There is no more grave attack on all that is good...

[detlef]

..than interpretive dance. Nothing. When we start making soylent green, I'd suggest we round them up first.

 

That is all, thank you.

[cliaz]

..than interpretive dance. Nothing. When we start making soylent green, I'd suggest we round them up first.

 

That is all, thank you.

 

Interpretive dance is okay if it is about a lesbian orgy

 

Precious - I cleaned out my inbox, what did ya need?

[Ursa Majoris]

..than interpretive dance. Nothing. When we start making soylent green, I'd suggest we round them up first.

 

That is all, thank you.

Use of the word "interpretive" in any art form is usually an excellent reason to avoid it like the plague. It is one of the magic words used by the completely untalented.

[matt770]

Some modern art is pretty pointless too. At the Philly art museum, they have a snow shovel that has been broken in half, the handle attached to the ceiling and the shovel part laying on the floor below.

 

Another one they have is one big room with massive canvases on the walls, at least 10 of them, with nothing but crayon scribbles on them. It looks like they gave a bunch of toddlers a pot of coffee and told them to go nuts. This one is supposed to represent the Trojan war, with one side showing the Trojans and the other showing the Spartans, but it all looks like one huge clusterf*ck and a waste of a huge room.

 

The best part is listening to the art snobs telling each other how this piece so brilliantly captures man's plight in a commercialized society or some such drivel, and they are staring at a big box of Brillo pads. It's not art if I can do it.

[WaterMan]

The best part is listening to the art snobs telling each other how this piece so brilliantly captures man's plight in a commercialized society or some such drivel, and they are staring at a big box of Brillo pads. It's not art if I can do it.

 

I don't think it's fair to say it's not art if I can do it. But I do share your feelings on alot of modern art.

[detlef]

Agreed that this doesn't just apply to dance. Ultimately, it all comes down to "artists" forgetting that what they're making is supposed to somehow speak to someone besides themselves.

 

I certainly see it in my profession, chefs getting tired with the "same ol' same ol'" when that actually means that they're tired of things that are actually food and taste good. Steak is good. People like steak. It's OK. Everything doesn't have to be something that's never been done before.

 

I see it with wine importers trying to peddle some absolute dreck because "they're tired of the usual stuff". There's a reason why the usual stuff is usual, because a bunch of people decided it was delicious. It's OK.

 

Last night, I saw it again with dance.

 

We were at a kick-off party for a film festival and my wife and I got stuck upstairs (away from the bar, which is why it got personal). We couldn't go down the flight because a troop of "dancers" was performing on the stairs. Doing effing modified push-ups on the hand rails (you know, the ones the fatties do because they can't do real ones, so they push off the wall or something) and walking up and down the flight of stairs in a circular motion. Then they left the stairs and walked through the crowd in a line, stopping every few feet to throw their hands up above their heads. That was it.

 

Are you freaking kidding me? Did you practice that? If you were all 6 years old I'd just feel sorry for you and hate your parents instead. What was funny was that, a little while earlier, when we were checking out the photos upstairs, the troop was limbering up. They must have been at it for like 20 minutes .

 

Tell you what, make yourselves useful. Grab a freaking tray of snacks and then walk around the room. Stop every few feet and let everyone grab a canape and then keep moving. You can call it functional art instead.

[Ursa Majoris]

Some modern art is pretty pointless too. At the Philly art museum, they have a snow shovel that has been broken in half, the handle attached to the ceiling and the shovel part laying on the floor below.

 

Another one they have is one big room with massive canvases on the walls, at least 10 of them, with nothing but crayon scribbles on them. It looks like they gave a bunch of toddlers a pot of coffee and told them to go nuts. This one is supposed to represent the Trojan war, with one side showing the Trojans and the other showing the Spartans, but it all looks like one huge clusterf*ck and a waste of a huge room.

 

The best part is listening to the art snobs telling each other how this piece so brilliantly captures man's plight in a commercialized society or some such drivel, and they are staring at a big box of Brillo pads. It's not art if I can do it.

This.

 

The great ages of art are long past. Raphael, Titian, Turner, Michelangelo, Rembrandt..........they aren't coming back. Now we have an art gallery showing us someone's chit-stained unmade bed and calling it art. What a crock. It's just fodder for the pseuds.

 

And don't even get me started on subsidizing this total crap via the NEA.............

Edited April 15, 2011 by Ursa Majoris

[detlef]

This.

 

The great ages of art are long past. Raphael, Titian, Turner, Michelangelo, Rembrandt..........they aren't coming back. Now we have an art gallery showing us someone's chit-stained unmade bed and calling it art. What a crock. It's just fodder for the pseuds.

