Going into any kind of depth on contemporary art theory on an internet forum is probably pointless, but eh:
Jackson Pollock was an incredibly influential painter of the last century - he was part of the contemporary avant garde of artists who were trying to artistically evolve from the purely representative art form and explore the medium of paint in a more original way than it had been used in previous artistic movements.
The beauty of Pollocks work lies in that there is no real intended 'meaning' in most of it. Don't look at it expecting to see something being represented in the image, just be open minded and look at it for what it is - paint on a canvas. Once you get your head around that you can make a decision as to whether you like it or not. Appreciating good art isn't about knowledge or pretentious analysis of every possible meaning or brushstroke in a painting, but simply about looking.

Hope that helped.



I fucking love Marcel Duchamp. You really need to do some research on him to give his work some context though. The ''fountain'' (above) is a very important 20th c piece of art. The urinal itself wasn't even made by Duchamp - all he did was sign it and put it in a gallery. It isn't even pretty, infact a urinal sitting in an art gallery next to 'real' art is a bit offensive - but that was the point of putting it there. It was meant to challenge peoples concepts of what they saw as 'Art'. Does putting something in an art gallery make it art? Does something have to be beautiful to be art? Does the artist even have to make the art themselves, or can they simply take something that already exists and sell it as art?
Duchamp really turned a lot of people onto the idea that anything can be art if you want it to be.

As for the question ''What is art?'' - it's pretty much unsolvable. Plenty of books have been written on the question, mostly concluding with something to the tune of: ''it's up to the opinion of the individual person''

PS - i would ignore some of the the crass and uninformed statements in this thread like:




source: studying for a BA in fine art and history of art.

Modern art:

Person 1: I could have done that!
Person 2: Yeah but you didn't.

thats because Marcel Duchamp was the troll king in the art world.
Dadaism is so shit.

I could write all the essays on Dadaism, but i could never appreciate the more extreme pieces.(Id have to google to get the names of the peices i did like)

All art appeals to someone, and in the end, its all down to preference and personality.

According to the dada movement, which odlov so kindly pointed out, ANYTHING can be art.
although some people state that art cannot have a function. so architecture cant be art, cars cant be art
etcetcetc.

art has no set in stone definition, other than it must evoke a reaction from the viewer, emotional or not.

certain styles of art can be judged by the technique and composition and relevance to concept and subject.
while others(like odlov's fountain) cannot.

there is no answer, redundant discussion go.

"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources"

Some forms of art require a vast imagination, some people feel like art requires the spectator to imagine an stimulate their brain.

It's like finding figures in clouds.

Did you even READ anything?
As Gorman says, anything can be considered art.
There's no real "definition" of art.

About Duchamp and Pollock:
They're both abstract, but a very different world of art.

Well then why is there such ridicule in the Art world for people who don't try to pull some bullshit story about how they were made.

I don't believe that art is simply a painting, sculpture, sheet of music, or piece of literature. I am settled at the fact that art is nearly everything in the universe.

For example, art may be every-day materials that we use. Anything that is constructed and has shape, in my opinion, is considered a sculpture.

Anything that we can see, alive or artificial, is considered a drawing, illusion, or anything under that catogory. Art may be states of being or things that we can't see. For instance, freedom is a form of art. The sounds that we hear every day is art.

That's my opinion of art.

Duchamps work could hardly be described as asbstract.


^pretty much the only interesting read in this thread

If it manages to make u feel and think about it, its art. If you just look and walk away, its junk. Simple.

If u see that someone splattered his shit on the ground making a portrait of the Merlin Monroe and u think: This is disgusting, smelly and why Merlin Monroe of all other things? - that's art. No matter its just a pile of shit rearranged to look like someone's face, if it made u to feel something, to think and discuss about it - its Art.