#rip the art history nerds out there who tried tho 🤧 fallen soldiers methinks

[otrtbs]

PSA: Nat’s ranting abt art! (again) What’s new?

for context ,, some people went to the museum of modern art in nyc and made a tiktok where they jokingly posed in front of all the paintings “they could’ve easily done themselves” and I knew scrolling through the comments would be a masochistic move even if the video itself was funny ,,, but I did it anyway and was punished for it 😭 like,,,

anyway,,, thinking about when Walter Benjamin said the rise of cinema and television and ad culture has led the masses to contemplate true art as a form of seeking out distraction:

“Reception of art now normally happens in a state of distraction. […] The public is an examiner, but an absent-minded one.”

People are no longer looking at art to seek but they’re looking at art to tell. Rothkos and Kleins don’t provide the adequate distraction for the public eye. The art and artists demand you seek outside of the work, or else it feels like a comical joke (if you’re not willing to do that). A joke that you’re not in on. Which is why so many people have so many problems with Modern Art.

Historicizing Art would tell you that the blue square was a completely new handmade pigment that had never been seen before! It was a completely new color that the artist had made! It would also tell you that the the technical level of artistry required to paint the blue completely smooth canvas was profound. Even the smallest brushstroke or fleck of dust on wet paint would cause texture and unwanted dimension. Furthermore, monochrome paintings were not common during this time. In fact Ives Klein’s blue square was one of the first of its kind. He wanted to viewer to spend a great deal of time with his paintings so that they would get lost in the color as one gets lost in the vastness of the ocean or the infiniteness of the sky. He wanted viewers to appreciate the color he so masterfully crafted. (he did not account for viewers looking at it for .2 seconds, scoffing abt how easy it looked to make, and then writing it off as a money laundering scheme) He not only invented a new painting but a new way to look at art. It’s a painting about the artists’ process, about his artistic mastery and level of skill. Its also about breaking the mold. That’s what it’s means. None of these things you could know from simply looking at the square. No one would expect you too. But asking questions, researching things that don’t make sense to you, talking to a museum curator, reading the wall text, popping onto to google, these are easy things to to do.

Also fun fact: A color blind Eddie Redmayne wrote his thesis on Ives Klein Blue because he was actually able to distinguish it from other hues for his Art History Thesis! That’s pretty cool!

Anyway, the point is, it makes me sad how quick people are to write off things they don’t understand. They don’t want to bother learning especially when it comes to art. Because the paintings no longer spell out exactly what is there and what it’s trying to say for the viewer, they become useless. Any further need for explanation is written off as pretentious. You don’t have to love modern art! But it would be nice if more people were at least open to trying to understand it a bit better.

#ARH talks #does this make me pretentious?? i don’t think so. #just because you don’t know or understand something doesn’t make it bad!! #and if we all asked questions instead of mocked #then everything would be a lot better around here a lot of the time!! #anyway everyone be proud of me I didn’t say anything on tiktok #i just took it to my tumblr blog lmaooo #but the thing is no one on tiktok would listen to me anyway as is evident from the comment section #rip the art history nerds out there who tried tho 🤧 fallen soldiers methinks #I’m with them in spirit and in the form of comment likes #one day I will be articulate enough to get all my thoughts out coherently ! #when though? cant say #nat speaks #ramblings