I agree that alot of work out there is crap.. modernism (late 19th century -1950 or so), and especially the influence of Abstract Expressionists like Motherwell and Pollock led to a whole generation of artists that emulated the style in a most horrific and appalling way. So called 'artists' were splashing paint about a canvas, urinating on it, and doing otherwise freaky things and actually selling it.

That sort of influence is still strong, and explains the level of pure refuse that exists in museums and galleries now. However, more postmodern artists are very different. They take references from art history and history in general and actually do *research* on technique and content. Here's a few relatively good ones in my field:

http://www.frogmans.net/Represented%20Artists.htm

The best ones to look at are Michael Barnes, Lloyd Menard, Kurt Kemp, Art Werger, Carol Wax and David Morrison.

Other fairly good postmodern artists: Richard Prince, Robert Crumb, Tom Huck

I've got a bone to pick with abstract expressionism. I'd break out Jackson Pollock's windshield if I could.

[quote="Debaser"][quote="Ice Cream Jonsey"]Most modern day software gives me the exact same reaction as most modern day art: "I could have done that; I'd never buy that."[/quote]

Yeah, I'm sure you couldn't have possibly programmed Mr. Do!, Robb... oh wait![/quote]

You have no idea how good it is to see you post again, Debaser.

[quote="Ice Cream Jonsey"]Most modern day software gives me the exact same reaction as most modern day art: "I could have done that; I'd never buy that."[/quote]

Yeah, I'm sure you couldn't have possibly programmed Mr. Do!, Robb... oh wait!

Art's basically become a catchall word, much like irony , that doesn't really mean anything anymore. My favorite piece of "art" in the last ten years or so was when the guy dropped the exploding cow out of the helocopter.

I remember in London in some museum or another they had these tiny little wood carvings of these tiny little people in such absolute minute detail it almost seemed more than human hands should be capable of. No one really does shit like that anymore in the visual arts, presumably because people aren't learning those skills (and really, why the hell should they?).

Or rather, most people aren't. At the Chicago botanical gardens, there is (or at least was last year, I don't know about now) a display of glasswork by some filthy foreigner whose name was I think like Rem Cooley or something. I don't know, but I guess he's pretty famous as glassblowers go, so someone probably knows what the hell I'm talking about better than I do. But, in any event, it was pretty neat both in and of itself and because glass-blowing, as I understand it, leads to all sorts of eventually fatal lung nastiness and contracting black lung disease for your art is totally punk rock.

To the popular culture modern art is sort of a self-defining joke about squiggly lines and meaningless abstraction. And I kind of understand that opinion, but I think the critics are far more to blame than the artists if self-indulgent wankery is the order of the day. I can look at a modern piece that's just like a bunch of squiggly lines or colors (and sure enough pieces like this do exist and are getting displayed) and kind of "get" it. At the very least I get that the guy wasn't just slacking off and was really trying to communicate something. But it operates on a base, sort of pre-linguistic level, so attempting to talk about it leads to all sorts of self-important sounding nonsense (like pre-linguistic).

But I don't really know enough about the subject to do anything more than wax dillentante, which I've done, so I guess I'm done.

I'd like very much to have a print of "The Scream" around my apartment.

There was also a nice one that was up on the wall of the Denver art museum that involved buffalo and a hazy change from dusk to night. Of course, I can't remember the name of the painting, so I'm sort of screwed there.

I cannot *stand* the shit people are doing and calling art. Well--I mean that literally, almost. People are puking all over a fucking canvas and calling it art. They're putting multicolored speckles all over a canvass, writing up a 300-word essay on the picture's significance and stuffing it onto a plaque, and voila it's the best fucking thing since that naked bitch that no one ever actually sees anymore because the line to get a look at it is too long (And *that* is what I call desperate, ladies and gents.) The field of art is filled with Siren Delaneys these days, I'm not kidding.

That said, if you *are* an artist who is, like, drawing things good and stuff, cootis. I don't really have a point with this, I'm just venting. I'm good at that, you know.

Sup guys? Thanks for having my back.

I look at art because I want to steal it. If I feel that I could make it myself then I don't want to steal it, I just feel bad that I [i]didn't[/i] make it and then I feel angry and depressed and I totally almost never feel that way otherwise. Some would say it's because of the uppers, the nipple-clips and the secret batch of ultra-small, ultra-sensy uppers I have with tiny little nips that totally get electrocuted when thrown into a sunny glass of water, but I think it's because I spent my time very infrequently getting a chance to look at it.

I [i]did[/i] go to an art museum recently, however! It had art from all over. Many different cultures. What was disturbing is that they had some from the late 20th Century as well. Most of the time you only heard the term "Late 20th Century" when Megatron or even more embarassingly, Jonathan Frakes was saying it, but you also hear/read it in art museums. And maybe it's just my pedestrian upbringing, but a lot more of it is crap. My guess is that we haven't had thousands of years of turmoil, natural disasters and crucifixions to eliminate the bad stuff, and I guess I'll run with that.

The art museum in Denver did have a whole room filled with nothing but wooden dummies of Christ getting nailed to the cross, though. I think the 3D depiction of Christ there was the "first person shooter" in Mexico back in the day. Everyone churned one out with marginally different bells and whistles. There was probably even one of them attempted and announced by Senor Jhorgie Brouhumberto that never ended up getting released because he spent all his money on coca leaves and nude fire dancers.

Hahahahahaha!!! I see what you Did There!!! agggggaahhh!

[quote="Ice Cream Jonsey"]Most modern day software gives me the exact same reaction as most modern day art: "I could have done that; I'd never buy that."

I'll now import some lackeys to laugh at what I wrote so I seem more popular than I really am. Catch you in a bit![/quote]

[color=orange]Kietcch-kietcch-kiettch.... [b][i]Nya-hahahahahahahaha!!!!!!![/color][/b][/i]

[color=orange]GOOD SHOW JONESY!!!![/color]

Most modern day software gives me the exact same reaction as most modern day art: "I could have done that; I'd never buy that."

I'll now import some lackeys to laugh at what I wrote so I seem more popular than I really am. Catch you in a bit!

Being an artist myself, I sometimes find myself very isolated from others -- I suppose it's that way when you seriously study any field. Perhaps the difference is that when you say you're a programmer/network tech (which I just recently abandoned, much to my fiscal dismay).. people think.. oh, you have a steady job (not always so) or.. oh you have money (again).. so when I abandoned worldcom/mci as they were and continued to flail(ing) about I went to graduate school and people started asking "so you're an artist" with a raised eyebrow. The implication therein is that youre somehow not a useful member of society, or at least that's how it felt after my previous occupation.
After all, it is a terribly inefficient occupation, because unlike structured programming or system organization, you are defining your own parameters as you create a work and constantly redefining them as the work develops.. thus the process is a constant flux of organization and chaos.. entropy always kicks in, and can help and hinder.
So my questions are.. first, what are your experiences with contemporary art (post 1980), second, what are your experiences with artists (not the breckenridge tourist kind), and what are the collective board preferences as to 'art', whatever the fuck that is.

B