1 fuck. the pollack is like those 3d posters that were all the craze. I could never see the object.

2 Re Pollack...

Beauty and art are n the eye of the beholder.

Wait.

Is that poop in my eye?

IMHO, Pollack is crap.

3 the only thing i get from the pollack is that if i star at the black ridge on the left side of the painting and focus in real hard, the rest of the painting appears to turn black

4

stare, not star

5 Posted by: jmflynny at January 19, 2011 10:38 PM (piMMO)

Well, we are supposed to be sophisticated and look past the first impression of, "shit, that doesn't look like much." And, I guess, doing a little bit of visual work will reward us with some interesting things. But nothing zings the heart and the brain and the gut like the truly great pieces.

When I look at El Greco's "View of Toledo," I get goose bumps. Pollack doesn't do that.

6 This is art, too. I am allowed to like it, aren't I?

7 Is it art, or is it the ONT?

8 How about the Dratler and the Jansen?

9 Theo Jansen? Old: http://ace.mu.nu/archives/235298.php

10 Posted by: rdbrewer at January 19, 2011 10:46 PM (uMnyO)

Is that art? Or is it politics disguised as art? Don't get me wrong; I love the sentiments. But isn't there some expectation of subtlety and ambiguity in artistic expression?

11

Old?  So?  When did old ever stop a poster around here?  And if has already been posted, it's even better the second time.

Hey, fellow moron, Tom Dratler.  Nice work.

12

I'm a sucker for the classics.

I know that artists have claimed that they have to move beyond "realistic" paintings, but i think most of them simply can't do it and had to come  up with excuses.

I had a friend who lived in new york, and like everyone who goes to live in new york, they think they know something you don't or are more cultured. Anyway, she writes freelance and she was glowingly talking about some female artist she interviewed who was "edgy" and some other meaningless adjectives. Apparently this artist would use her on mentstral fluid to paint. Apparently that is edgy and artistic.

I couldn't bring myself to tell her that during a college internship at a mental institution, there was a patient there who wrote stuff on the walls in his own poop. I guess he's a NYC caliber artist too.

I think a lot of modern art is part salesmanship and part group think. When your standing in a room where everyone is impressed and talking about how awesome or amazing something is, you don't want to be left out or look like the idiot who doesn't get it.

That's not to say I dislike all non classical art. I enjoy impressionists, but most modern art to me is junk. Think Andy Warhol and the like.

 

13 So if I leave a shitstain on a shag carpet and let it dry ,its art if signed by Jackson Pollock? Wow,cool.

14 Well, CAC's got the First Rule of Editing down: Fill the space!

15 It's a discipline. Like Mathematics, Music or Computer Science... Serious painters (like Pollack) set out to solve visual "problems". For example, early on, perspective was a problem... how to trick the eye into seeing 3D on a 2D surface... Once perspective was solved, they had to try to go beyond perspective. That was Cubism... Pollack had to try to go beyond Cubism... So he took his hand out of the process (by dripping paint instead of applying with a brush) and relied on controlled chaos. I painted my way through it from start to current. Check it here if you want... http://sympleton.com/#69

16 Well, we are supposed to be sophisticated and look past the first impression of, "shit, that doesn't look like much."

Well, thank you for the lesson in art appreciation. I believe it, too, is crap.

How is that for sophistication?

It seems that you have fallen into the deep end of it's art because someone says it is: The "sophisticated" crowd with sophisticated tastes in art and food and wine. Allow me to remind you that the "sophisticated" pay high-dollar for coffee that drops from the rear-end of an animal. They, too, those sophisticates, eat French cheese with live maggots. Sure, the smell is so bad that it gags them and the taste is so pungent that any normal person wouldn't touch it, but HEY! They have discerning tastes.

So, let's not be so quick to assume that because my critique is concise, that it is formed with any less thought than was yours.


mkay?

17 Yeah, I'm not sharing my stuff with you philistines.

18 Yeah, I'm not sharing my stuff with you philistines.

Too late. I've already gazed upon your photos. Beautiful.

I did, however, get an immediate giggle out of the autobahn pic.

19 Oh heck give me some Seurat,Gauguin,Cezanne, Edward Hopper even.

20

>>the (Jackson) Pollock does have tremendous depth<<

I paint. Pollocks stuff is crap. It is very sad that his stuff is considered "art".

