Share Some Interesting Art

James wrote: I notice almost everyone here likes the more avant-garde style of art.

Really?

Yes, really. 

Having said that, I do like some Vermeer and Cézanne as well.

I don't know who made this or anything about it, but I just found it during a google image search for fish and it made me laugh:

Haven't you ever read Pictures for Sad Children? It's a joke.

James wrote: Yes, really.  Having said that, I do like some Vermeer and Cézanne as well.

If I noticed anything its that PA's members in general doesn't seem to be genuinely interested in any other artform than music, and certainly nothing avant-garde. What does avant-garde mean to you? Less than 100 years old? I don't blame you or others for not paying attention to the "avant-garde scene" as its mostly pastiche, selfparody or about creating something tabloid friendly and "shocking", anyway. But your conlusion tells me that you must be misinformed.

Two of the shared pieces of art here was once considered avant-garde... 90 years ago. But Picasso's cubism and Kandinski early abstracts are now so conventional you can probably get a reproduction of both of those paintings at IKEA. Dali and Escher is just the easiest to find and easy to like stuff for kids (my two teenage faves) or people with no time for art.

Beksinski looks like a very talented teenager, but there's certainly nothing avant-garde about him either. Even if Cézanne died over 100 years ago, he is still more at the forefront than he will ever be.

But, I prefer the dead, european guys myself. Here's a fellow countryman, Lars Hertervig. Of course he died poor and mentally ill. These are all 1860's, and probably my favorite landscapes ever made:



                                                          

                                                                        
                                                        

Rocktopus wrote: Trouserpress wrote: [QUOTE=Rocktopus] I don't blame you or others for not paying attention to the "avant-garde scene" as its mostly pastiche, selfparody or about creating something tabloid friendly and "shocking", anyway. Sorry, but that's utter bollocks. Most avant-garde contemporary art takes place outside of white-walled galleries which is why most people who aren't in some way actively involved in underground culture scenes simply aren't aware of it. The kind of art you're referring to here isn't avant-garde at all; most of it's still rooted in post-modernism which has been with us since the sixties!

We're obviously not in full agreement because I think in what passes for avant-garde, both the institutionalized and the underground is full of people recirculating old ideas and presenting them as something new. You seem to think of avant-garde as a protected term, which can only be used if its the real deal, and not if its "fake". Fine, but I was thinking about how the art world probably looks from the outside. Not for someone on the inside like you or your underground friends, I don't know who you are (but I'm quite certain I don't share your positive enthusiasm, and won't find it as fantastic as you do).

And I wrote "avant-garde scene" didn't I?

Edited by Rocktopus - August 25 2010 at 04:54

It's really difficult to nominate anything really avantgarde these days, isn't it? The most "out there" thing for me is the super-digitalized new-media "art", which I find awful and boring. In my understanding the most avantgarde artists these days are actually the "ariere-garde", those who try to keep alive the traditional arts despite the general consensus in the art world that they are culturally retarded, ideologically dangerous, somewhat stupid and bad for society's and culture's "progress". If you're doing your stuff against everyone else's attempts to put you down then it's surely a form of "avantgarde".

IMO all of the trends generated by the 20th century (formalism, the avantgarde, social plastique, post-modernism) have pretty much exhausted their potential and something new needs to emerge. But I don't have any clue what that will be.


Edited by harmonium.ro - August 25 2010 at 10:46

Rocktopus wrote: James wrote: Yes, really.  Having said that, I do like some Vermeer and Cézanne as well. If I noticed anything its that PA's members in general doesn't seem to be genuinely interested in any other artform than music, and certainly nothing avant-garde. What does avant-garde mean to you? Less than 100 years old? I don't blame you or others for not paying attention to the "avant-garde scene" as its mostly pastiche, selfparody or about creating something tabloid friendly and "shocking", anyway. But your conlusion tells me that you must be misinformed. Two of the shared pieces of art here was once considered avant-garde... 90 years ago. But Picasso's cubism and Kandinski early abstracts are now so conventional you can probably get a reproduction of both of those paintings at IKEA. Dali and Escher is just the easiest to find and easy to like stuff for kids (my two teenage faves) or people with no time for art. Beksinski looks like a very talented teenager, but there's certainly nothing avant-garde about him either. Even if Cézanne died over 100 years ago, he is still more at the forefront than he will ever be. But, I prefer the dead, european guys myself. Here's a fellow countryman, Lars Hertervig. Of course he died poor and mentally ill. These are all 1860's, and probably my favorite landscapes ever made:

Edited by Rabid - August 25 2010 at 07:27

harmonium.ro wrote: Christer, I've just seen the exhibition Munch ou l'anti Cri here in Paris and I was so very pleasantly surprised. The idea was to show Munch outside the cliches about him and his most famous works and they pretty much achieved this goal. I love the "Nordic" spirit of most of his art, which actually can be seen better, in a more genuine form, without the dark/"gothic" cliches he became famous for (like the Cry or the Madonnas). Do you feel him and his art as an influence?

He's had a great influence on just about every norwegian artist of the last 100 years. A country with 4,5 million people and one artist so much more famous and profilic than any other, its simply unavoidable. But I think he is a brilliant painter, a great artist and a perfect idol for any aspiring artist. I love both his dark/gothic cliches and his later, more painterly expressionist style of workers and such. But even more than that I love his melancholic and angsty work:










Edited by Rocktopus - August 25 2010 at 10:36

The greatest Monet exhibition of the last three decades has just opened, here's a first review: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/8015094/Claude-Monet-exhibition-First-impressions-at-long-last.html