esoteriic.com

#wtf

I made this in MS Paint in 2 minutes and 1 second. Surely it is worth 20mil, right? Confer my artistic inspiration: Etole Bleue.

Nope. Don't get it. If the goal of modern art is only to encourage discussion then it does that, but beyond discussion I can't see great value in modern art. Well... maybe that's a bit unfair. There is some stuff that I like but I can't see the big fuss over a 5 year old's painting, kinda like this girl (Aelita Andre) from Australia that is about to open a show in Chelsea. Seriously now... #wtf ? I could do this. In fact I might just do that. There is nothing here that I couldn't do. The pictures are just raw, primal, unintentional slaps of paint upon canvas. Sure, I can see how that is appealing to an extent but to pull greater meaning out of them, or to pay millions of dollars for them, seems a bit over the top.

Nothing I couldn't do

I made this point to an arts student, a painter if I recall, and then pointed out (correctly) that good art isn't necessarily something that you can't do yourself. The implication was that an artist might see something in a different way, or even see something that no one else has. So I could accept, quite humbly, that it isn't necessarily about producing something that no one else can but rather to produce something that no one else saw. This reminds of a quote that is attributed to Schopenhauer: "Talent hits a target that no one else can hit, but genius hits a target that no one else can see." A great quote regardless of who said it. Although that isn't necessarily, either, the prime driver of creating art. Great art could still be something that someone else has seen and already thought of, and it could be in a style that someone else has already done, yet the creation (whatever it is) can still be classified as (1) great, and (2) art.

Symmetry

This leads me naturally to consider to why one picture is nicer than another. Of course, the concept of 'nicer' of 'better' is subjective but if we conducted a survey across all humans then I'm sure we would see some very clear trends. That is to say that there exists some group of patterns that humans, universally, prefer over another group of patterns. Here I use universal in the same as innate quality to human beings because of the way their brains have evolved. I don't mean universal in a sense of absolute value or universal in a way that denotes something fundamental to the universe and is therefore independent of humans. A debate about orangutan art or the art of an alien species is beyond the scope of this rant... article.

The basis of this universality upon humans is due to the way the brain has evolved. At least, that is my hypothesis. The brain naturally recognises patterns that display certain types of symmetry. The word symmetry connotes repeatability and familiarity. Partly from predatory instinct and survival, as well as mate selection; animals learn to recognise patters that are safe or dangerous. Ergo, there is likely to be patterns that the brain finds attractive or, conversely, distressing. I conjecture this based upon both intuition and from reading about symmetry. Of course, none of this is new, I know I'm not the first to suggest it, but it may suggest why modern art is likeable. There must be inherent symmetries apparent in the following aspects of art: colours matching, patterns, textures.

Etole Bleue

While I'd rather live in a house based upon the palance of Versailles than based upon Bauhaus, I can at least appreciate some of the modern forms of art. I can at least see some attractiveness to surrealism, where it suspends belief or makes me think, but I cannot give great appreciation for something that seems random and formless. That's not to say that chaos is wholly repulsive but certain visual forms that are apparent in modern art just seems pointless. I can see attraction in turbulent fluid flows yet when I look at some of the chaotic paintings I feel repulsion or outright boredom. To create a musical analogy I find attraction in various forms of metal music (eg Death metal), but I find almost none in the likes of Jazz or Schoenberg. While metal has jazzy parts, it is ultimate not random shit thrown together but rather constrained chaos: a pattern emerges and there is some underlying repeatability. You can see my subjective point of view on jazz is well formed. :-) In all seriousness, it makes me yawn.

I'm then lead to question the motives of why someone would pay 20 million GBP (circa 30 mil USD, using today's rate) for a painting that I don't find that attractive. One part of me wonders if I've missed something about the artistic greatness of this piece, or whether there is something more nihilistic. The purchaser is not interested in the ownership of the art but rather sees the art as an investment opportunity. The painting apparently sold for half this much in 2007, so perhaps in another 5 years then this investor will double his money. However, this is predicate upon the assumption that the painting is actually desirable. The investing fundamentals, which is essentially the value of the painting, must derive from the desirability of the art in question. Supply versus demand; always.

The supply seems obvious: dead artist = profit. On the demand side, well... I just don't quite get it. It might be due to an over active right-hemisphere of the brain in certain humans or perhaps due to something like synesthesi. In which I case I may never ''get it'', although couldn't I just upload a stock chart, weather map or a page full of equations and claim it to be art? *shrug*