21

Is that art? Or is it politics disguised as art? Don't get me wrong; I love the sentiments. But isn't there some expectation of subtlety and ambiguity in artistic expression?

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo (NJConservative) at January 19, 2011 10:49 PM

No.  I don't mean to be flip, but it depends on what you're looking at, seems like.  (BTW, I'm going to do a screed on that thing at the link next week.)  I don't see cubists, surrealists, or impressionists as being particularly subtle, for example.  Individuals or individual works can be, but entire classes of art--or art generally.

22 Posted by: jmflynny at January 19, 2011 10:55 PM (piMMO)

Hey, dipshit; I was agreeing with you. Work on your reading comprehension, or go have another beer. Or both!

23 I consider talent to be like Don Troiani, whose work makes you feel like you're actually on Little Round Top or wherever.

24

i dip my johnson in paint and wipe it across the canvas. By doing so I am in a sense, interpolating into a Derridaist reading that includes consciousness as a reality. Dongstrokism(my term for my art) is really a critique of the precapitalist paradigm of narrative implies that society, perhaps surprisingly, has intrinsic meaning.

25 I do believe, however, that Jansen's kinetic sculptures are beautiful.

To create actual motion, graceful motion, from something so....structural.....requires real skill. That he had the vision that sculpture such as his could be powered with something so gentle as a breeze is incredible. Standing still, they look only slightly more delicate than a Knex toy, but in motion they are breathtaking.

26
Lavender Mist, Jackson Pollack, 1950.

I took one of those magnifying mirrors and put it under my sac the other day and that's exactly what I saw. Should I be proud of my innate artistic talent?

27 Heh.  How about more traditional art next week.

28 Posted by: rdbrewer at January 19, 2011 11:03 PM (uMnyO)

If you aren't flip, you don't belong on this blog.

When I think of great works of art (my personal opinion; but that's all that matters to me at my age), I expect them to be different every time I see them. I remember learning about John Singleton Copley when I took an art course as a freshman. Great portraits; fascinating technique...But now when I see his work I see an entirely different thing. I see the history, the politics, the intrigue of revolutionary America. And in a few years when I see more of his stuff I expect to enjoy it from a different perspective.

I guess what I expect from great art is a message that I choose...and nobody else gets to tell me what it means.

29 http://tinyurl.com/y97ou8c

30 Lavender Mist my ass. That painting is worth millions and I can get a piece of Pink Granite for a couple of bucks. Pollack is pure crap and it isn't even unique.

31 Hey, dipshit; I was agreeing with you. Work on your reading comprehension, or go have another beer. Or both!

Comprehension? How about you turn that finger around. When you start a sentence with Well, we are supposed to.... And then follow up with how a little bit of visual work will reward us... well, sir that's a lecture.

32 But moron art, wide open.  Doesn't have to be traditional.

33 Lavender Mist my ass. That painting is worth millions and I can get a piece of Pink Granite for a couple of bucks.


You nailed it! It does remind me of pink granite which, btw, yuck.

34

I prefer practical things that also pass as art, like bridges and buildings.

 

35 Dratler's work is the best of the bunch and pleasing to look at. The pollack work reminds me of zolatone and what happens to the material when its shot at an improper angle or.. rose-quartz marble countertops.

Back to dratler,  mail art done in the 80's and 90's combined aerosol paints with brushed oil and acrylic rubber stamped text or images.

http://tinyurl.com/4lyouqm

36

But moron art, wide open.  Doesn't have to be traditional.

Definately. I like seeing everyones art. Don't let my or our moron personal tastes or preferences put you off.

I won't be judgemental of moron art, however i will be judgemental of art that sells for 10-30 million a pop that looks like my floor when i accidently kicked over the paint cans in my basement.

There was one a while ago of a rooster that i liked a lot. Anyone remember who did that?

37 Posted by: jmflynny at January 19, 2011 11:12 PM (piMMO)

How's this?

"Well, we are supposed to be sophisticated..."

The "I guess," was too subtle for you? And the "some interesting things" really screams GREAT ART!

Those are hedging words.

And of course the "But nothing zings the heart and the brain and the gut like the truly great pieces," completely overwhelmed my obviously too-subtle-for-your-brain point that you were correct.

38 Funny to have an art thread.  Just back from docent training at our local art museum. 

We have some nice collections there, including Russian (Soviet) "impressionists" (not nearly as depressing as you'd think, a lot of them are rather Manet-like) and some very nice sculptures, my favorite being this one of Don Quixote. 

