Personally, I’m partial to Barbara Kruger, Wassily Kandinsky, Cindy Sherman, and some of Robert Mapplethorpe’s stuff…some of that’s photography, so I’m not sure how relevant it is to this discussion.

Steel yourself with a shot of scotch and head down to the SFMOMA for a few hours; I’ll bet you a steak you won’t leave without finding at least three pieces you like.

Any ideas of what I *should* call it?

sincerely,

an aspiring critic

I’m with you that artists are not employable. This doesn’t mean that a person can’t make a living at art (and a great many do). Still, most artists should expect to retain “regular” jobs.

“The mark of a truly skilled critic is the ability to suck all joy out of others’ experience of almost any given thing.” That is absolutely quotable, NHK! And by the way, I’m not saying all modern art sucks, I’m just saying most of it does and that the idea of “modern” is kind of stupid when the style is anywhere from 70 to 100 years old. If it’s older than my parents it is not “modern”!

Whatever…I agree with the post, it’s kind of the same thing I used to say about poetry. You don’t like it? OK. Just because you don’t like it doesn’t make it bad … Isn’t that what all art is supposed to be about? People shouldn’t be “employed” as artists. Not in the sense that we think of art.

Sure, we need graphic artists for this or that, or the covers of this or that, but art is supposed to be an outlet, not a profession.

As you said, art is subjective … in fact, it’s kind of the anti-science (or what’s provable). There is no good, bad, etc., just art. No one rails at mathmeticians when they say 2+2=4, why is it that we have to prove that this piece is better than that one? I like it, you don’t. I see a naked woman blowing up her neighbor’s front yard, you see a cat eating a banana peel out of the garbage. My interpretation is much more entertaining (the naked woman is hot), but it doesn’t make it any better.

…Actually, thinking about it, we should do that one day. Just go to some art museum (MOMA comes to mind) and just make shit up about what we see, and express those thoughts loudly enough to annoy those around us…after all, it is art.

That said, there is some extremely freaking cool so-called modern art out there…as well as a lot of crappy, “meaningful”, over-contextualized nonsense.

The mark of a truly skilled critic, btw, is the ability to suck all joy out of others’ experience of almost any given thing, even *good* art; this is true regardless of whether they’re telling you that you should love it or hate it.