 'good' art. If this is no obvious display of skill, then it is going to be towards the 'bad' end, no matter how much justification you try to slap on to it. A painting of a bowl of fruit, even when done with considerable skill, can also be bad if there is no message.
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