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Contemporary Art Thread

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Topic Starter
Bweh
Hm, I suppose that works as well given the nature of said movements. Let me amend that real quick.
Yuudachi-kun
Why is there something called post modern? Doesn't that mean the future?
Aurani
Modernist art is art that lasted from around 1890s to 1960s. What comes after Modernist? You guessed it.
Topic Starter
Bweh
Modern can also refer to the recent past and is pretty much what has been used to refer to the movement that took place around the early 1900s. Postmodernism just refers to the movement that comes after that.
Yuudachi-kun
Calling it modern feels weird to me because modern means present afaik. What's next, post-postmodern?
Lewder
ye, at some point some nigga was like THIS IS CONTEMPORARY TIMES SO WE CALL THIS ART MODERN ART :--DD then after art had another radical change they started calling it post-modern because the previous period was called modern.
call of duty post-modern warfare WHEN
Aurani
Thing is, I don't count Impressionism as a part of modernism. I know that I'm nowhere near even being decent enough to judge it from a professional standpoint, but if you take a look at Impressionistic art and Postimpressionism and Expressionism, they're like two different worlds. That's probably why I wouldn't count Modernism from the 1860s, but rather from 1890s.
Granger
Hmm, i dont really know anything about contemporary art, but from what you describe it as it sounds like a catch all for anything recent? That doesnt really sound right to me, isnt art classified by style rather than when it is made?

Would a animu kawaii xdxdxd picture from deviantart be contemporary art as long its relatively recent? (how long? 2 months? 2 years?)
Topic Starter
Bweh

Granger wrote:

Hmm, i dont really know anything about contemporary art, but from what you describe it as it sounds like a catch all for anything recent? That doesnt really sound right to me, isnt art classified by style rather than when it is made?

Would a animu kawaii xdxdxd picture from deviantart be contemporary art as long its relatively recent? (how long? 2 months? 2 years?)
Yeah, it's pretty much as you described. Of course this is based on time rather than style, as many styles/movements can fall within just one timeframe. Looking at Modernism, you have very different things going on in there such as De Stijl, dadaism, expressionism, and so on, but they're all still classified as modern art. The same applies for contemporary art, where stuff like even ASCII art can be considered, but I don't think too much can be said about it compared to some guy pooping in some cans and selling each one for hundreds of euros.

I want to say the whole deviantart animu thing has some historical merit seeing how it represents the mass escapism and social schism going on in our society, but I don't think it has too much artistic merit even in if we recognized animu as a strict artistic style.

Lewder wrote:

call of duty post-modern warfare WHEN
Shit I bet that was already done but that was funny
Aurani
To be extremely vague, yes, in a sense, Deviantmongrels would count as artists making contemporary art - that is, art from our lifetime.
Now, in a stricter environment, no, those people aren't artists, as they don't belong to any type of movement and are merely scribbling around. In that regard, you could draw a line with 3 squares and call it Modernistic because you adhered to certain rules, but also make the SAME thing without knowing jack shit about it and it wouldn't be art in that regard.
Topic Starter
Bweh
I feel like if we're going to evaluate any decent form of art, we should recognize its strengths and shortcomings. In other words, we ought to be able to look at a piece and be able to judge its idea and execution apart from any of its traits. So we could look at a drip painting piece by Pollock and say that, while lacking any commendable level of technical skill, one could at least argue that some semblance of an idea and intent is behind it. How effective it is (in this case, as a piece of abstract expressionism) is entirely debatable.

Can we agree on that?
Lewder

Brian OA wrote:

Lewder wrote:

call of duty post-modern warfare WHEN
Shit I bet that was already done but that was funny
yea splatoon is a thing
Aurani
I believe I could agree to that, yes.
Friendan

Lewder wrote:

yea splatoon is a thing
I was about to say no but then I realized that you're right. I like it, but it has low time to kill, killstreak items, kids...
Milkshake
Honestly, I just don't get contemporary art, so I can't really have any opinion except for ''pls explain me this thing'' or ''wth is that''.
Aurani
I'm to blame for Brian making the thread. Most people here have no clue about anything intellectual, let alone art and its history and forms. Still, I very much appreciate the fact that at least SOMEONE here wants to discuss something beyond "I'll lick yo ballz m8".
NotEvenDoomMusic

Friendan wrote:

Lewder wrote:

yea splatoon is a thing
I like it, but it has low time to kill, killstreak items, squids...
FTFY

Brian OA wrote:

So yeah, what do you know and think of contemporary art?
Opinion from someone who knows shit about art:

I personally believe that it encompasses all/most past historical influences in styles and try to mix and match depending on medium used to create that visual piece.

