Bad Art

[Princess Dala]

i don't know. the mary todd lincoln portrait is actually pretty inspired; the composition is pretty good and the colors work. the poinsettias are a little weird, but then again, i've seen less harmonious mixed media stuff exhibited in what appeared to be complete seriousness and pomposity.

the alternate-perspective boob is a little jarring, but otherwise, the gilded nude piece is kinda Duchampesque. with a big ol' fauvist boob stuck on it. if that doesn't invite some deep metaphorical analysis, i don't know what does.

lol. at least the mobites are ecumenical. bizarre/humorous subject matter and weirdo color schemes get equal billing with complete technical ineptitutde.

goes to show that "subjective aesthetics" doesn't adequately describes the 'wtf makes art good/bad?' conundrum, though. i think that a successful piece of art isn't necessarily pretty or harmonious, but proof of circumstantial mastery. some of the ‘bad’ paintings on the site are actually incredibly good, and not because the artist knew body proportions or how to shade right (though some of them obviously did).

You can take that in several different directions. sometimes elegant design and technical proficiency are the aims; in these cases, a cigar really is a cigar. or a big metallic balloon dog. other times, your artist is trying to make you think, make you laugh, or otherwise manipulate your emotions or whatever, which is a lot harder to manage without sacrificing subtlety and/or economy of meaning and going straight into obviousnessland on one hand, or meaninglessnessland on the other.

this is where the 'paint splotches are not art!' indignance comes into play, because i suppose it is possible for someone who's really good at headgames and really terrible with a paintbrush to meet their 'artistic' goals by trolling your dropcloths. the piss christ springs to mind here, but like most shock art, that was too literal to pass my minimum art complexity standards. or maybe it was really ****ing deep and i missed the point, but whatever.

Alberti was pretty big on how the best painters were able to transcend limited space, time, and dimension to convey a world of ideas in a fragment of wall or canvas. even though our modern (postmodern, whatever) views of what constitutes valid artistic expression have changed since then, it's still pretty clear that you have to know the visual rules very well in order to break or manipulate them in original, meaningful, and audience-effective ways. you can, after all, have a piece that perfectly fulfills the aims of the artist in terms of appearance and viewer response, yet is an absolute horror to look at. often, these pieces are also technically brilliant, though it may not be readily apparent at first.

you can also have an amateurish mashup that is not only tolerable, but kinda easy on the eyes. i think the difference lies in the intent of the artist and his or her ability to follow through on those aims. Self-awareness enters into it, too, as it's a lot more difficult to ridicule an artist who knows where they ****ed up and why. xD