I just don't get it. At all.

[mawbroon]

Seriously???? WTAF?

Someone please explain it to me.

Re the paintings that look like photos, I am talking about old ones from the days before photocopiers etc like this for example.

livingatheendofthewall are your comments aimed at me? I think you misunderstand me.

Was this the grey painting?

Funnily enough, Gerhard Richter also painted these.

Husband is an artist. I have picked up an understanding of it by osmosis I think! Well not an understanding, more an appreciation. I know quite a lot about it now, she says smugly.

I appreciate not everyone 'gets' modern art, takes a bit of time and effort to be honest. If you open your mind to it, you never know you might see something you like or something you connect with.

Art doesn't have to be a chocolate box painting. There is a huge spectrum of stuff to consider.

Some modern art leaves me

However some can be amazing. Most of what I saw in the Tate did nothing for me, but one artist had exploded a tool shed, slow motion photographed the explosion, then recreated the mid point of the explosion by putting all the pieces on wires. Really genuinely amazing and it felt like time had stopped, mid boom.

Cornelia Parker < shows off >.

Saying that some art is just bollocks is like saying a particular musician's work is bollocks - someone like Philip Glass, say (not really up on music but ...). His work is challenging for a lot of people but so what?

And the op's example of what she likes is all well and good, and obv a fine example for its time and all, but why would artists today want to keep working in that fashion? It's like saying everyone should write like Shakespeare or Thomas Hardy!

I saw some Mat Collishaw's art work at the Manchester Gallery last week. At first the artwork was amusing, photos of food set in a very darkened background, which when I noticed 'something not quite right' drew me in closer, smiling at the cheeseburger and chips, Danish pastries etc.

I then read the write up , in an instance my mood changed. They were photos of the last meals of Death Row inmates. I suddenly felt incredibly sad.

Some art does nothing for me, I don't 'get' it, but then there will be a piece that will draw me in, it raises questions and sometimes it might answer, most of the time though I feel only half of the question is answered and its up to me to answer the rest. This is the type of art I like.

No, I don't get it either. Most of this type of stuff leaves me completely baffled.

A friend of mine is massively into modern art and is always banging on about all these amazing things he's seen while I'm sat there thinking "is it just me....?"

I see a child stuck in a jumper most mornings when DD2 has missed the neck hole again

Hands up everyone who thinks shoe phone man is vair attractive

Y'know, I really do wonder if it is just the way my brain is wired.

I don't enjoy reading fiction, I don't read often, but when I do, it is always non fiction. Again, I sometimes wish I could experience the feelings that some people describe about getting lost in a good book etc. I really have never experienced that.

Music does it for me, or at least some types of music. I play at a professional level and mostly play for enjoyment these days. I love that the music I play is very informal and I can just sit down with other musicians I have never met and play tunes with them - even at a paid gig. Sitting at home playing on my own is not really terribly exciting. The music I play has structure though, jigs, reels, marches etc and I love the way that two people can play the same tune, with the same notes, but they can play it totally differently. I am also interested in the names and history of the tunes and the regional variations etc

DS1 is really similar to me. From a very young age, he was clearly interested in facts and figures. He really didn't do very much imaginative play (thank goodness, because guess what, I hate it!!). DS2 is a bit more imaginative, but not anything like as much as some other kids.

But, as someone who's immersed in a particular type of music, do you feel scorn for musicians whose musical style is different from your own, or question their work as not fit to be called music?

Shotgun yes, sometimes. It's part of the job description as a parent

What happened to your eyebrows?

I had several layers of my skin ripped off below one of my eyebrow during waxing. I think the wax was too hot.

When I complained, the lassie came out with all sorts of shite including that I must have been ovulating from that side making my skin more sensitive.

Eh? What do

Sorry what does that mean?

But surely art requires something more than a quirkiness to become art? I mean, my horse is quirky and you could stare at him for hours and become quite engaged but he is not a piece of art, is he? Or perhaps if I charged people to come up and see him grazing in the field and called him "Horse With Green Background Grazing In Field" he would then become an engaging piece of art?

