I don't get art...

[CapnAwesome]

It's kind of annoying that he writes an article about modern art but uses the term art. A lot of modern art is fucking stupid but there is so much art that is totally amazing. I'd go for amazing landscapes and portraits over some random crap that's just given a really complicated explanation.

[Napoléon]

It's kind of annoying that he writes an article about modern art but uses the term art.

Is modern art not art then?

[CapnAwesome]

It's kind of annoying that he writes an article about modern art but uses the term art.

Is modern art not art then?

Does he get other types of art then? If so why does he say he doesn't get art as a general term. Well if I were to say "I don't get sports" and all I talked about was how football didn't make any sense wouldn't you say I was being too general (or just call me a moron.) Modern art is one type of art, but the author of that article says he doesn't get art. During all of art school was he never exposed to any other type of art? He literally leaves out every other type of art that ever existed in that article.

[rexbeccarox]

I haven't read the whole thread, but i do plan on going back to read it... I just don't want to lose this thought:

I have a Dali print in my living room that I can sit and stare at for hours. I've probably spent a total of ten hours looking at it; completely sober, stoned, drunk, tripping on mushrooms...

Maybe I get it, maybe I don't. I have lots of hypotheses about it, but in this case, I don't think you're really meant to "get it", but to have the illusion that there is a puzzle to solve.

I also have an original painting (which I stare at almost as frequently as the Dali print) done by an eight-year-old autistic kid who has no language skills. It's simple: not too many colors, the scene is sort of blocky. It's so obvious what it is, though: the perspective of an eight-year-old sitting in high grass, and seeing grown-up legs walking through it.

In this case, I definitely "get it". The beauty of this piece is that it accurately conveys, in the most simplistic ways possible, how this kid sees the world. Even though he doesn't speak or even seem to understand what you're communicating all the time, he communicates in a way that's rare.

In the hallway, my roommate has a couple of Warhol-wannabe prints she got from Urban Outfitters, which are fun and sometimes amusing to look at. Nothing to "get".

I dunno... that's the way I see it. Much like a lot of things in the world, art is a HUGE spectrum, no matter what medium you're trying to "get", whether fine art, music, writing, what have you.

[Brian37]

A lot of modern art is pretensious bullshit, Jackson Pollocks "blue poles" is a classic example.

But you do still see a bit of good stuff from time to time.

Has anyone seen the crucifixition one with children crucified to their attackers?

Extremely powerful work.

Yea, I don't get his appeal at all. The ones of his I have seen look like paint vomit.

[Clueless Morgan]

For me, personally, my pleasure in art is making it, not looking at it, and there is definitely no "getting" the stuff I do: I do it because I like the subject, it's personal to me or it's pretty.

Fine art, to me, is entirely subjective in terms of whether you "get" it, or even whether there's something to "get" at all. If a piece of abstract art or a piece without a subject with which I can relate is trying to convey a message or stir emotions in me it's often gotta whollup me over the head with a 4x4 in order for me to "get" it, but maybe that's just me. I guess I don't go looking for symbolic or metaphorical meaning in fine art so, consequently, remain relatively unmoved by it. :p A lot of the time it my enjoyment of a piece of art often has to do with what kind of mood I'm in and since that changes, so does my receptivity to art that you have to "get".

Unless it's got animals in it. I'm always moved emotionally by animals.

[downbeatplumb]

It's kind of annoying that he writes an article about modern art but uses the term art.

Is modern art not art then?

That is correct.

[MythRat]

As an artist, I have fun making things that are intentionally pointless just to see what kind of bullcrap "interpretations" people will infer in it. I know there's a name for that, I learned it in art history at some point, but I don't remember what the term is (I'll go with "art troll" happily). I did a piece once that had a small crowd around it at a little campus art show; I took a cheap $2 canvas, painted it entirely blue with a yellow line about an inch from the top edge and then glued a seashell to it which I'd spray painted silver and outlined with glitter. I did it while I was so sleep deprived I was hallucinating (I'd gone about five days without sleep) and I was just trying to get the project done on time. But these people were just huddled around it, staring intently and talking about how it "represented the hopes and dreams of life without having real power to reach them" and that it "obviously was a minimalist depiction of an ocean sunset" or any other of a dozen lines that boiled down to "I'm trying way too hard to convince myself that staring at this isn't a giant waste of time."
It was all I could do to keep from busting up laughing. It was like watching a five-year-old kid discuss in absolute seriousness the various dramas that occur among their stuffed animals and barbie dolls. I'm thinking "Oh, aren't you cute? Please tell me you didn't drive here; I'm worried you'd get distracted by the 'deep meaning' in the shapes of clouds."

As a person viewing art, I don't get most modern art at all. I like some surrealist stuff (The Treachery Of Images is one of my favourites) and I can wrap my head around even some outsider art (like Henry Darger's work). But modern art just seems like one huge trolling exercise, I see no other point to it at all.
My favourites are the "classic" painters, particularly DaVinci, Jan Van Eyke, Caravaggio, even Albrecht Durer. Great stuff, I can totally get more classical styles.