David Hockey London Underground Commision - 2021, Various sizes, Medium: MS Paint - How can any sane """artist""" defend this?

[SERFnTERF]

Are you saying that art is subjective, and needs to contribute something to its audience (who will then subjectively deem a piece to be "art" or "not art", based on their own experience of the piece)?

How is Art not subjective?

To imply that it's not, is like saying music, film, architecture, fashion, etc is also not subjective and not dependant on personal tastes and experiences. There are fashionable tastes and trends, there is a status quo that ebbs and flows, but there will always be people who deviate from that norm. This is becoming harder and harder to do the more that we engage with open-platform publishing and expose ourselves to increasingly external criticism.

Personally, I believe that Art is an interrogation. Of what? That's to be decided by the artist, but I also believe that there is a pretty apparant line that can be (and is) crossed between thought-provoking and just down-right bad. But it also serves a purpose to be visually stimulating and to engage the subconscious.

Without powerlevelling too much, I have had one-on-one contact with indivuduals who have produced objectively bad work. It doesn't matter what they said to fluff it up, it is visually unappealing and lazy - and Art (Contemporary or otherwise) hangs solely on visual appeal.

I'm sure that Hockney has some blurb that's purpose is to be pasted onto the wall of the entrance to an exhibition of this stuff. But does Hockney's context, whatever that may be, however politically or cultureally relevent, render this work immune from being described as bad art? I don't believe so.

 

[Solid Snek]

How is Art not subjective?

To imply that it's not, is like saying music, film, architecture, fashion, etc is also not subjective and not dependant on personal tastes and experiences. There are fashionable tastes and trends, there is a status quo that ebbs and flows, but there will always be people who deviate from that norm. This is becoming harder and harder to do the more that we engage with open-platform publishing and expose ourselves to increasingly external criticism.

Personally, I believe that Art is an interrogation. Of what? That's to be decided by the artist, but I also believe that there is a pretty apparant line that can be (and is) crossed between thought-provoking and just down-right bad. But it also serves a purpose to be visually stimulating and to engage the subconscious.

Without powerlevelling too much, I have had one-on-one contact with indivuduals who have produced objectively bad work. It doesn't matter what they said to fluff it up, it is visually unappealing and lazy - and Art (Contemporary or otherwise) hangs solely on visual appeal.

I'm sure that Hockney has some blurb that's purpose is to be pasted onto the wall of the entrance to an exhibition of this stuff. But does Hockney's context, whatever that may be, however politically or cultureally relevent, render this work immune from being described as bad art? I don't believe so.

OK, I'm still not sure I follow. The first half (blue) sounds like you're saying art is subjective, but the second (green) sounds like you're saying art is objective.

I'm not sure what the "apparent line" is between thought-provoking and downright bad, but if art is subjective, then I guess it doesn't really matter whether I see it or not; to you, the line matters, and so long as you can see the line, then to you, everything's going smoothly and you can evaluate art.

However, if art can be "objectively bad", then I'd have to ask - where is this line? Why is this line where it is?

I don't believe art hangs solely on visual appeal, and I know for a fact that many other people don't believe art hangs solely on visual appeal, either. What's more, even if art did hang on visual appeal, what constitutes "visual appeal" may not always be universal and objective - visual appeal is at least as much an emotional experience as it is anything else, and emotional experiences are subjective and contextual. (e.g. I think we'd both agree that a degenerate eye may find Sonic x Peach to be highly appealing visually)



(Orange bit) I'd certainly agree with, though. You're entitled to describe anything as bad art, even good art, and never let anyone tell you otherwise! The worst you can be is wrong, and that's fine; I'd much rather live in a world where some people are wrong about art, then live in a world where people are not free to express their distaste and disagreement.

 

[Wright]

How is Art not subjective?

To imply that it's not, is like saying music, film, architecture, fashion, etc is also not subjective and not dependant on personal tastes and experiences. There are fashionable tastes and trends, there is a status quo that ebbs and flows, but there will always be people who deviate from that norm. This is becoming harder and harder to do the more that we engage with open-platform publishing and expose ourselves to increasingly external criticism.

Personally, I believe that Art is an interrogation. Of what? That's to be decided by the artist, but I also believe that there is a pretty apparant line that can be (and is) crossed between thought-provoking and just down-right bad. But it also serves a purpose to be visually stimulating and to engage the subconscious.