I mean, in the past decades we've discovered and invented countless things that can be used to create art with, if as an material or tool - and because of the influx of "objects" to work with, everyone is trying to be unique by throwing it into a pool of whacky (contrasting) colours or manipulating it altogether to form a familiar shape.
While fumbling around with those "newfound" tools they also try to incorporate physical space into their works - if by using an physical representation from second to the third dimension in scaling and shaping or by altering chroma, hue or value of that piece.

We now also have the technology to convey art better on a virtual (and physical) aspect - if the artwork is in motion or interactive etc.
Examples being movies and videogames if i recall off the top of my head.

Anyways, i also believe that contemporary art is critically dependant on the audiences personal interpretation and reaction to that given subject.





penis
Friendan
I don't know much about art but if we're talking about this kind of art
art
http://s3.amazonaws.com/contemporaryartgroup/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/TANAK52868.jpg
Then I have some opinions.

I feel like this kind of art is mostly just a flowchart. The artist studies some pieces of contemporary art, looks at things like color, spacing, shapes, the basics of it, and creates his own, but slightly modified that gives it a different "feeling". However, I don't see too much innovation or creativity in it. Each person feels different about it, but I think it's mostly due to an effect similar to confirmation bias/placebo. A person is told and taught to like it, but do they really, or are they just following what they are taught?

Unless I'm not seeing something, I think this kind of art is not very good. I'm not sure of the definition of contemporary art, but I can only really think of pic related.
Railey2

Friendan wrote:

Each person feels different about it, but I think it's mostly due to an effect similar to confirmation bias/placebo. A person is told and taught to like it, but do they really, or are they just following what they are taught?
Aside from evolutionary reflexes (as in: smell of decay = avert, pain impulse = avoid), this is how all sorts of preferences work. I don't see anything bad with this. As long as its not our biology getting in our way, the most important factor will be our peers, or at a greater scope, our culture.



Definition of contemporary
'Contemporary' has nothing to do with artistic genres, it merely sets the time-window a specific piece was created in. Everything within the last 30 years can be called contemporary. Or 10. Or 1. However you want to define it. Given that art has a background that stretches out over millennia, it makes sense to stretch the contemporary time-window a bit as well, make that 3 decades.
As Aurani said, contemporary art encompasses postmodernist art - and also everything else that was created within these 3 decades.



Definition of art
SPOILER
"Art" can be a very confusing term.

There is a whole philosophical dispute behind defining this one term. This particular dispute is so convoluted, that some philosophers even spent efforts to bring forth arguments as to why the word "art" has no need to be defined in the first place.

The problem is, that this cluster, consisting of whatever people categorize as art, simply lacks unity. And I don't mean that in a "things are a little inconsistent" - way. It's not that they are just inconsistent, there is a devastating and utter lack of consistency, that makes any sort of informative definition absolutely impossible.
It is so inconsistent, that if we were willing to define the cluster "art" by pinning down its elements on similarities, we'd have to go all the way down to "art exists". Or "art relies on a rational agent perceiving it" (and even that is arguable).
This has led me to the conclusion that art is best defined as "that which is thought of as art."
Might seem a bit desperate to resort to a definition like this, but I don't see a better way as of now, since every more distinct definition will either be incomplete and/or biased.




Brian OA wrote:

So yeah, what do you know and think of contemporary art?
What people decide to throw in this giant controversial cluster, definitely got a bit crazier over the years
Art has exponentially more facets than it had 100 or 1000 years ago. Personally, I think that this is a great development, as it does justice to the variety of ways that people can end up to be. Human nature is rich. I want art to be rich too, since it is so often centered around what moves people.



Personal preferences
SPOILER
Personally, I like expressive pieces of art more than cold and apathetic ones. The artform that resonates most with me is music, which might or might not be why I play this game. KOAN Sound, first choice. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lCH4gGillI
Also this: http://www.facets.la/ I can't help it, I somehow find his art to be oddly calming. Maybe I just like nice colors and nice patterns.




As a result of my definition of "art", I am strictly against absolute good/bad-categories for any sort of art. How good or bad art is, is something that only the individual can decide for itself, it is not expandable. Generally, there is no good or bad art, it can only be good or bad for you personally. It's subjective.



There are many more things to be said, but I think this is enough for people to respond to already. As one last thought: Someone should move this thread to General Discussion. Don't think that it belongs in Off-Topic.