I finally got through enough of the boxes to know where the one piece I have preserved all these years is. Maybe I'll finally get around to photographing it for you guys. 


As for Pollack.  Meh.  They're best seen in person but even then they just fail to impress me somehow.  If they turn him on, fine, but it amazes me rich people would drop a load on that stuff and make him famous in the process. 

39

Hey, dipshit; I was agreeing with you. Work on your reading comprehension, or go have another beer. Or both!

Comprehension? How about you turn that finger around. When you start a sentence with Well, we are supposed to.... And then follow up with how a little bit of visual work will reward us... well, sir that's a lecture.

 

when the fight between you  two begins, do it over canvas, that way to can take advantage of any potential blood spatter and profit which can go to help cover your medical bills.

40 Actually, I like all sorts of art. I hate Chihuly as a person but I love his work, That Polack guy, however, leaves me cold. I think he ate bad perogies or something.

41 Oh, I like Otto Dix too. anyone here a big fan of Dix?

42 yes. i realized that looked pretty stupid after i typed it

43  Hey CAC, I really appreciate your comment on the Pollack. Here is another way of 'seeing' it.

Pretend that you are looking down at the ground right in front of your feet (they are just out of the 'picture' at the bottom.) It's early morning on a winter day in the woods down South.

Do you see the moss and the frozen mud?

(P.S. You would NOT get anything like this out of Renoir, for example. I think Renoir could paint. Same with Pollack.)

44 Posted by: jmflynny at January 19, 2011 10:55 PM (piMMO)

And ignoring the attack on a point I didn't make...I agree with you here too!

Is that too subtle?

45

Suddenly, the Pollack snaps into perspective

No, not really.

Jackson Pollack threw cans of paint and paintbrushes.

Fucking headcase.

46 Posted by: Ben at January 19, 2011 11:22 PM (DKV43)

Do you own a gallery? What's your take?

47 Merkley on Flickr

some of his work in NSFW

48

Posted by: Ben at January 19, 2011 11:22 PM (DKV43)

Do you own a gallery? What's your take?

10% and i get to keep the bloodied towels. And no, you are not allowed to ask why.

49 Charlie, there are choices to be made, because you were, indeed, lecturing. Your closing statement comes across as merely but I agree with you...in this particular instance... type of agreement.

The choices are, truce and forget it, or go screw yourself. As this point, I don't care which.

50 Remember Serrano and Mapplethorpe and that crap they were flinging at a gullible art world?  Bloody towels is nothing.

51

Jackson Polock sux if you have astigmatism.

And I gots it bad, so he sux it good.

52 Last Call.

Kitteh Art.

53 If I squint just gently enough when approaching impressionist stuff, it really pops out of the canvas. Try it and see if you see what I see. I have to blur my sight just enough but not too much.

54 Did anyone catch the Bravo show last season, Top Art?

Dear Lord.

You should have seen them falling over themselves to kiss Serrano's ass.

I will forever love Norm McDonald for his remark that the bastard was "pissing on my Lord and Savior". It was years and years ago, and I believe it was on Letterman, but I was happy to hear someone get real about the whole mess.

55 Moron art, huh?

I don't see any velvet paintings, so fuck you.

56 You guys are a little stupid aren't you? Makes me wonder if you have the intellectual fortitude to withstand these next 2 years. Hang close fellas... And try not to fuck this up.

57 I don't see any velvet paintings

Here you go.

58 That Pollock looks like pubic hair.

59 That Pollock looks like pubic hair.

Check out Ed's comment at 11:11!

60 You guys are a little stupid aren't you?
Makes me wonder if you have the intellectual fortitude to withstand these next 2 years.

Hang close fellas...

And try not to fuck this up.

WTF are you talking about? I bet even you don't know.

61

 

 

I will forever love Norm McDonald for his remark that the bastard was "pissing on my Lord and Savior". It was years and years ago, and I believe it was on Letterman, but I was happy to hear someone get real about the whole mess.

 

 

 

Starts at 2 minutes

62 Posted by: jmflynny at January 19, 2011 11:45 PM

A velvet painting without Elvis?

Not sure that qualifies as art.

_{Yeah, I like Michelangelo's famous "Elvis", too}

63 WTF? I'm talking about an inability to think abstractly in a World where we're facing an extremely resourceful enemy. I'm saying that this enemy is not coming at you with fists and guns. It's coming at you with ideas and logic so warped and distorted - it would make understanding a Pollack seems simple.

