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To me a lot of this has nothing to do with whether a piece of art is actually good on not. To me, things like craftsmanship, form, balance in colors and shapes. I’m not opposed to “starting conversations” or “having a viewpoint”, but on the other hand it’s not essential to whether a piece has the qualities of good art. If you look at ancient and medieval art, it’s not making odd statements about society, it’s creating something beautiful to tell familiar stories. An icon of a Bible story painted in the year 1000 says nothing more or less than “this is a familiar cultural story.” The art is in the craftsmanship the balance of the characters in the frame, they’re definitely beautiful. The same can be said of ancient Indian images of Shiva dancing, or the Laughing Buddhas, or Japanese prints. The form and the balance of structure and color, the workmanship, the materials, etc. are what make these things beautiful.
Art galleries don’t really care that much about beauty, or quality. A banana duct taped to a wall, a canvas painted in one shade of green, a crucifix in urine, a pile of candy in a corner, etc. these are things that are famous art pieces. But they also are pieces that have no thought behind them, no craftsmanship, no serious effort to produce anything interesting. It’s actually a crass attempt at juvenile humor and quite often is only notable because of its ridiculous nature. Were these artists unknowns, nobody would care about the art. It’s possible it’s sparking a conversation, but how deep of a conversation can one have about a banana taped to a wall, bought by a rich guy with money to burn and who promptly ate the banana? Gee, I hope the banana was tasty, I guess. And I hope the green canvas matches the couch.
Modern visual art has a lot of thought behind it, but it's not the thought about beauty or quality. It's a self-referential thought, the one that interacts with the history and the modern understanding of art. And it's not a novel thing. Suprematism is more than a century old.
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