Most Overrated Artists...

Sefarst

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I'm certainly no expert and maybe a bit of a Philistine, but I do see paintings and sculptures that I like from time to time and have even bought two original paintings from a local artist. I've been to museums and galleries and usually enjoy myself.

That said, I'm currently reading The Art of the Steal, a book about the price-fixing scandal of the 90's between Sotheby's and Christie's auction houses. Throughout the book, prices from various auctions are recorded for certain pieces. Seeing some of the huge price tags on these paintings got me to googling, expecting to be blown away by the top pieces. I was very disappointed.

Anyway, this thread is for art that people rant and rave about, but when you go see it, you're surprised anyone would even give a passing mention to that piece of crap.

My vote goes for Jackson Pollock and his painting Number 22, which apparently sold for $1.7 million at auction.

Num_22.jpg


Total crap...
 
I dunno... the problem is that the only artists for whom I've studied extensive examples of have been artists I like, and therefore don't think are overrated.

Although I do recall being disappointed at some of Van Gogh's stuff when I went to the Chicago Institute of Art. But that's not the same as thinking the guy's overrated; I can only say that a few of his works just didn't lift me. Then again, I was spending most of my time in that area grokking on the few Chagalls that were there, so it's not like I really studied his stuff.

Moving outside of painting: Who's that guy who's art is to cover everything in cloth? There's an example for ya.

Another example of a specific piece, and not an artist's entire range of work, but I've always wondered what the hell the big deal was behind Serrano's "Piss Christ". One fan tried to defend it to me by gushing about the saturation of the colors he achieved, but achieving a certain level of piss yellow in a photograph is just not an accomplishment in my mind. Anyway, I've never seen the piece as being anything more than an agitprop piece, nothing more. But that may not be an adequate reply to the OP, since again, this was my take on one specific piece, and not the whole "canon" from that photographer.

Do we want to move outside visual arts? If composers count: I've always thought that Mozart operas were overrated. As a lighting jockey in my undergrad days, I had to suffer through some examples of his stuff. Marriage of Figaro really stands out in my mind, since it was the opera we openly brought pillows backstage and to the spotlight enclaves for; the deal was we'd be canned if we missed the very few lighting queues we had, and someone had to stay awake to answer the tech and the lighting director. But the management didn't even try to maintain any fiction that many of us, for a show with so few real queues, would actually not drop off.

But again, I've not sampled all of Mozart's operas. I'm told that specifically, I'd need to see Magic Flute and Cosi fan Tutte before passing judgement. And I did end up liking Don Giovanni when we did that show.

I can think of a few pieces of "modern" sculpture I've seen advertised in magazines and on the web as inducing a "what's the big deal" reaction in me. But I can't recall the artists responsible for those off the top of my head here.

Scattershot response, I know.
 
I'm been an artist for as long as I can remember. I don't collect art though, I just produce it, and I do not consider myself to be an art critic. I don't want to name any artists or their works in particular, but I do want to mention a trend I've noticed.

Anyway, one trend I've noticed among artists here in New York and elsewhere, and I honestly do not know how long this has been going on, is to use the word "quantum" to describe their works. This seems to be related in part to what we skeptics discuss here, how "quantum" is so often abused and misused to support woo beliefs. When it comes to art though, the word "quantum" is used in a manner to suggest a piece of art has some kind of depth and modernity that "non-quantum" art is lacking in. While I've seen some half-way decent "quantum" art, I've studied the "quantum" art of a local, successful painter who claims he combines quantum physics with Islamic Sufi inspiration to make his bold artistic works. This artist is of Pakistani heritage. In the very least I found I could not "understand" this man's works, but I hated the idea of to jumping to conclusions and dismissing his work as "garbage" being sold at inflated prices.

So I consulted a very talented artist friend of mine, who is of Pakistani heritage, and asked her what she thought of his works. She told me he is lacking in talent and his work is nothing but "garbage". She told me not to believe the quantum nonsense or anything about the Islamic influence. Even before talking to her I knew I would never buy his artwork.

Art can often be so subjective that it can never be rated "good" or "bad" in any absolute sense. However, most people can recognize talent when they see it. If I don't understand a piece of art or I think it is bad, I don't deny that it may be due to my own shortcomings.

My belief though is that most "quantum" art usually has very little, if anything to do with quantum physics. There is often no more depth to quantum inspired art than non-quantum inspired art. I'm sure maybe there are some artists who do find inspiration for great art in quantum mechanics(some of the ideas can be "mind-expanding" or "consciousness-raising" or "surreal"), but I've encountered very few of them. It just seems like a way to help get your art more noticed, by using a buzzword to hype it, and perhaps the less talented the artist is, the more they cling to words like "quantum"(note: I haven't seen the new James Bond movie. The use of "quantum" in this movie's title may or may not be related to what I am talking about.)