64 Possibly you could find visual tricks to play with these paintings too:
http://tinyurl.com/7ke4y2
Does that mean they're art?
If they are, then does the word 'art' have any meaning?
When a gallery can't tell the difference between the work of an artist and the work of a two-year-old...?

65 Starts at 2 minutes

OMG! I've looked for that clip for YEAAARS! It's even funnier now than it was then.

I miss DM's show.

66 It's not supposed to look like something, retards!

The difference between art and a decorative picture of a horse or something, is that the art is a form of communication. It's OK to like nice no-brainer pictures more than art. Nobody's preferences are wrong, but to call, say, Kinkade art and Pollack not-art would be ass backwards. Communication need not be nice, and it certainly needn't represent something you recognize from the physical world.

If you think Pollack's art isn't effective in its communication attempt, fine... as long as you can convey that clearly without just saying "it sucks." It sucks at what? At looking like dogs playing poker? It certainly does suck at looking like something, but fortunately for him that's not what he was trying to do. I contend that it does not suck at conveying emotional content without physical representation, which is kind of its point.

Pollack's not remotely my favorite (I greatly prefer Chagall), but he was very good at his occupation. And if you can't allow yourself to get past representation and see what art is really trying to communicate, then I'm fine with that because the world always needs plenty of soulless worker drones. Produce, my dim-witted ants, produce!

67 If they are, then does the word 'art' have any meaning?

Therein lies the point. The argument that art such as hers is art and that there is a deeper meaning is horseshit. That child is not seeking to cleanse her psyche or reveal her inner truth. She's frigging playing!

Which goes to my argument further up the thread that it isn't art just because "they" say it is.

68 hey....where's Liu Yongqing?   There are some great pictures of her with Laura Bush but Hu seems to have come this time without her.

69

"how to see" abstract art:

To do this requires an additional ingredient: eating certain mushrooms, licking the back of a live member of a certain genus of toad, a supervised dose of peyote, or weed.

70 i dip my johnson in paint and wipe it across the canvas.

You aren't the only one
(NSFW)

71 You're right as rain, puddin.'

Poker Playin' Dogs is my art.

72 You aren't the only one

I'm sure he's laughing all the way to the bank.

I'd need a heavy duty handful of industrial strength Lysol before I'd even look at his "art", much less actually touch it.

73 I contend that it does not suck at conveying emotional content without physical representation, which is kind of its point.

Okay so what exactly is the emotional content that is conveyed by the Pollack piece?  Because I can't see it.

74 "Cursored Imagination" looks like the Windows default wallpaper.

75 Hi Jeff.

76

Nobody's preferences are wrong, but to call, say, Kinkade art and Pollack not-art would be ass backwards. Communication need not be nice, and it certainly needn't represent something you recognize from the physical world.

 

way to pull out the kinkade example. That's a low blow.

 

I'm simply saying i appreciate some of the classical art and sculptors because they can do something I can't. They can do something most people can't. It doens't even have to be classic.

The pollacks and most everything we "don't recognize from the physical world", eh not so much. I can pee in a jar that has a photo in it. I am capable of dipping my hands in paint and wiping them on a canvas.

It's not that i am saying its awful, or calling people who like it idiots, it's just not my bag. I don't find it impressive or even really creative in any way.

 

However, as evidenced in your last paragraph and sympleton's statement, i think art, like many things in life, is  an avenue for humans to do something that is innate. Finding a way to separate themselves from the other people. We need to rationalize our own existence in society, right? It's easier to live when you know your better off, more intellegent, or understand something some else doesn't. We all derive our self worth somehow right? We all need to justify to ourselves, rationalize, why our existance is important compared to those around us, because if we're just like them then what's the point. Why not derive yours from an unearned sense of superiority. A sense of superiority that can't really be quantified. 

 

 Yes! You get Pollack. Because art is like a math proof or formula. It is to be solved by only the brightest among us. Us poor lumpenproles simply don't have the mental capacity to understand Pollack. We're in a separate group from you! A lower one to boot! How convenient? And can we test you on your ability to get pollack in the same way one get's a Mathematical Formula or Chemical Compound? No of course not.

 

I'm fine with that because the world always needs plenty of soulless worker drones. Produce, my dim-witted ants, produce!

