Does my taste in art (or lack of) make me a pleb?

We all have a different perspective that we view life and art and all life through, although learning about things is part of the evolution of life, so it doesn’t hurt to study things that interest you. There was a homeless man that thought much the same thing as you, Denver Moore I believe, and he ended up being an artist himself.

Not everyone like Cajun or Japanese food. It all individual likes.

@Tropical_Willie But most people don’t pay $142.7 million (!!) for Japanese food.

Why are Jackson Pollock’s paint splatters more artistic than this one?

(I must be a pleb, I think the one by the elephant is much more appealing)

Art is highly subjective, and interpretation is molded by our own life experience. Often times, our coditioning as we age dulls us to the artistic beauty of the universe. You may be conditioned to think that the paintings in the sistine chapel are beautiful high art, but not think that a child’s drawing has equal value even though both are passionate representations of their own imagination. Both can be equally beautiful.

Ask five adults to draw a butterfly, and you’ll see they will pretty much draw the same thing. Because they grew up conditioned to what a butterfly should look like in their heads, and if they drew differently as children they were told they were wrong.

Get five five year-olds to do it, without any sort of instruction whatsoever? The results will be amazingly different because they have that untainted imagination that we lose as we grow older.

I feel the same as you. I don’t get it, and I don’t wanna walk around a building looking at blobs of paint on the wall. Especially if I have to pay to look at said blobs. That’s why it’s so “subjective” though. The one art form I will always appreciate is photography, and film specifically. Today with digital cameras everyone thinks they’re a “photographer”. Some of my high school friends have even started photography businesses. I laugh loudly when I see their websites. Absolute crap, and somehow people are still impressed by it. Same idea as what you’re saying about art. I agree. I think film is an exception because the exposure, aperture, etc. are all so key and you really have to have an eye and some knowledge to make it turn out at all. I feel like anyone who makes an effort at all to be an “artist” succeeds because it’s all “subjective” and when it comes to “art” a lot of people have low standards because they can’t do it themselves. (Or think they can’t, or don’t want to put forth the “effort”). I think the drawing I did of my cat Barney in a NASA suit (my avatar) is funnier and cuter and better than most art in museums. But, it’s all subjective, that’s just an opinion ;)

@syz But some people wont eat Japanese even if free, others will pay hundreds to eat Pufferfish sashimi, Fugu.

It has an awful lot to do with psychological priming.

One piece of that is the power of open attention. If you approach virtually any object with reverent, full attention, that state alone will transform your experience of the object. It infuses the experience with a transcendent significance. That’s not how we approach most objects. If, however, they’re presented to us in a way that invites this kind of attention and implies that it’s an object of extraordinary significance, then that will tend to put you in that attentive state.

This is similar to the experiments where tasters were presented with the same wine in bottles with different prices displayed. Seeing a higher price primes you to approach the tasting with more reverent attention, and you will have a greater appreciation of the wine.

@thorninmud Great phrasing there!!

I don’t get it. Half the time it seems like some BS status thing. Applying absorbent values to things that others can claim to have in their collection to show how wealthy they are.

I never have figured out how splashes of paint here and there constitute art. I recently saw news reports of dogs, elephants and horses creating works of art. Hmmmmm?

@YARNLADY Here ya go

Eh, I don’t know. I guess I’m a pleb too, (wtv the fuck that is) since I fail to see how a black square is art. Now I want to be open minded like everyone, and I guess that’s pretty easy to do when the definition itself of art can pretty much be represented though anything, or if just about anything can evoke something in someone, like art is said to do. If that is what art is, then that might explain why there are so many different types, and tastes. From epic religious paintings to a collection of bugs smashed on your windshield.

I suppose with what @thorninmud in the mud is explaining, that makes sense. I mean, I never really enjoyed contemporary flower vase and fruit bowl art. I hate to say it, but all the grand painters like Van Gogh…does nothing for me. But it does for a lot of other people. As, I suppose, do black squares.
So I know art is subjective and all, but there’s gotta be some line drawn between expression and psychological fuckery. Again, @thorninmud‘s wine example. O_o When does art stop being art?

This to me is art. But maybe for a square or splotches lover, that would say nothing to them at all.

I believe the only issue here is that “Art” isn’t what you think it is.
Meaning these pieces aren’t failing at their task.. You are.

@Symbeline Pleb

lmao, kappa slapper.

@syz – don’t let it bother you. Like a lot of us, myself included, we have to learn how to read, to interpret art. My sister is an art education teacher and she has taught me much but there is so much to learn. Perhaps you should look for books on the subject.

I liked the second one, but that doen’t mean I know anything about art. Different strokes for different folks. I like impressionist art, but it’s not for everyone.

Your first example I like enough that I’d like to see it in person. The second, I can skip. As others have said, it’s all in the interpretation and reaction of the viewer. Sometimes, seeing a retrospective of an artist’s work can change a negative impression positive, and vice versa. I did not like Andy Warhol’s work (multiple Campbell’s soup cans and multiple Marilyn Momroes) until I saw his paintings, early to late. Then I understood what he was trying to say. . . and say . . . and say.

i studied photography and art&design at degree level, and i don’t understand it either.
The only Modern Art i’ve ever liked is Damien Hirsts; ‘The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living’. mainly because the name is a piece of art in itself.

@thorninmud I suggest that psychological priming could as easily be called social conditioning. In either case we are told that a particular set of works is highly valued, extraordinary and shows innovation is the use of materials and the integration of classical themes in a manner never seen before with the media employed. We all are expected to admire the special features as in the story of the emperor who wore no clothes.

Of course there are works of art that are so visually stunning and have a profound emotional impact of the viewer. Some are recognized as Art. Others are dismissed for reasons only an Art Expert has the credibility to impose on the public.

I doubt there’s anyone who hasn’t looked at some art or art installations and gone ‘what the?’ or ‘how much???’ Different strokes… I don’t think it means you’re a pleb (or I am too!)

In saying that, I quite liked the first example and the second is okay. I can imagine the first would actually be quite difficult to achieve (not that I have a clue really!) I seem to recall reading somewhere about a completely black painting and to get evenness across the whole canvas requires great skill. Who knows!

@Bellatrix I saw an exhibit in the Chicago Modern Art Museum in which all of the about 20 paintings were black. If you looked at them for a full minute, you began to see images in the darkness of the black. They were quite remarkable.
On a visit to the Hirschhorn Museum in Washington DC, my 12 year old daughter was very taken with an all white painting. We waited patiently for her, wondering what she was thinking. Finally finished, she turned and said, “It’s perfect.”