Edit: spelling, some formatting
Wojjan
xth for vaporwave
Wojjan

Brian OA wrote:

I feel like if we're going to evaluate any decent form of art, [...] we ought to be able to look at a piece and be able to judge its idea and execution apart from any of its traits. So we could look at a drip painting piece by Pollock and say that, while lacking any commendable level of technical skill, one could at least argue that some semblance of an idea and intent is behind it. [...] Can we agree on that?
I would like some more elaboration, but for now in the way I interpret it, I disagree. The traits of a painting are irrevocably connected to the intent had when creating the painting, and to judge them independently would remove a crucial part of what I feel is the artist's most important job in contemporary art - evocation. To continue your example, Pollock's intent of expressing desolation and loneliness by splattering grey and sepia paint over a skintone-colored canvas is portrayed exactly by the paint and canvas. But it is difficult to evoke loneliness when you splatoon the fuck out of your entire canvas - I mean to say, it is Pollock's choice to make a drip painting, and that, as a trait, I can judge as incongruent with the idea or intent.
Can you define "trait", and explain how it is separate from execution?

Railey2 wrote:

As a result of my definition of "art", I am strictly against absolute good/bad-categories for any sort of art. How good or bad art is, is something that only the individual can decide for itself, it is not expandable. It's subjective.
I find this a very interesting point of view, but one I ultimately can't agree with. Allow me to argue my point: in criticising a book, there are a number of objective parameters - its title is Lady Chatelier's Lover, it has 312 pages and around 34 000 words, it uses the word "narghile" instead of "hookah" or "waterpipe" on page 236. But a book also has a pacing, and that pacing can be fast or slow. It can use narrative styles to portray scenes positively or negatively. It can use familiar words, or an rare ones. It can use simple sentences or complex sentences.

Not everybody will read a book at the same speed, and not everyone will speed up or slow down at the same chapters, but that doesn't mean the pacing is wholly subjective. Some people will know the word "narghile", others won't, but that doesn't affect its presence in the text and the way it influences the pacing of the book.

In criticism, the objective will often meet the subjective. When I say that I find the presence of an Indian word strange (for instance, because the character that says it is described at "a dim-witted Dutch gentleman" when we first meet him, and the scene is set in England) I make a subjective claim, but it is based not only on my own experience. I know, as someone who reads a lot of English literature, that the word "narghile" will not be strange only to me, but to a lot of readers, and it will make a lot of readers slow down. I know all that regardless of whether or not I personally knew what a narghile is, and regardless of whether or not I liked the use of the word. The opposite criticism may also be true: someone may say that the word "narghile" is used well in that passage, but that opposite subjective criticism rests on the same inter-subjective parameters. I feel that this kind of intersubjectivity is a very important concept in allowing us to criticise all things with a subjective attribute, not only art.
Granger

Brian OA wrote:

Yeah, it's pretty much as you described. Of course this is based on time rather than style, as many styles/movements can fall within just one timeframe. Looking at Modernism, you have very different things going on in there such as De Stijl, dadaism, expressionism, and so on, but they're all still classified as modern art. The same applies for contemporary art, where stuff like even ASCII art can be considered, but I don't think too much can be said about it compared to some guy pooping in some cans and selling each one for hundreds of euros.

I want to say the whole deviantart animu thing has some historical merit seeing how it represents the mass escapism and social schism going on in our society, but I don't think it has too much artistic merit even in if we recognized animu as a strict artistic style.
Well, you see, this gives me the impression that the category is fairly useless. Why not aknowledge destinct styles and put mostly prevalent from x to y on them? Again, i never really learned much about art (or didnt remember much about it) but doesnt the styles within modernism have similarities as per theme and intention or atleast a overall change in methods compared to the earlier one, unlinke contempotary art?

Well, not speaking of deviantart animu specifically here but animu in general, it has some destinct differences to other styles, like the warped proportions (huge eyes to name one) so yes, id say we could recognize it as a style (and already do i think?), but it needs a better name than anime style or eastern art. Specifically looking at older animes and comparing them to the newer ones, theres a large difference in style (not just becase animation techniques changed) also... so should that get recognized as a destinct art style aswell?
As for historic merit, i think that would be more supplied by what the anime or manga is about rather than... hmm this is difficult to explain... ongoing issues. What i mean, what is the anime/manga? cheap entertainment for instant gratification? Then again, wouldnt that more be a thing to define per work rather than per style.

Speaking of poop filled cans (read that as popping some cans first which is a lot less gross, but the difference wouldnt matter), would you consider that art? When does art begin, when does it end? I personally have a lot of issues recognizing a lot of abstract art works as art, is a 5cm thick black line on a otherwise empty canvas art? Id say no, but some people disagree. can it make good decor for the wall? Absolutely, yes, but is anything decorative art?

Railey2 wrote:

This has led me to the conclusion that art is best defined as "that which is thought of as art."
You can not define a word with itself. Its just pointless, as you end up defining nothing this way, it does not make clear what art is.
You could have a similar problem with beauty: "that what is considered beautyful" but that explains nothing, instead you can do "something considered attractive/good looking" which atleast shows the intention behind it even if the definition leaves room for subjectivity.
Railey2

Granger wrote:

Railey2 wrote:

This has led me to the conclusion that art is best defined as "that which is thought of as art."
You can not define a word with itself. Its just pointless, as you end up defining nothing this way, it does not make clear what art is.
You could have a similar problem with beauty: "that what is considered beautyful" but that explains nothing, instead you can do "something considered attractive/good looking" which atleast shows the intention behind it even if the definition leaves room for subjectivity.
In this case its valid, because the term in question is so abstract that it doesn't fit anything. The only thing you can say about art is, that it is something that gets categorized.
There is still information in my seemingly redundant definition.