I'll take producers over whatever you classify yourself as.

77 hi jmflynny
I'm trying to have an open mind about the Pollock piece but I just have a difficult time relating to art that isn't some sort of representation of something that exists in the physical world, even an abstract one
I guess there is too much of the concrete-thinking scientist in me
(note to Mephistefales: that is not the same as "dim-witted worker drone, so piss off)

I understand that it is trying to communicate something, I just don't know what it is

It's like me trying to read Egyptian hieroglyphs - I don't understand the language so it's just a bunch of jumbled pictures to me.  It may hold my interest for a little while, but I'm not going to spend a lot of time trying to read it.

78 I love you, Ben.

79 if the Pollock piece is supposed to communicate something, but nobody is able to translate it, then it seems to me that it has failed in its attempt to communicate

and I'm with Ben in that I have a lot more respect for art that requires considerable technical skill because I don't have that either, I'm a stick-figure kind of "artist"

80 Whenever presented with a Pollock or something similar, I can't help but recall Tom Wolfe's "The Painted Word" and his takedown of modern art as illustration of theory rather than theory being an account of art. Just like the left in general, which puts "theory" above results, and what you get is a mess that you have to stare at without focusing on the details. On the other hand, when I squinted, this "lavender mist" look ok. Not amazing but ok.

81 I understand that it is trying to communicate something, I just don't know what it is

A local gallery had an encaustic piece that was nothing but varying shades of a mustardy yellow but I craved it. I'm not even certain what the artist was trying to convey, but it struck something in me. It was warm and deep and ...well, I can't really describe it, but I craved it. Being, however, that it was nearly $3k, I did not purchase it. Someone did, and I haven't stopped thinking about it since. I made the mistake of thinking that I would find another yellow encaustic piece that would be almost as good and, well, that has never happened.

I'm with you. To me, the art has to mean something and with Pollock, his 'meaning' means nothing to me and it doesn't generate enough emotion or desire in me to spend any time studying it.

82 "Us poor lumpenproles simply don't have the mental capacity to understand Pollack." Maybe... But that's not the point. The point is - it's a discipline. The only way to know what visual problems are being addressed and how well the artist succeeds at addressing them, is by studying he History of Art - looking at thousands of paintings and understanding their historical context. It really does work like Math.... where one guy solves a problem, then the World tries to go beyond that solution, etc. I wouldn't expect someone who has never studied Mathematics to understand complex Mathematical principles. But I also wouldn't expect them to say... "Math sucks. I don't understand it - so it must be stoopid."

83 Wow, they have a fatuous poofter thread now, for those without the intestinal fortitude to weather the ONT?  There goes the neighborhood.  _{shakes head}

84 Every artist uses the principals of abstract art whether or not there is representation involved. These principals are: 1) Vertical lines = Power, strength, stability Think of a portrait of a great leader or military man: he's standing , not sitting, and the background echoes with vertical shapes: maybe a few tall trees, or a tower, and in the far background is a tall mountain . Or if there's a painting of a great cathedral, you see only the tall, skinny facade. 2) Horizontal lines = tranquility, timelessness, passivity. Think of a pastoral landscape painting: it's made up of mostly horizontal lines and objects: a field, a long fence, a row of trees, a line of clouds. Of if it's a gentle seascape, the horizon of sky meeting water is the most prominent thing. A cross in a painting, having one vertical and one horizontal line, gives us a sense of strength and calm at the same time. 3) Diagonal lines = instability, tension, anxiety, movement. Think of a painted battle scene: the soldiers advance with their upper bodies, making them a collection of diagonal lines. Or think of a painting of Jesus carrying his cross: he's diagonal and the cross is diagonal. In all the above examples, the direction of the lines and shapes produces an emotional response in us. The objects represented only confirm what the forms and designs supply. The recognizable objects are usually a welcome, added stimulus, but sometimes they can get in the way and dilute the power and beauty of the artist's design. Or they're superfluous, an old habit. a safety net for the artist and viewer alike. That's when an artist gradually lets the representational aspects melt away with each new painting until there is only the pure emotion and sensation of the forms. Not every artist needs to go that far; Picasso never painted a totally abstract painting in his life. The more you appreciate abstract art, the more it opens your eyes to the amazing things the old masters were doing (making things lifelike was the least of it). Then there's the matter of color: they have properties in themselves regardless of whether they're coloring a recognizable object or not. Red, yellow, blue? You can figure out what does what. But I'll leave you with a fun fact: blue and green recede while red and yellow come forward. Look at an Old Master painting: people are dressed in reds and yellows in the foreground, grass is in the middle ground and water and sky in the background. Then look at a Mondrian or Hans Hoffman painting and see how the colors behave the same way (red pops out, blue goes way back) without any life-like clues to make it happen.

