How can I get into modern art?
>>23974843This is the literature board
>>23974843Start with Rothko. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrxxmuspoJM
>>23974843Picrel is good if you like sculpture. Discovered some great pieces of work through this, particuarly Jacob Epstien's Jacob and the Angel.
>>23974843Sit in on a good class in your local uni. I took someones recommendation and sat in on the lectures of a really dynamic guy who really sold a lot of what modernism was 'about'. Really got into the post-impressionists and the dadaists after that, which are two opposite ends of modernism. In terms of steps, reading or watching Ways of Seeing by John Berger is a good summary of the discourses surrounding art in the 20th century, might be a good start. Nothing will teach you more than going to a local museum and seeing their modernist gallery, though. Take a tour and ask the guides questions
>>23974843I tell people to look at it like clouds, like you did when you where a kid and let you mind drift.Because theres no iconography you're brain will force meaning on to ithere is a sight with a bunch of summerieshttps://www.theartstory.org/movements/post-war-modern-art/
>>23974843You don't. Don't be fooled by the pseuds who try to convince you it is high art because it "means" something. Anything can "mean" something. I can draw a red square on a blue square and say it symbolises my anger being hidden by a cool exterior. But I may as well have just said that because the way I have presented this symbolism isn't deep or profound it's just crap craftsmanship. I'm not saying all modern art is like this or that abstraction is necessarily bad, but virtually everything after 1950 onward is.
>>23976111>t. BrainletArt doesn't have to mean anything. It might, but it doesn't have to. If it provokes an emotional response, it works. > I'm not saying all modern art is like this or that abstraction is necessarily bad, but virtually everything after 1950 onward is.I refer again to Rothko. It doesn't mean anything, but if doesn't make you feel something, you are dead inside.
>>23974843
>>23974843Go do it or just don't bother.
>>23974843literally just look at it kek
>>23976131>if doesn't make you feel something, you are dead inside.Does utter contempt for pesuds count?
>>23976199t. bugman
>>23976199Have you ever seen one in the flesh? But to answer your question: yes, some modern/contemporary art may provoke feelings of contempt, sometimes even on purpose. A Rothko is not one of those works.
>>23976187Wow now that looks interesting.
>>23975954Sounds like a cult induction to be honest
>>23976367yea i guess it would be the best if school and art never existed, then no one would get stupid ideas and everything would be the way god intended
>>23974843By finding artists you like. No surprise that the paintings that always get posted around to 'prove' that modern art is all bad were made with the intention to piss people off. Dumbasses on 4chan not understanding shock, shitposting, and memes the moment they're hung up in on a wall in an art museum is still one of the funniest aspects of this site to this day. Pic unrelated.
Basedjaks are better than modern art because they elicit a stronger emotional response. Go on artfag, try to deny it.
>>23976199If you’ve ever seen a Rothko in real life, you’ll observe that the dense layering of paint makes the painting literally glow. The longer you stare the more you start to see weird afterimages and distortions coming from what once seemed like a uniform slab of paint. The dimensions start to do weird things: expanding, contracting, spilling out into the room. Pieces like these, as the other anon pointed out, are actually very anti-symbolic (classical art being the foremost example of symbolic art which they are reacting to), and instead vessels for a mutual exploration between work and observer. Each experience is personalized. I would look up to the distinction Eco makes between an Open and Closed work to better understand this idea. Impressionism, which many consider to be the beginning of pictorial modernism, is really one of the first movements to leave all notions of the symbolic behind and start to bring out the nature of the forms of the painting AS forms, this being the very nature of abstraction. Typically the more “modernist” a work is, the more it leans into creating a space for a reflexive understanding of the viewer’s own perceptual faculties. Picrel.
>>23976452>>23976453>Dumbasses on 4chan not understanding shock, shitposting, and memes the moment they're hung up on a wall in an art museum is still one of the funniest aspects of this site to this day.Exhibit A.
>>23976487My post was art and you fell for it.
>>23976494Our posts are art together.