Without powerlevelling too much, I have had one-on-one contact with indivuduals who have produced objectively bad work. It doesn't matter what they said to fluff it up, it is visually unappealing and lazy - and Art (Contemporary or otherwise) hangs solely on visual appeal.

I'm sure that Hockney has some blurb that's purpose is to be pasted onto the wall of the entrance to an exhibition of this stuff. But does Hockney's context, whatever that may be, however politically or cultureally relevent, render this work immune from being described as bad art? I don't believe so.

nigger art

 

[SERFnTERF]

OK, I'm still not sure I follow. The first half (blue) sounds like you're saying art is subjective, but the second (green) sounds like you're saying art is objective.

I guess it isn't black and white, and by proxy involves personal pre-conceptions. I guess it would be smarter for me to say that Art as a whole is subjective, but certain works are objectively bad to me. But it's a cyclical argument that still results in the initial premise being entirely subjective in it's nature, no?

However, if art can be "objectively bad", then I'd have to ask - where is this line? Why is this line where it is?

Personally, I think "Would I pin this to a fridge, or would I house it in a gallery and charge entry to the general public?" Due to my own experiences, I can't help but attribute a career or financial orientated value to Contemporary Art practices. But it is a business, ultimately, no? Just how contemporary philosphers pen self-help books.

I'm realising now that I can't give a concrete justification to my own arguments.
Hockney's current work, to me, is bad. It is visually unappealing. Even if I were to agree with his unknown context, I would still profess that the work could've been executed in a better way.

 

[Solid Snek]

nigger art

Are you saying nigger art is subjectively good? Obectively good? Subjectively bad? Objectively bad?

Also, by nigger art, do you mean

Spoiler

or or
or

or something else entirely?

I guess it isn't black and white, and by proxy involves personal pre-conceptions. I guess it would be smarter for me to say that Art as a whole is subjective, but certain works are objectively bad to me. But it's a cyclical argument that still results in the initial premise being entirely subjective in it's nature, no?

Right, OK, that makes sense! Thanks. And I'd be inclined to agree.

I can't help but attribute a career or financial orientated value to Contemporary Art practices. But it is a business, ultimately, no? Just how contemporary philosphers pen self-help books.

Ooooh, yeah, Hockney is definitely a finance-oriented artist. According to Wikipedia he's been battling Koons for the title of "single most expensive piece ever sold"; artists like that have fantastically wealthy friends, who use their art as a tax haven.

Interestingly enough, he used to do more "technical" things (although they were still butt-ugly 70s crap) before settling in to the more aggressive Popart style he seems to be known for.

Spoiler: Here he is in 1972

Spoiler: 1986

Spoiler: And finally, 2013

This guy's work is at MOMA, and the Tate, and he may be the single wealthiest artist on earth right now.

Honestly, I think the Picadilly Circus thing is in the running for the best work he's done yet.

 

[SERFnTERF]

Honestly, I think the Picadilly Circus thing is in the running for the best work he's done yet.

Best = most profitable. I'm sure.

I wonder just how much of that UK Covid Relief was diverted to Hockney's offshore account so he could rebrand the London Underground in the space of 5 minutes.

 

[Solid Snek]

Best = most profitable. I'm sure.

I wonder just how much of that UK Covid Relief was diverted to Hockney's offshore account so he could rebrand the London Underground in the space of 5 minutes.

Well, according to Wikipedia, that first piece, the one with the pool, is his most profitable. It sold for $90 million , which is, quote, "the most expensive artwork by a living artist sold at auction". That's more than thirty million more than Balloon Dog sold for!!

This is kind of art spergy, but one thing I'm wondering about is the background there:

Hockney's clearly had the benefit of formal training, but the piece seems very flat to me; almost to the degree of Naive Art (art by people with no formal schooling). The mountains in the midground, for example, remind me of something Grandma Moses might have done. But the mountains in the background are clearly the product of someone who knows the "formal rules" about utilizing colour to depict depth in landscapes.

And what's interesting about that is, maybe this was just me, but whenever I've heard an academic artist discuss the difference between "trained" art and "naive" art, that colour/depth/mountain thing is one of the major ideas used to illustrate that point. Now I don't know if that's a recent pedagogy thing, or if it's been around since before Hockney went to school, or even if it's just dumb chance pattern that happened to me and me only, but I'm wondering if maybe that's not a coincidence? Like, maybe Hockney was deliberately juxtaposing flat, naive art in the midground, with formal rules of colour in the back? Perhaps as a way of saying "I know what you told me to do, now sod off"?