85 fair enough, art is a discipline that has some fundamental principles. 

that still doesn't explain the Pollock piece.

To me it honestly looks like a pattern you might see on a kitchen countertop.

86 PS My little lesson still doesn't get you all the way to understanding Pollock, since there's very little in the way of vertical, horizontal or diagonal lines, and the color is very muted. Does that make it more complex or simpler than traditional abstract art?

87 STFU, Matt.  Those who can, do.  Those who can't . . . well, you know the rest.

88 PS My little lesson still doesn't get you all the way to understanding Pollock...

Oh my!

You should do a tour. Comedy has been severely lacking as of late.

89 OK, in for a dime, in for a dollar. A few more things: the play between symmetry and asymmetry. It's in all the old paintings and takes on greater importance in abstract art. Try to see what's going on with that. Push and pull: no, it's not what you're thinking. Every line or object has a gravitational force that tries to pull what's around it toward it. The drama between lines pushing and pulling and getting pushed and pulled is, to me, what makes a great Pollock painting "work," what it's mostly "about." Okay, now I'll really call it a night!

90 This is why we can't have nice things.

91 Matt FTW

92 I'm getting it now.  Modern abstract art is still a portrait of a bowl of fruit, just remove the bowl, the fruit, the table, any other tangible objects, and their shadows.  A minimalist thing, no?

93 The difference between art and a decorative picture of a horse or something, is that the art is a form of communication. It's OK to like nice no-brainer pictures more than art. Nobody's preferences are wrong, but to call, say, Kinkade art and Pollack not-art would be ass backwards. Communication need not be nice, and it certainly needn't represent something you recognize from the physical world. Pollock clearly isn't attempting to communicate peace, love & understanding.

94

Oh I'm a big fan of Dix-

especially up close where you feel like you can almost taste- hey I see what you did there!

95 All you people are just fucked up this art crap. How is any of this crap going to help you survive a zombie attack?

96

Here is my latest modern art piece:

 

 

 

 

 

I call it -Tragedy of the Polar Bear in an Arctic Blizzard

97

That Pollock piece looks like the canvas dropcloth I use to protect my floors when I give the indoor rooms a new coat.

Pollack's "art"  is crap. He was praised to the high heavens because his family were notoriously, radically communist.

He's just the Michael Moore of the painting world

98 Matt has some interesting points about design elements in a painting.

However,  Renaissance masters were mostly telling a story with their paintings,  unless they were doing portraits. They weren't trying to tell a message and illustrating it with figures as an additional design element.  I just don't think that adequately explains The Sistine Chapel.

I have progressed to the point that I can recognize a Pollock but I have to admit,  as much as I should appreciate his technique and message,  I can't.  Here is the thing about those types of paintings:  you have to know the artist's thinking in order to understand what he was trying to do. Without the backstory and explanation, it looks like just a bunch of paint spatters.

On the other hand,  no one needs to explain The Last Judgment by Michaelangelo.  Even if you know nothing of Christianity,  there is a story of choosing,  of good and evil,  within the painting.  The emotions of the damned are captured,  as well as the soaring glory of heaven.

I simpy cannot help it;  I do not like art that is not representational.  If you have to explain it to me, I am going to take a pass.   I am one of those philistines who like novels with plots, poetry that rhymes, music with an identifiable melody,  and art looks like something. 

Thomas Kinkade doesn't count.  He is someone who has used his skills to make a buck.  I classify him with the guy who invented those Precious Moments figurines.

99

Isn't CAC the same guy who predicted the GOP would win 674,786 out of a possible 435 House seats last Novemeber?...

...a tad susceptible to wild ass propaganda, no?

100

OK..I was pretty agnostic about the NFC championship game this weekend until I read this:

After the pool spray with President Hu Jintao in the Oval Office, a cameraman asked President Obama “If the Bears win, are you going to the Super Bowl?”

