this post was submitted on 14 Nov 2025
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History Memes

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[–] PugJesus@piefed.social 22 points 2 months ago

Explanation: The Soviet Union put some fairly stringent restrictions on art, out of a bizarre idea that certain styles, even absent any offensive themes, were 'bourgeois'. While this attitude softened temporarily under Khrushchev in the 1950s (though Khrushchev also famously despised the abstract art movements of the period), 'Soviet Realism' remained the dominant style pushed by the Soviets and their puppets.

For that reason, the US found supporting abstract art a useful way to create a wedge between the Soviet Union and artistic circles.

At the same time, as governments are very often not monolithic structures, but consisting of numerous institutions with their own portfolios and aims, some of which are subsumed by shockingly clientistic-feudal networks headed by a small number of influential bureaucrats, the FBI under Edgar Hoover was investigating these selfsame artistic circles, hoping to find something just lawful enough to charge them with. Anything to satisfy the FBI's conservative urge to penalize dangerous free-thinkers.

[–] TheBat@lemmy.world 12 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I've heard that modern art was a response to proliferation of photography.

There's already a device that can capture faces and landscapes in seconds so what's the point in painting them. So this gave rise to expressionism, cubism, abstract art etc.

Don't know of this is true or pop culture myth.

[–] Ilovethebomb@sh.itjust.works 10 points 2 months ago

I'm certain it would have been a factor.

[–] Skullgrid@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Fuck Jackson Pollock. All real homies hate Jackson Pollock.

You know why people don't care if things are AI art or not? Blame Pollock and useless, unimaginative, lazy modern art like him, and Damien Hurst and his formaldehyde fish tanks, and the banana tape guy.

[–] bloup 10 points 2 months ago (1 children)

As an artist and philosopher, I find this comment extremely ironic as you have identified some of the artwork which I find the most valuable and thought-provoking.

[–] Skullgrid@lemmy.world -5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

you and your opinion suck, and it's because of people like you defending those shitheads that the roosters have come home to roost for artists.

Go look at some blank paintings

[–] bloup 10 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Thinking deeply about these artworks has literally helped me understand the world better so what do I do with that knowledge?Just throw it away?

[–] Skullgrid@lemmy.world -3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

admit that they are thought exercises and move on with your life.

[–] bloup 8 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

The problem is part of my life is being an artist which means incorporating the things I’ve learned that I want people to understand into my artistic work.

Have you ever considered that artist don’t actually owe you something?

[–] Skullgrid@lemmy.world -3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

do you know what a thought exercise is? You're saying that you derived ideas from the works you cited, which is the entire point of a thought exercise. A thought exercise or an experiment in technique is different to a finished work; these fucking people belong in textbooks for artists, not museums, because they are not expressing anything. If you're getting some emotions expressed at you from these works, you most likely get them from blank walls and stains in wood as well; you are the artist in that situation, not them.

Have you ever considered that artist don’t actually owe you something?

They owe me loads; I paid taxes which housed the works that pushed out the curative attention that society has a limited amount of, over works that would have been much more deserving and poisoned YOUR OWN FIELD OF ENDEAVOUR.

Those fucking people literally ruined the world of paintings, and you're there continuing to encourage them.

[–] bloup 8 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

so you think that the purpose of visual arts is literally nothing more than to express emotions and aesthetic beauty? Is that seriously the only kind of “expression” that you can imagine?

Something to think about: here is an artist very clearly explaining to you that they got something out of these works that you obviously missed or did not perceive and you’re not even a little bit curious as to what it might be, already deciding that there is no way there is anything of value there, and I think that’s just very unfortunate

[–] Skullgrid@lemmy.world 0 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

so you think that the purpose of visual arts is literally nothing more than to express emotions and aesthetic beauty?

I actually indicated that there is another aspect to it, but since you're not pointing out your ideas completely, I'll let you go back to my post and see if you can get it through the non-subtly expressed text I wrote.

here is an artist very clearly explaining to you that they got something out of these works that you obviously missed or did not perceive and you’re not even a little bit curious as to what it might be, already deciding that there is no way there is anything of value there, and I think that’s just very unfortunate

Yeah, I'd care if the works were distinct enough to express different emotions instead of "I dumped the paint on the canvas randomly, without fine motor control, good thing I have buds in the CIA" which, BTW is the point of this thread.

[–] bloup 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

You literally said to me that as far as you can perceive, the works you cited are “not expressing anything” and then compared it to the emotional experience of staring at a blank wall. I really don’t know how I’m supposed to read this other than that you think these works of art are pointless because they don’t inspire emotions within you and that you literally have not wrapped your head around the things that they are actually expressing

[–] Skullgrid@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago

Well, here's the thing. There is a story about a writing assignment, where a student is asked to describe a street. They find it difficult. So the teacher asks them to describe a house. They still struggle. The teacher asks them to describe a wall. They still struggle. The teacher asks them to describe a brick. The student finds all kinds of interesting details to describe in the brick due to its texture, shapes of pores, etc.

The thing that you are missing is that the world around us is full of minuscule details and things that can spark our imagination and show us things if we sit there and consider them. These things are not created by auteurs, they simply exist, and its up to us to look at them in detail, and due to our humanity, we can extrapolate all kinds of ideas from them.

When I say "those works are not expressing anything" I am saying that the majority of the expression is being done by the interpreter. The same interpreter could look at a blank wall, and due to the details within that wall, they could see and think about all kinds of different things.

When someone goes for a walk in a naturally occurring forest, they have lots of different thoughts and emotions. Who is the artist?

My proposition is that if you actually have the balls to call yourself a artist, you need to put in some actual fucking effort and actually do something better than a brick does by existing. Because if you don't , and what you make gets called art, it destroys the fucking meaning of the word ART, since if everything is art, nothing is art; since nothing separates things that are art from things that are not art.

The other point you are completely missing is that these works have value as instruction materials and thought experiments within the world of art to DEVELOP techniques; these works are unfinished and need to be contextualized in different ways in order to achieve something beyond possible techniques of applying paint to canvas. Take for example 4:33 by Cage; it is an effortless piece of shit that anyone can recreate, but it has value as a teaching material to let you be aware that silence in music is important, ambiental sounds can participate with and color your art in different ways, etc etc. It is not an expressive piece of music, but in terms of being a thought experiment to teach musicians, it's very useful.