Theres no better definition that encompasses all forms of art, unless you want to toss it's abstract nature and introduce a checklist of qualities that something has to fulfill before it can become "art". A checklist like this is impossible, because the qualities that people assign to art are inconsistent within and across cultures. There is no unity at all, as I already mentioned in my post above

That means, you have to define art as a loose category that gets formed only by the individual. All conjoint subjective categories would then form the set of "art" together, some sort of art-super-cluster with tons of intersections and obscurities. This would then be our intersubjective category of art.

that which is thought of as art
"thought of as art" being the subjective category, formed by whatever it is that cared enough.
The nature of art is one of absolute subjectivity, derived from a total lack of unity. There was enough unity concerning peoples thoughts about art to justify a partially objective definition of art hundreds of years ago, but nowadays its just too much of a clusterfuck. Contemporary Art, I suppose.
Railey2

Wojjan wrote:

Brian OA wrote:

I feel like if we're going to evaluate any decent form of art, [...] we ought to be able to look at a piece and be able to judge its idea and execution apart from any of its traits. So we could look at a drip painting piece by Pollock and say that, while lacking any commendable level of technical skill, one could at least argue that some semblance of an idea and intent is behind it. [...] Can we agree on that?
I would like some more elaboration, but for now in the way I interpret it, I disagree. The traits of a painting are irrevocably connected to the intent had when creating the painting, and to judge them independently would remove a crucial part of what I feel is the artist's most important job in contemporary art - evocation. To continue your example, Pollock's intent of expressing desolation and loneliness by splattering grey and sepia paint over a skintone-colored canvas is portrayed exactly by the paint and canvas. But it is difficult to evoke loneliness when you splatoon the fuck out of your entire canvas - I mean to say, it is Pollock's choice to make a drip painting, and that, as a trait, I can judge as incongruent with the idea or intent.
Can you define "trait", and explain how it is separate from execution?

Railey2 wrote:

As a result of my definition of "art", I am strictly against absolute good/bad-categories for any sort of art. How good or bad art is, is something that only the individual can decide for itself, it is not expandable. It's subjective.
I find this a very interesting point of view, but one I ultimately can't agree with. Allow me to argue my point: in criticising a book, there are a number of objective parameters - its title is Lady Chatelier's Lover, it has 312 pages and around 34 000 words, it uses the word "narghile" instead of "hookah" or "waterpipe" on page 236. But a book also has a pacing, and that pacing can be fast or slow. It can use narrative styles to portray scenes positively or negatively. It can use familiar words, or an rare ones. It can use simple sentences or complex sentences.

Not everybody will read a book at the same speed, and not everyone will speed up or slow down at the same chapters, but that doesn't mean the pacing is wholly subjective. Some people will know the word "narghile", others won't, but that doesn't affect its presence in the text and the way it influences the pacing of the book.

In criticism, the objective will often meet the subjective. When I say that I find the presence of an Indian word strange (for instance, because the character that says it is described at "a dim-witted Dutch gentleman" when we first meet him, and the scene is set in England) I make a subjective claim, but it is based not only on my own experience. I know, as someone who reads a lot of English literature, that the word "narghile" will not be strange only to me, but to a lot of readers, and it will make a lot of readers slow down. I know all that regardless of whether or not I personally knew what a narghile is, and regardless of whether or not I liked the use of the word. The opposite criticism may also be true: someone may say that the word "narghile" is used well in that passage, but that opposite subjective criticism rests on the same inter-subjective parameters. I feel that this kind of intersubjectivity is a very important concept in allowing us to criticise all things with a subjective attribute, not only art.
It seems like our disagreement is just us talking about different things, namely you bringing forth a descriptive interpretation of good/bad (based on parameters like legibility), and me criticizing normative good/bad categories.

I'm a big fan of the concept of intersubjectivity. I wholly agree with everything you said, and agree that this is a valid ways of generally attributing bad/good as qualities to pretty much everything. They will be of pragmatic nature though, serving as predictor for other peoples expected enjoyment. They can never be more than that (but thats alrighty).

In my post I was not talking about the pragmatic, predictive interpretation of good/bad (the one you brought up), but about the normative one. This is the one I do not agree with. I really just dislike the normative in general, haha. It can go to another place and make claims about what ought to be good there.

Thanks a lot for your input.
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