>>23976367Educating yourself about periods or movements of art you find interesting is a cult induction, yes. Likewise, learning to appreciate and enjoy classical music and even going to see an orchestra play some of it for yourself.For all the sarcasm of my statement, I do think you at least half-wittingly stepped on a point I agree with, but it would be off-topic from the thread; namely, that education can work a bit like a cult, especially higher education. But there are pluses and trade-offs for it. Just because something is a “cult” or can be “cult-like” doesn’t mean you can’t get anything interesting out of it. To call something a “cult” is also what normies can do about any group too far-out for their tastes, regardless of the merits or lack thereof of that group or induction into it.
>>23976453Pepe is unironically the spiritual successor to Dadaism.
>>23976546Nta but who are your favorite artists?
>>23974843Research local exhibitions, go to ones that appeal to you, and then cultivate your tastes through personal engagement with the work. I really think that digital compression has completely changed our relationship to art, which is why it’s even more important to see it in person. It’s just not the same on your phone screen.
>>23976551Apu the surrealist obliviously and casually excelling him
>>23974843This, along with a few Herbert Read titles, e.g. Concise History of Modern Painting
>>23974843Pretend to like it and say about every piece what you are supposed to say about it. That's what everyone else do.
>>23976688>Research local exhibitionsUnless you live in one of the main cities of Europe or New York, the chances are local exhibitions will be an awful introduction to modern art.
>>23974843If you live in England the Tate Britain and Tate Liverpool are great to visit. The Tate Liverpool holds my favourite painting and the Britain holds my favourite sculptures. I have never been to the Tate St. Ives but I've heard good things, although it's far smaller than the others. Tate Modern is just normie post-modern slop, although the building is pretty cool.
>>23977115It’s a fair point. I live in London so I’m pretty lucky in that regard, the Hayward gallery has had some of the best contemporary exhibitions I’ve ever seen
>>23977139Might check it out, anon. I'm basically from London, too, albeit a bit further out. I like the Tate Brit, although I rarely go to specific exhibitions. Last exhibition I went to was at Tate Britain for a Mark Rothko show and a showcase of some Pre-Rapahelite paintings (iirc).
>>23976111>I'm not saying all modern art is like this or that abstraction is necessarily bad, but virtually everything after 1950 onward is.That's basically the end of the modern period though
>>23977127Courtauld Gallery if you're in London and want to see shit loads of modernists who were cheap to buy when nobody knew who they were like van Gogh and Manet. Dude just bought everything that was cheap in Paris, it's a fucking insane collection
>>23975954intellectuals & scholars have held art hostage for a few centuries, i think you should be as uneducated as possible and trust your own ability to see a work of art as it really is, rather than spending your time groping for guidelines like what critics have said or might say about it, what movement it seems to fall into, where it seems to be aiming, whether its style strikes you as normal or not, above all whether it can be called important or not - which is far easier to decide than whether the thing is any good or not.
>>23977164Nta but most of modernism is considered to start when official art exhibitions refused to show what was essentially the same as "local escort to the famous has an off day" so modernists were like>no prostitutes on the rag are the art people need to see, we'll DIY our own exhibition Public art galleries and things like street performance not being at the whims of the elite is one of the hallmarks of modernism
I once read a history of literature in europe kind of book which talked about the sad process of poetry going from something inalienable from social life and music to something incredibly far removed from life and music that people read in silence almost always by their lonesome.Modern art is much the same. It's an inbred hobby, a bourgeois shibboleth that you can unlock by reading the proprietary theoretical literature, not to be moved or amazed by the brilliance of the artwork, but to not come off as a philistine when you move in those kinds of circles. It's the most desiccated, sterile thing ever in modern society, but sterile and desiccated are the last things any art should be.
>>23977387seems to me that reading poetry ought to happen in silence by yourself, the way you'd read a love letter.
>>23977418Because you're a deracinated bugman.
>>23976009>bro just imagine...>like let your mind drift bro...>dude just close your eyes and focus, man...