Perhaps if I wore a pair of trousers on my own head and walked about town all day, I could be a piece of artwork myself?

I do wonder whether it comes down to individual levels of gullibility. I studied A Level Art at school and really enjoyed History of Art. I must admit I initially struggled with Turner until I was on the beach in a storm one day. I can even appreciate some of the more esoteric modern art. But much of it comes across to me as trying too hard to do something different. And gives me a headache. Some of it makes Neanderthal cave paintings far more resonant.

What does what mean? The eyebrow bit? Somebody mentioned it near the beginning of the thread as they remembered me posting about it around 4 years ago!!

Or the bit about it being part of a parents job to dismiss the music that their kids listen to as rubbish?

Some art is about encouraging the viewer think or feel, rather than being aesthetically pleasing.
That's riskier, because obviously you can't make everyone think or feel - some people are going to be in a frame of mind where it reaches them, and some aren't. And the same person who isn't one day, might be on another. So the work is going to fall very very flat with many people. But that is OK, because it isn't commercial art, and it isn't about trying to appeal to as many people as possible. Sometimes it might also be about 'having a conversation' with people who are already interested in the idea it wants to express, whereas other times it might be about shocking or at least stopping someone who hasn't ever thought about the idea before. Even if that person ends up rejecting the piece of work, maybe the artist has opened up a tiny conversation with them, and that's a success.

As for the idea of reproductions, it isn't just about financial value. There is a difference between a mass reproduction and the original. I have a favourite oil painter, and I thought I loved his paintings and I have always had a print by him on my wall. The first time I saw one of his actual paintings up close, and saw the texture and the layering of the paint, I was blown away, it was different. Not to mention the difference of seeing the work that an artist actually touched, and knowing that other people, maybe for hundreds of years, have looked at the same object. (There is a classic essay about this called The Work of Art in the Era of Mechanical Reproduction - here's a link to it actually - www.mariabuszek.com/kcai/PoMoSeminar/Readings/BenjRepro.pdf )

It's like saying that seeing Stonehenge or the Grand Canyon on the TV is just the same as being there in person. I know some people feel this way, but for me personally, I still want to see the real thing.

walksacrossthesand Hands up everyone who thinks shoe phone man is vair attractive

Looks like an average wrinkled middle aged man to me.

I'm clearly far too literal for art. I prefer the Greek god type.

mawbroon I did mean the bit about the parents' job - but I was asking you about music generally, although I suppose I had 'modern' music in mind (not modern as in pop chart material).

Melonaidagain, you're not an artist, so no, you couldn't do any of those things and call yourself a work of art .

Well, 4' 33" leaves me as confused as the art in my OP.

Ah yes but we're talking extremes again. What about someone like Phillip Glass? Or Débussy whose work I believe was slammed as 'not music?'
I could think of more examples if I knew much about music or cba.

I actually studied classical music for a couple of years. It wasn't my idea and I didn't really want to be there, but that's another story.

I am pretty meh about most of it tbh, both listening and playing it. What I am interested in is some of the early music like Bach. What I like are the patterns and structure of the music, rather than enjoyment from how the music makes me feel IYSWIM. One thing I particularly like is Mozart's table music Not so much for the tune and harmonies, which are very simple, but for the sheer genius of being able to write a piece of music where the two violinists play from the same sheet of music, but upside down from each other.

The music I play is full of patterns and some of it is not dissimilar to snippets of Bach but it is also very musical. This is probably why it appeals to my brain which seems to enjoy logic and order rather than anything abstract.

What was the name of that artist that did all the drawings which kind of mess with your brain? I seem to remember a staircase that kept flipping from up to down when you looked at it and it didn't go anywhere, it just kept joining back on to itself. I like that. Argh, does anyone know who I mean? Black and white drawings.

Esher! That's who I mean.