This use of "quantum" though is quite harmless when compared to how it is used by some alternative medicine practitioners.

As for the Pollock work, I agree with your sentiments.
 
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Sefarst said:
My vote goes for Jackson Pollock and his painting Number 22, which apparently sold for $1.7 million at auction.

Total crap...
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Oh Sefarst, don't you know? All art is crap!

Well, all art that people pay millions of dollars for, anyway. And by that I mean that there is nothing inherent in art that makes it worth that much money.

There is one reason and one reason only that some art pieces are traded for millions; the speculation that someone in the future might pay more. It has nothing to do with any 'artistic' merit of the piece in question.

There, I've said it.
 
logical muse said:
Oh Sefarst, don't you know? All art is crap!

Well, all art that people pay millions of dollars for, anyway. And by that I mean that there is nothing inherent in art that makes it worth that much money.

There is one reason and one reason only that some art pieces are traded for millions; the speculation that someone in the future might pay more. It has nothing to do with any 'artistic' merit of the piece in question.

There, I've said it.
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Or, because someone really, really wants to possess it.
 
I agree completely with a previous post that judgements of good and bad are subjective. However, itseems sometimes people place high value on art because it demonstrates an original concept. I just would not place high monetary value on something that is original that anyone could do. I think Pollacks paintings are a good example. I remember in the 90s a guy who defacated in a tin can. Perhaps original but any 4 year old can do.
 
I haven't really paid much attention for some years now, but I must say that I have never seen any abstract-expressionist items that I thought were even interesting.
My favorite "over-rated" genre is minimalism. Covering a canvas with say, red paint and then saying clever things like "it's about the paint, not the image" is neither art nor is it clever or original.

As to what sells for what....Obviously determined by the market, rather than any intrinsic value of the work itself. Like all collector's markets, items greatly rise or fall in price due to fads, trends, availability, notoriety of the artist, and that sort of thing.
 
Aha! I just remembered an artist for whom I managed to see a fair amount of his works and walked away openly irritated. Not just disappointed, not just unimpressed, but actually aggravated.

Ed Ruscha.

The day my friends and I went to the Art Institute of Chicago (I need to stop calling it the Chicago Institute of Art, even though I somehow managed to remember it that way... CIA, chuckle chuckle...), we took in his exhibit. And I remember looking at this B&W studies, like his "Twentysix Gasoline Stations" or "Some Los Angeles Apartments" and thinking "WTF?? These are not only not interesting, they're worse than some of my first year attempts at photography!". For someone like me who's made a study of Cartier-Bresson, I cannot stand that he has such a static, stiff, dead feel to his work. His stuff looked like a mise-en-place assembled by a 5 year old. And for someone like me who's worshipped at the altar of Ansel Adams, I despise people who cannot control their exposures to the point that their shadow detail consistently washes out WITHOUT getting interesting highlights. It's as if he found a way to lose both ends of the exposure curve. If that's expertise, I'd rather be an amateur for the rest of my life. And if that's art, I'd rather be pedestrian in my own photography.

I also took in some of his other stuff - like his paintings - and remembered thinking "Wow... Warhol lite".

I know I'm coming off as harsh, but it's an honest reaction to his work. I remember really being aggravated that I spent time looking at his work. It's a very rare thing to happen to me, but I was distincly upset that I 1. Was at first excited to see the AIC have a photography exhibit, and 2. Ended up wasting time I could've spent looking at other stuff. Because like most museums, the Art Institute in Chicago can't exactly be taken in in just a single, abbreviated afternoon.

Yeah, harsh, I know... but that's what I walked away thinking. Across the works that were displayed there that day he was, in my eyes, vastly and terribly overrated.
 
Sefarst said:
...

[qimg]http://www.uwgb.edu/malloyk/Num_22.jpg[/qimg]

Total crap...
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Looks good to me. Color combinations handsome. Squiggles are musical--not all squiggles seem musical to me. suggestion of a vortex, with black dot near center...

a_unique_person said:
[qimg]http://rawartint.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/koons.jpg[/qimg]

:confused:
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kittnh...? sorry name misspell, I think, said Koons is her favorite artist...
 
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seayakin said:
I agree completely with a previous post that judgements of good and bad are subjective. However, itseems sometimes people place high value on art because it demonstrates an original concept. I just would not place high monetary value on something that is original that anyone could do. I think Pollacks paintings are a good example. I remember in the 90s a guy who defacated in a tin can. Perhaps original but any 4 year old can do.
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I assume you're thinking of Piero Manzoni's 1961 Artist's ****.

