Those who defend modern art often claim that it needs the context of history and the artist’s purpose to be appreciated. As Tom Wolfe wrote in The Painted Word, “I had gotten it backward all along. Not ‘seeing is believing,’ you ninny, but ‘believing is seeing,’ for modern art has become completely literary: the paintings and other works exist only to illustrate the text.” The “text” refers to the context of the piece, usually a description of the work next to the painting in an art gallery.
One might read the faux-profound description and say, “It’s still just a bunch of scribbles,” then receive ad hominem accusations of being ignorant, uncultured, or close-minded.
People may think something has artistic value just by virtue of being displayed in a museum — especially since so many collectors, appreciators, and curators play along with pretending that “My Bed” is a masterpiece of profound substance — yet if “My Bed” remained in Tracey Emin’s bedroom instead of being displayed in the Tate Gallery, onlookers would have simply concluded that she needed to clean up.
A description on the wall may provide an interesting story, but this is incidental; the art should be able to speak for itself without the aid of context.
Picasso himself confessed that he didn’t consider himself a real artist; though he had talent, which is most apparent in his early work, he essentially admitted that the modern art movement is a scam:
“In the arts…the refined, the rich, the indolent…seek the new, the unusual, the original, the extravagant, the shocking. And I, since cubism and beyond, have satisfied these gentlemen…with all the various whims which have entered my head, and the less they understood them, the more they admired. By amusing myself at these games…I became famous quite rapidly. And celebrity means for a painter: sales increment, money, wealth. Today…I am famous and very rich. But when completely alone with myself, I haven’t the nerve to consider myself an artist in the great and ancient sense of the word. There have been great painters like Giotto, Titian, Rembrandt and Goya. I am only a public entertainer who has understood his time. This is a bitter confession…but it has the merit of being sincere.”
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In the documentary My Kid Could Paint That, a four-year-old girl is praised as a child prodigy of abstract art. Hidden cameras were placed in her room when she was painting, and a child psychologist observing the girl concluded that she was not a prodigy, but a regular child painting a picture with encouragement from her parents. In the ABC special “You Call That Art?” artists, curators, and art historians were asked which works were modern masterpieces and which were created by children. All of them chose at least one child’s painting as a “masterpiece.”
Self-promoting websites like Facebook and Instagram have also allowed many amateur artists, photographers, and musicians to share their work and gain online followings; in the postmodern world, not only is everything art, but everyone is an artist…and thus, skill and beauty lose their true significance.
Sophisticated Innocence 