Conceptual art: what's the point?

[Mr. Tea]

Emily Cheeger3 years ago (edited)
When I was a kid, I saw a documentary about Koons where they kept the camera rolling in between his interviews. As soon as he thought the camera was off, the mask would come off. He'd drink his coffee and literally laugh out loud at the naiveté of the public, lapping up all the bullshit he had succeeded in selling to them. He's a total creep.

171

Well it's the same with Hirst and all these chancers, isn't it? Their ideas, such as they are, are vacuity itself, and on the level of practical proficiency I bet most of them can't draw, paint or sculpt any better than a mediocre A-level student. What it comes down to is acting skills and chutzpah.

It's enough to make you think "I wish I could do that", and then you think, well, is it really all that? Doesn't it hurt, at some level, to know you're nothing but a con-man? Does Koons return home from some flashy art-biz event and cry himself to sleep at the hollowness of his life? Or does he check his bank balance, buy himself another Ferrari or three, and then retire to bed, still laughing his arse off, with a couple of extremely expensive prostitutes? I would say probably the latter.

 

[Leo]

Emily Cheeger3 years ago (edited)
When I was a kid, I saw a documentary about Koons where they kept the camera rolling in between his interviews. As soon as he thought the camera was off, the mask would come off. He'd drink his coffee and literally laugh out loud at the naiveté of the public, lapping up all the bullshit he had succeeded in selling to them. He's a total creep.

171

that's most every successful businessperson, though. salesmanship. it's naive to think it doesn't exist in the arts, and wrong to think it's the predominant force there.

so many strawmen on this thread...a couple of obvious examples of something equated to "that's the way it all is!" saving all the critical thinking for literature and autechre threads, are we?

 

[Mr. Tea]

that's most every successful businessperson, though. salesmanship. it's naive to think it doesn't exist in the arts, and wrong to think it's the predominant force there.

Right, but does Musk think people who buys his electric cars are idiots? I would expect, on the contrary, that he takes pride in their build standard and the sophistication of the technology. And on a bottom-line level, if they were shit and couldn't go above 30 mph or broke down after a hundred miles, then nobody would buy them, the company would go bust and he'd be an international laughing-stock.

Art is one of the few sorts of commodities that doesn't actually have *do* anything at all - fashion is getting that way, but you expect a shirt not to fall to bits after you've washed it twice, at the very least - so it's exactly as valuable as people say it is. A Koons sculpture, be it ever so repulsive to any remotely functional human being, is worth $20,000,000 if someone pays $20,000,000 for it.

 

[Corpsey]

Surprisingly, Foster has more time for the crass neo-pop creations of Jeff Koons than for Torres’s theological discourse. When Koons invites us to “celebrate” consumerism through his quasi-erotic sculptures, he at once communicates the difficulty of straightforward celebration. An “edgy unease” creeps into childlike enjoyment of his work – a spectral awareness of the grotesquely unequal society that produced it – and this instils the viewer with a deep ambivalence, caught between shame and pleasure, judgment and jouissance.

What Comes After Farce? by Hal Foster review – oppositional art in the age of Trump

Long known for his optimism, the renowned art critic now faces the question: how to belittle a political elite that cannot be embarrassed?

www.theguardian.com

 

[Leo]

that example of koons takes what I meant to an extreme, obviously. plenty of people are different personalities on and off camera, or when in or out of the sales pitch. koons is taking positive spin to the next level.

my point is this notion of "all artists are conmen" is inaccurate, just a few short steps away from "my five-year old daughter could have painted that"-level critique. there will always be a few high-profile cases but it isn't the prevailing situation throughout the arts.

 

[version]

"... the contradiction of contemporary art: it abolishes the work of art and then puts a price tag on the result."

 

[IdleRich]

Does Koons return home from some flashy art-biz event and cry himself to sleep at the hollowness of his life? Or does he check his bank balance, buy himself another Ferrari or three, and then retire to bed, still laughing his arse off, with a couple of extremely expensive prostitutes? I would say probably the latter.

More likely an Italian porn star/politician.

 

[Mr. Tea]

 

[catalog]

That looks really good, well up my street

 

[Mr. Tea]

I don't think I've ever seen cosmogonies that interwoven before.

 

[catalog]

I really like the word cosmogony cos it contains the word smog

 

[woops]

those interwoven xosmogonies look like reject space raiders

 

[Mr. Tea]

those interwoven xosmogonies look like reject space raiders

That's an even better spelling!

 

[Mr. Tea]

Should definitely be the title of a tune by @other_life.

 

[thirdform]

It's like what you were saying about Autechre (maybe?) last night. Weed makes you fixate on things. On details. It sucks you into surfaces. You can see things this way sober it just takes more time and effort.

the effort is worth it though. weed is good for immediate associative thinking but its bad for retaining long-term intellectual impressions of the details. Pretty much why you and Lucius are philistines of the highest order. 🤣

 

[Mr. Tea]

weed is good for immediate associative thinking but its bad for retaining long-term intellectual impressions of the details.

I heard the best thing for that is horrible, undrinkably bitter black tea.

 

[thirdform]

I heard the best thing for that is horrible, undrinkably bitter black tea.

yes, and some black turnip juice.

 

[Mr. Tea]

yes, and some black turnip juice.

Mmmm, delish!