 

And don't even get me started on subsidizing this total crap via the NEA.............

There is still great art being made and plenty of it is defined as "modern". There's also a ton of crap. Hell, take something like Blue Man Group. That is an evolution of both dance, music, and general performance art. And it's cool as hell. Go to somewhere like Guggenheim in Blibao and check out some of the modern installations, some of them are effing amazing. There's a dance festival that comes through as well every year. I've caught some stuff that was lame as hell and I've caught something like this Argentine troop who performs crazy-assed stuff hanging from ribbons. You have to lift your jaw off the floor at the end of it.

 

That doesn't make a bunch of d-bags in unitards doing push-ups on stairs is any cooler, but I do stop short of saying all good art has already been done.

[Ursa Majoris]

There is still great art being made and plenty of it is defined as "modern". There's also a ton of crap. Hell, take something like Blue Man Group. That is an evolution of both dance, music, and general performance art. And it's cool as hell. Go to somewhere like Guggenheim in Blibao and check out some of the modern installations, some of them are effing amazing. There's a dance festival that comes through as well every year. I've caught some stuff that was lame as hell and I've caught something like this Argentine troop who performs crazy-assed stuff hanging from ribbons. You have to lift your jaw off the floor at the end of it.

 

That doesn't make a bunch of d-bags in unitards doing push-ups on stairs is any cooler, but I do stop short of saying all good art has already been done.

I don't dispute that there IS great art but there is very little as inspiring, evocative and downright epochal as some of that that has gone before. The roof of the Sistine Chapel, for instance, is astounding and almost unique.

 

I'm gonna take Michelangelo's masterpiece over a bunch of Argentines hanging from the ceiling on ribbons.

[matt770]

I don't think it's fair to say it's not art if I can do it. But I do share your feelings on alot of modern art.

Well I happen to have zero artistic ability. In art class I decided to paint a forest. It basically came out as a one-dimensional line of identical trees lined up like soldiers. Brown trunks, puffy green foliage on top. So I decided to add some interest. I painted flames on them, and a few flaming limbs falling to the ground, and where the blue sky was, a ginormous black plume of smoke that took up about 75% of the canvas. I got a D on it.

[detlef]

I don't dispute that there IS great art but there is very little as inspiring, evocative and downright epochal as some of that that has gone before. The roof of the Sistine Chapel, for instance, is astounding and almost unique.

 

I'm gonna take Michelangelo's masterpiece over a bunch of Argentines hanging from the ceiling on ribbons.

That's sort of a high standard, is it not? You can likely go to St. Paul and check out something cool and new for $30 a ticket. Checking out the Sistine Chapel is going to be a bit harder to do.

 

While I'm no fan of new for new's sake, there is something to be said for people still creating art. And just because Monet is rad, doesn't mean that everyone should just be doing impressionist landscapes.

 

Hell, there's some truly iconic and classic art that was created within the last 50-75 years, so it's not all about centuries old murals and church ceilings.

 

If we simply turn out backs on new art, we may miss the next Wayne Thiebaud or something.

 

Mind you, I'm not thrilled about taxpayer money going to support d-bags performing dance interpretations of trees or some such and don't know why movie stars and wealthy intellectuals can't bank-roll enough aspiring (and truly talented) artists to keep us from turning into the USSR culture-wise. We buy our fair share of art, though certainly at a much lower level, price wise. Most of our "art" is actually really furniture and I don't think we paid any more than a grand for any of our paintings.

[Ursa Majoris]

That's sort of a high standard, is it not? You can likely go to St. Paul and check out something cool and new for $30 a ticket. Checking out the Sistine Chapel is going to be a bit harder to do.

 

While I'm no fan of new for new's sake, there is something to be said for people still creating art. And just because Monet is rad, doesn't mean that everyone should just be doing impressionist landscapes.

 

Hell, there's some truly iconic and classic art that was created within the last 50-75 years, so it's not all about centuries old murals and church ceilings.

 

If we simply turn out backs on new art, we may miss the next Wayne Thiebaud or something.

 

Mind you, I'm not thrilled about taxpayer money going to support d-bags performing dance interpretations of trees or some such and don't know why movie stars and wealthy intellectuals can't bank-roll enough aspiring (and truly talented) artists to keep us from turning into the USSR culture-wise. We buy our fair share of art, though certainly at a much lower level, price wise. Most of our "art" is actually really furniture and I don't think we paid any more than a grand for any of our paintings.

I wasn't intending to compare Michelangelo specifically to the Hanging Argentines either and I already agreed that there is great art to be found. I just dispute whether it is inspirational a la Michelangelo or cool a la Blue Man Group. Lotta difference between inspiration and cool, IMO.