>>23976131IndeedBehold my masterpiece, shitdog
>>23977422because poetry requires a rhythmic hypnotism over the reader into a receptive state. poetry is composed at the back of the mind: an unaccountable product of a trance in which the emotions of love, fear, anger, or grief are profoundly engaged.
>>23977432You are still retarded. The ancient greeks didn't read poety off scrolls of papyrus, they sung poetry and accompanied it with an aulos or some other sort of instrument. In the company of others. The exact opposite of modern poetry.
>>23977543poetry as the greeks knew when they adopted the drama as a cleansingrite of religion, is a form of psycho-therapy. primitive man was much troubled by the phenomenon of dreams. the ancestors of poets were the peculiarly gifted witch doctors or priestesses who would induce a sort of self-hypnotism, and in the light of the dream, utter an oracle which contained an answer to the problem proposed, with the use of rhythm to hold people’s attention.
>>23976453coming upon someone else's steaming heaping pile of shit that was freshly shat also elicits a strong visceral response.
>>23977566retro
>>23977387This would help explain why MoMA has always been a project of the financial elite. Look at the board - Arnault, Rockefeller, Soros, Bronfman, just a laundry list of billionaires and their heirs. They would have an active interest in promoting art that's totally insular and impotent, incapable of inspiring any sort of authentic fervor or political organization.
>>23976199upside down amogus?
>>23977575
>>23976362I have. it's even worse because you can actually see it taking up space in an actual gallery and not just a picture on the Internet
>>23976551maybe
>>23974843As far as I understand it, the difference between modern and modernist art depends mostly on the degree of abstraction, the latter being more illustrative in that sense, the former being more direct in sensational verisimilitude or sheer engineering spectacle pleasing to the eye, almost like an in-real-life edit to reality. The finest piece of modern art I've ever seen in person is 333 W Wacker drive, which is unbelievable even from its front drive, and the finest piece of modernist art with which I'm familiar is Duchamp's The Large Glass, desultory as it is, in its way.
>>23974843Look up schools and movements and find individuals that whet your aesthetic appetite and go from there. If you find one of those in line with your sensibilities, then you'll have many to potentially chose from.
ITT: retards sneer at you for preferring bottom to top
>hmm i shall listen to something new today>it's just... noise?>these guys indeed do some crazy things with soundwaves...>to think music could sound like this>woah...>no, don't give me any of that normalfag music anymore. i only listen to noise rock, post rock, prog rock, black metal, IDM, experimental hip hop, and jazz fusion now.>hmm i shall try a new novel today>oh, that's odd... it appears this author has opted for a slightly more experimental manner of narration>i admit it was tough to acclimate to, but once you read for a while it's like reading any other novel. simply allow yourself to be immersed.>you didn't like it? you were filtered.>hmm i shall read a new poet today>first word that comes to mind is "repent". truly we must beg forgiveness from God for our sins. if it weren't for that original sin which has tainted all men outside of Christ since the first adam, no such poem would have been produced. >of course, i highly value tradition, which is why is spurn all "poetry" which lacks rhyme.>blank verse? away, away. 'tis of the serpent; nothing else. thine eyes shant catch a glimpse of mine that dreaded modern verse to scrutinize.>poetry is dead>hmm i shall check out some newer paintings today>it's just a bunch of paint splattered over a canvas. it has no meaning, and the so-called artist is a fool.>anyone who enjoys this doesn't understand art. art must have a strictly defined meaning.>if that's art, then that means my scribbles are art.>then you must consider those cave paintings art, too.>no, no, no! you weren't supposed to agree with me.>art is truly dead, and it died precisely when monet saw his first japanese woodblock print.Why are anons like this?
Modern "art" is literally and unironically a CIA psyop.Beauty is objective.
>>23980023does art need to be beautiful? why?
>>23980056I don't care for your postmodernist dialectic.
>>23980059google... tell me the definition of dialectic. and then read this anon's mind and tell me what definition he's using.