“Oh we're going,” responded the President, “no doubt.”

hey fuckface...you don't have to spend millions of our taxdollars for another weekend out...you have a fucking home theater in the White House..use it asshole

101 Honorary morons

102 If you have to explain to me why it's art, it's not art

103 RD,
I hope you keep this art thread going. I am concerned that it is running out of steam, and want to say that it not only is interesting to read, but it has also helped to inspire me. I am working on a piece that I hope to get into a future thread. I will be a couple more weeks if things go well. maybe a little more if i have trouble.

thanks

104 I can't believe Matt came back for one more.

105 Pollack's art "stinks" - doesn't matter what anyone writes about it.

106 Pollack=Grifter

The more we put down his "work" the more valuable it becomes because its sole purpose is to make unsophisticated rubes feel like they are sophisticated.  I am sure Pollack looked at his patrons/marks the same way L. Ron Hubbard looked at the adherents of his "religion."

Pollack's scam reminds me a lot of the guy who went on the radio and asked for money to be sent to a certain mailing address.  He offered nothing in return and didn't spin a story of any sort about how it would was needed or would be put to good use.  And sure enough people sent money.

107 There is abstract art that requires physical skill to produce and others that require no physical skill and can be either creative or crap. The painters we refer to as impressionists were ostracized and ridiculed in their time just like many of you are doing to abstract artists. After the invention if photography, art became more creative as opposed to reproductive.

108 For me, the Pollack is more about appreciating the process as much as the finished piece. Pollack's willingness to give himself over to the paint, allowing drips and drizzles, splatters and splashes to simply exist, resisting the need to overtly control or manipulate the paint, is what is most interesting to me. What is it? It is paint being paint! How lovely.

109

just like many of you are doing to abstract artists.

 

Wrong. This abstract artist. ...like many of us are doing with this particular abstract artist.

110 Is there any way to find these art posts easily in the archives?

111 #116 you're right. I should have said a few of you....

112 My Poker Playing Dogs, eating the Last Supper, in dune of Sea Oats is a masterpiece of artistic fusion.

On velvet.

113

@rdbrewer

Thanks. I've never been a fan of Pollack, but your explanation of Lavender Mist has prompted me to give his art another look.

Maybe Poophead isn't a joke, though I'm pretty sure the artist has to be a blazing lefty. SnowSun apparently is trying to show us that successful, good-looking men who enjoy suburbia are just a bunch of poopheads.

If I had to categorize Snowsun's piece, I would file it under Craptastic Jealous Art by Leftist Losers.

114

I don't know.

Methinks Snowsun may be on to something. The first thing I thought of when I saw the piece was Bill Maher, but now I think it might be Julian Assange.

115 #99, well, check it out.  Funny spam.

116 Is there any way to find these art posts easily in the archives?

Posted by: doug at January 20, 2011 10:40 AM (+

Just search for CAC's name.  There are only a few, dating back to early December, I think.  It's a new thing.

117 Pollack's not remotely my favorite (I greatly prefer Chagall), but he was very good at his occupation. And if you can't allow yourself to get past representation and see what art is really trying to communicate, then I'm fine with that because the world always needs plenty of soulless worker drones. Produce, my dim-witted ants, produce!

Posted by: Mephistefales at January 20, 2011 12:01 AM (7ee6I)

A con man may be good at his occupation. Doesn't mean I have to praise it.

118 What is it? It is paint being paint! How lovely.

Posted by: S at January 20, 2011 10:35 AM (dQ/yB)

My walls are covered with paint being paint.

119 Thomas Kinkade doesn't count.  He is someone who has used his skills to make a buck.  I classify him with the guy who invented those Precious Moments figurines.

Posted by: Miss Marple at January 20, 2011 06:35 AM (Fo83G)

I dunno Miss Marple. Kincade isn't my cup of tea, but you don't have to stare in the corner of his pictures till your eyes blur to see what the painting is supposed to be about.

120

Hazy/blurry/fuzzy objects are far away. Objects with more form are closer.

Original name prior to Lavender Mist?

Old Lady's Armpit.  It had a different cache' that many found unappealing so he changed it.

121 You know, rdbreweryadayadafour@gmail, it's really unnecessary to be so anal about listing your email address on a webpage. Gmail's spam protection is really good. I list docweasel@gmail.com right on our site, have for many years, and I get ZERO spam messages in my inbox. Not one. The only things I get that I don't really want are probably residue from registering for this and that with the email, not because bots are picking it up. I'm sure they do, but all the crap generated from bots goes right in the spam folder, because I never see it.

