It’s been a while since I’ve posted. I guess I say this every time, but I only post when I have something to say, and today is no different.

My dad sent me a couple of YouTube videos today. The first was called “Why is Modern Art So Bad?” and the second was called “Biggest Difference Between Bad Art and Great Art by UCLA Professor Richard Walter.” Feel free to look them up, I don’t think it’s important to watch them to follow along here. The first one was posted by a media organization that espouses views I strongly disagree with so I will not give them the exposure.

Though the two videos are very different in tone, they make some of the same points. They’re both asking us to accept these truths:

  • There is “good art” and “bad art”

  • The difference between “good art” and “bad art” can be quantified

  • There is a direct causal relationship between “good art” and an emotional effect on you, the viewer, or on the world

  • Bad art is bad and should be avoided, if not expunged somehow

I’ll first address the themes of the first video, whose thesis seemed to be that art was only good until it was ruined by the impressionists and that all so-called “modern art” is lazy trash with no intrinsic value.

There was a pretty strong undertone of “things used to be good and now they’re not,” which is a popular conservative talking point. Haven’t people always, throughout time, made shitty art? I mean, you can absolutely tack a banana peel to the wall and call it art, which has been done recently. But Duchamp put a urinal on display and called it art in 1917 and people are still talking about it. Is it art? You tell me.

A lot is said about Michelangelo’s sculpture and paintings in the video. One thing that changed since Michelangelo was alive is that artists aren’t finding themselves employed for years to create their works. We don’t have a big patronage economy, or the Church employing a hundred guys to carve marble for, like, their whole lives. Maybe some of that representational content was influenced by the benefactors. Wait, money talks??

Yes. Money talks. “And bullshit walks,” as they say.

Is a zoomed-in piece of your studio apron a piece of art? I don’t know, is a photograph of it a piece of art? Is a photograph of anything a piece of art? Ponder that!

Art is more than what it is. Art is a language. It matters who made it, and it matters why they made it. It’s the reason people care about provenance and storytelling and the cultural zeitgeist that art inhabits. It’s the reason “AI generated art” is so contentious. It can be beautiful and still be meaningless and empty. Your apron is just your apron, but if you stretch it onto a canvas frame maybe now it’s art. That’s up to you.

The video felt like it was saying that there is a type of expression that is undeserving of the term “art.” That we should, perhaps, silence those voices. If a statue of a person peeing is offensive to you, well, maybe you are the person who is meant to see it? That’s called freedom of speech; you can always walk away. Change the channel. Read a different book.

• • •

The second video is an interview with a film professor so it’s a bit more oriented toward the art of cinema. He said that his definition of “great art” is something that “changes his life forever.” He said Breaking Bad met that bar.

In my opinion, whether art changes your life forever is something only you can know, and having had that happen is no guarantee that it will have the same effect on anyone else. I loved Breaking Bad so much that I watched it twice. But it didn’t change my life forever. Does that mean it’s not great art?

Maybe the main issue that I have with most of these essays is that you have some old dude who is a professor at a nice school like UCLA who is saying “There’s totally great art, and you know what, I can instantly identify it.” Well good for you, buddy. It must be fun to be so enlightened.

It’s not so much of a stretch to say “If it hangs in the Met it’s great art.” But I’m sure, given an afternoon, I could find one piece in that museum that I find boring. Actually, that’s not even a hypothesis, I’m certain that I could find a handful of pieces I find boring.

There’s also the question of what we mean by “great.” Plenty of art hung in prestigious museums is not technically impressive, but is significant for another historical or cultural reason. Pollock, obviously (though harder to make than laymen imagine), but what of Rothko? I mean, give me a few months, I’ll figure out how to make a very convincing Rothko. But it won’t be a Rothko. If all art was imbued with value solely by its appearance, it’d all be “Untitled #2” and there wouldn’t be audio tours of art museums. Art is a cultural artifact.

The guy in this video is saying “if it doesn’t move me, I’m not into it.” That’s fine, I feel the same way, but that’s not the sole criteria that museums use for hanging pieces. Imagine if all the art in the Met had to move someone emotionally to get on the wall. You think the curator is in tears, all day, every day, at their desk? Just absolutely gobsmacked by everything coming in? I doubt it very much.

There’s always been a lot of gatekeeping in art. Everyone thinks they have the best and most correct opinion. I think the best thing about art is that everyone is entitled to theirs.