I could be totally mistaken or overthinking things, though.

 

[Clem Fandango]

Without even getting into the merits, this piece is low effort trash. Whoever paid for it got mugged, and no amount of analysis or "art speak" can convince me otherwise.

 

[soy_king]

Ngl, i think David Hockney is fairly talented artist, and this is just clearly a,man in his 80s phoning it in for an easy paycheck.

Spoiler: Hockney's other work

 

[Weeb Slinger]

All this bold reimagining of London Underground iconography tells me is that Hockney - a capable artist - is either sidling into dementia, or spent the lockdown shit posting on 4chan.

It would be wonderful to watch the backtracking among those who lauded this obvious nonsense, if it was suddenly revealed that the true artist of this piece was one of the previous London mayors - Johnson or Livingstone.

 

[Overly Serious]

View attachment 2191107

This art is contemptible. I already dislike the infantile artwork. The fact that is is faux-infantile just makes it even worse. A young child would not neatly place the final 's' below on a new line, the writing would get super small towards the end and they'd squeeze it up tight to fit it into the space they'd already drawn. The fact that the purple block has an extra drawn appendage already indicates that running out of space is planned.

It's not only infantile, it's either deliberately or through ineptitude, evidently a grown-up pretending to be infantile.

Which pretty much sums up a lot of society's problems today.

 

[Solid Snek]

View attachment 2191107

This art is contemptible. I already dislike the infantile artwork. The fact that is is faux-infantile just makes it even worse. A young child would not neatly place the final 's' below on a new line, the writing would get super small towards the end and they'd squeeze it up tight to fit it into the space they'd already drawn. The fact that the purple block has an extra drawn appendage already indicates that running out of space is planned.

It's not only infantile, it's either deliberately or through ineptitude, evidently a grown-up pretending to be infantile.

Which pretty much sums up a lot of society's problems today.

Yes, but is that the point?

Is it a grownup pretending to be infantile, or is it a grownup pretending to be a grownup pretending to be infantile?

If it's the former, then yeah OK, I can see why someone might get mad. But if it's the latter, then that's kind of brilliant isn't it? An 80 year old elitist summing up the problems his culture has saddled the rest of us with, in one visual shitpost that may have taken all of two minutes to finish?


Something else I was noticing, too: the lack of a fill tool. As evidenced by the color bleed on the bottom and the gaps in the banner, Hockney seems to have used the brush tool to make the yellow and purple bits, then outlined them in black, rather than drawing shapes first and then using the fill tool to color them in, as most people would. Was there some intended meaning? Or is he just old and doesn't know what a fill tool is?

 

[Overly Serious]

Is it a grownup pretending to be infantile, or is it a grownup pretending to be a grownup pretending to be infantile?

Interesting points. But it does just make me think of this.

 

[Sweet Yuzu]

I would hate having to see that sperg art going to work everyday. I'm just an amateur art enjoyer with no education but I think technical skill means more anything wrt art. The meaning matters too but if your technical skills aren't excellent I won't respect the point you're trying to make. We need to get back to the gorgeous colored God and Goddess statues like they had in ancient Rome, in public for everyone to enjoy.

 

[Fluoxetine Man]

Ngl, i think David Hockney is fairly talented artist, and this is just clearly a,man in his 80s phoning it in for an easy paycheck.

Spoiler: Hockney's other work

View attachment 2191809View attachment 2191810View attachment 2191811View attachment 2191812

I hope Dave just phoned it in for a fat paycheck cause he knew the UK Tourism board would be too chicken shit to ask him to do it again.

 

[DungeonMaster]

spergy teenagers anime fanart is more """art""" than most modern art tbh

That's because it's sincere, unpretentious, and one hundred percent genuine. Drawn out of love and boredom in equal measure, not the need for approval from stuckup fartsniffers. The spergy teens are at least putting their all into their work. Though they're not very good at it, they're drawing what they earnestly like, and by god it shows.

 

[Deadwaste]

 

[UnsufficentBoobage]

This thread gave me migraine

 

[Str8Bustah]

Art was a mistake. We should go back to Artisans and Craftsmen instead of this gay environment we currently have where midwit artists think they're being clever by making deliberately shitty artwork to troll critics whos' only real investment in arts and culture is to shit on and degrade it as much as possible by encouraging the spread of deliberately shitty artwork.

people who pretend to be retards as an in-joke will eventually find themselves surrounded by actual retards who mistakenly believe themselves to be in good company.