122 Roberto Matta is easily one of the most interesting abstract and surreal painters I have seen.

123

Glad you enjoyed my Lavender Mist. Got the idea after doing a few little tests with the Army. There was a great chick there. Said she could see the molecules in the atmosphere. I kept thinking to myself, yeah, I'd hit that. And then I saw these lavender beams of light form a sort of fabric in the sky, almost as though I was looking at the texture of the universe through an electron microscope (did they have those back then? I've had some time-space disassociation issues ever since). It was at once disturbing and ... and ... enthralling, and I felt that I must try to commit the vision to canvas, perhaps with some aluminum paint.

I asked the June Cleaver chick to accompany me to dinner, but she decided to blow me first. All in all, it was a spendid afternoon at Fort Belvoir. 

124

You could say that Pollack is giving ultimate freedom of expression over to the thing itself -- that he isn't trying to inject his bias into the paint and utensils he uses.  To let paint be paint as said above.  From there it could also be said that even when allowed to "be paint" without tight, human bias (representing a "form" in the abstract, left-brained notion of the term, like Renaissance painters, whose works tell "stories" but are also treatise on geometry and spatial relationships as seen from a rather Aristotelian sort of mindset) that there are certain patterns that seem to crop up, again and again -- in sort that by creating a chaotic mess, what is really happening is that Pollack's work still manages to hold within it certain "natural" shapes and patterns; the Platonic "ideal" deconstructed from what we first thought it was, as it were -- like somebody said: it looks like camo, and maybe that's the big "what it's all about" behind it.

Or you could say that Pollack didn't create art; he made paint messes and charged big bucks for them -- a sort of parasitic capitalism founded on the back of socialistic desires and hubris, which is incredibly ironic.

Or you could ask by way of explanation: "what if the hokey pokey really is what it's all about?"

Any answer is correct...at least imho.

 

125 Maybe abstract art really isn't art. Gosh, what did I say?
Yeah, it isn't.
The art world has it's corruption problems too. Abstract art is just a fraud. It's the three headed baby in the bottle at the circus and people are paying to see it.

Tell you this, every freaking abstract artist has a statement at their shows. You know why? Because you need to read it to figure out what they are trying to do.
Ok, so, if I look at a painting that is called "Nude descending a staircase" but would never know what that was without reading the title or reading the artists statement, did the artist succeed with his work? No, We don't do this anywhere else. A piano maker doesn't give you a pile of wood and steel and say "Here. I made you a piano."  The standards have so been lowered in the visual arts to absolutely nothing, meanwhile, there are real living masters in the art world today. There is a revival in realism like you would not believe.. and the corrupted in the art world hate it.
http://www.artrenewal.org/

And yeah,  I'm a little bit of a painter myself. I was told in college the only way I could be a legitimate artist was to paint abstract. That realism was dead. Whatever.

126

My definition of art is anything I would want hanging on a wall or sitting in a corner of my house.  Everyone's brain is wired differently, such that most art won't appeal to everyone, especially once you get into the more esoteric stuff.

Some people like Matt and Mesto want to turn art into a science, whereby one analyzes the direction of lines, the composition of color, historical references, etc.  If that makes them happy, fine, but to me its like missing the forest for the trees.  That said, they still sound like insufferable bores.  Pretentiousness is never "cool".

127 I see an angry teddy bear screaming at me in the upper right hand corner of that Polluck painting.

128 I'm just super stoked I got published! "poophead", electronic media coloring book, 1/19/2011 8:57am. - SnowSun http://www.julianassangecoloringbook.com/index.php?p=ja3.gif Blue skies, cumulonimbus clouds in the background: the weather of the present is actually the past. The gray houses: despair of the neighbors. The pink & blue tie: the wearer "thinks" he can get away with anything. The evenly applied poop on the head and hair of Julian Assange: the graphical representation of what is figuritively already there. Not super stoked for being told future submissions (like "poophead deux", "poophead 3-D", "poophead for you", "poophead V", "poophead: the final frontier", etc.) will not be published.

129 31 Since it's appears I've been given permission to do this, if anyone is interested, there are prints of one of the pieces that I contributed (Freedom) available for sale. http://www.etsy.com/shop/tdratler -Tom

130 altın çilek - fx15 - leke kremi - yudali - maurers - ozon yağı