>>23980059the most venerated poem in western history, the iliad, isn't beautiful
>>23979867I look like this and say this
>>23980066Trolling? It's the only piece of literature that's made me tear up specifically because of how beautiful it is
>>23980180the iliad isn't beautiful, it's exciting and huge and terrible. one classicist put it 'the iliad is not beautiful but sublime; the aeneid is not sublime but beautiful', do you see?
>>23980204Pedantic quibbling.
>>23980252sublime, from the latin sublimis, means lofty, something above. it could be illustrated well in a passage about ennius from claudius the god>Ennius, who lived in Rome's grandest Republican days and counted the great Scipio as his personal friend, was what I would call a true poet: Virgil was merely a remarkable verse-craftsman. Compare the two of them when they are both writing about a battle: Ennius writes like the soldier he was (he rose from the ranks to a captaincy), Virgil like a cultured spectator from a distant hill. homer's style is his proper semi-barbaric flavour.
>>23976199one of the best ways to clean your money but the value is subjective and you can just pay a committee and a couple of professors to make it a classic
>>23980023how'd the CIA start an art movement in Europe 30 years before it was founded?
>>23980941>what is the OSSStop playing dumb.
>>23974843want to get to know if better? where did you pick up those lines?
>>23974843It's self referential. Modern art is a lot like meme culture. You can't jump in the middle and understand it. Take Jackson Pollack for example. A big part of what he was doing was flexing on the europoors. When Picasso was dumpster diving for art supplies even while famous, this nigger was just tossing paint by the gallon on yards of canvas line it was no big deal, because it wasn't. Without this contextual understand, you can't appreciate the performance aspect of what he was doing. Looking at it with contemporary eyes and saying "anyone can just flick paint randomly" is completely missing the point. At the time, a lot of so called great artists couldn't fit economic reasons.
>>23981484picasso said very significantly 'if a work of art cannot live always in the present it must not be considered at all'.>The art of the Greeks, of the Egyptians, of the great painters who lived in other times, is not an art of the past; perhaps it is more alive today than it ever was.
>>23980955>>23980023I'm convinced they replaced Picasso. The new guy couldn't draw. He just looked like the original. Either that or he got brain damage from syphilis, but this guy really feels like a walking psyop.
>>23981492Yeah, I really enjoyed that piece of performance art where he blew his brains out because his dick didn't work. Either that or his handlers considered him a liability. It's just one part in joke memes and one part globohomo money laundering, and it's not confined to the modern period. Everyone knows the Mona Lisa is a masterpiece, but no one knows why. We don't know because we weren't there. Getting "stolen" and "recovered" are also part of the meme/scam. This is also why shit is more valuable when the artist dies young like Van Gough. There's so much Picasso shit by comparison that it isn't not even worth that much. Dead guy globohomo money laundering and memes. That's it. Don't overthink it.
>>23981507Mona Lisa is famous because it was stolen, it wasn't famous before every paper in the world had a picture of it and it became shorthand for what an "art" looked like.Its an unfinished canvas that was preserved because the cheap merchant didn't pay for it.ever wonder why she's that color, cause the skins not done.
Is there a book explaining contemporary art? I'm talking about a book you would give to a kid or an adult without half of his brain.I get it a painter like Jeffrey Smart, Diego Rivera or a painting like my pic, but I don't get it Pollock or de Kooning.
>>23976131NTA, but I'm genuinely curious about what you're saying here. I understand (somewhat) that art like Rothko's is trying to eschew traditional symbols used to represent reality and is purposefully not trying to convey a specific meaning, but instead that the painting should be experienced on its own terms and begin a sort of dialogue between it and the viewer. That said, though, I feel absolutely nothing when I look at this picture. Maybe it's because I'm just looking at a jpg of it and not in person, but for me, it's the emotional equivalent of staring at a blank wall—it's not that I have such an abstract feeling about it that I can't articulate it, but it's so fundamentally nothing to me I struggle to understand why it's being looked at at all.Anyone else in the thread, can you share what you got out of it?