In that case, that's really a parody and critique of the very art market that's baffling people in this thread. He sold his supposed excrement (it's unknown whether that's actually what's in the cans) at the gram-for-gram price of gold. And the museums bought it.
 
"Which artists are the most overrated?"

Based on what?

An objective scale?

A subjective scale?

The latter is rather pointless. Some like apples, other like oranges. The former is much more interesting.
 
Professor Yaffle said:
Tracy Emin.
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Oh god. Words cannot express how much I loathe this talentless hack. Crawl back under the rock you came from, you vile, waste of space artist that makes me sick to my stomach that people like you can get rich from something they have absolutely no ability in.
 
The vast majority of "abstract art" artists peddling works that could have just as easily been painted by a pig w/a paintbrush. :rolleyes:
 
Years back I was dragged around a huge exhibition of paintings by a bunch of Russians who had followed where Kandinsky led. For me the most interesting part of the exhibition was reading the biographies of the artists: "arrested by the NKVD and shot, 1935"... "arrested by the NKVD and shot, 1937"... I left the place unmoved by the paintings on display, but having a much higher appreciation of Beria as an art critic.
 
In my limited experience, the more in depth and elaborate the artists' statement are and the more they emphasize their creative process, the more likely it is they're compensating for a lack of quality.
 
My mother puts up a Norman Rockwell calendar every year, and I've never understood why people thought those images were pleasant to look at. He has a great talent for making people look absolutely hideous: a mass of wrinkles and bumps. And of course the idealized pictures of American life are boring.
 
logical muse said:
Oh Sefarst, don't you know? All art is crap!

Well, all art that people pay millions of dollars for, anyway. And by that I mean that there is nothing inherent in art that makes it worth that much money.

There is one reason and one reason only that some art pieces are traded for millions; the speculation that someone in the future might pay more. It has nothing to do with any 'artistic' merit of the piece in question.

There, I've said it.
Click to expand...

I agree to an extent in that art doesn't necessarily have any inherent value or usefulness, but I think it deserves some value for its uniqueness. Similar to jewelry, which also doesn't have any true usefulness, I want to say that art derives its value because it represents techniques and imagery that can never again be re-captured.

But paintings like Pollock's, though unique I suppose (in the sense that no one will ever again drip and splash paint onto a canvas in exactly the same way), represent to me pure hype. It seems that every so often, the art world gets bored with carefully constructed masterpieces that pay careful attention to contrast, forms, shadow, etc. and get excited about nonsense (or maybe I just don't get it). This sort of art appears to get the value it does only because high-brow art society types have said it's good.

Because art doesn't have any true practical use, it can get away with anything. In architecture, you can put expression and emotion into a building, but at the end of the day, you're limited by the fact that the building actually has to stand up and be functional. You can put emotion and expression into music, but at the end of the day you are limited by rhythm, meter, and key.

I guess what I'm confused by is why we have art schools when many of the standards of what is "good" are defined by minimalism, abstract expressionism, and so on? Why are paintings and sculptures judged differently than we would a piece of music? A minimalist painting with the entire canvas painted red would seem to me the equivalent of a musician picking up an instrument and sustaining a single note for an entire piece. The Pollock equivalent in music might be a musician randomly banging cymbals and playing wild notes on dozens of instruments and calling it a symphony.

I'm aware that it's mostly subjective, but there has to be some aspect that is at least partially objective. Otherwise we wouldn't have art critics.

My question: Is art really a discipline?
 
quixotecoyote said:
In my limited experience, the more in depth and elaborate the artists' statement are and the more they emphasize their creative process, the more likely it is they're compensating for a lack of quality.
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I have to agree. If you're an artist that has to go to your exhibitions and stand by your paintings explaining what they mean, you're defeating the purpose of the art which, to me, seems to be to portray a certain idea. If the painting or sculpture can't do that without you explaining it, you've failed.
 
Sefarst said:
I agree to an extent in that art doesn't necessarily have any inherent value or usefulness, but I think it deserves some value for its uniqueness. Similar to jewelry, which also doesn't have any true usefulness, I want to say that art derives its value because it represents techniques and imagery that can never again be re-captured.

But paintings like Pollock's, though unique I suppose (in the sense that no one will ever again drip and splash paint onto a canvas in exactly the same way), represent to me pure hype. It seems that every so often, the art world gets bored with carefully constructed masterpieces that pay careful attention to contrast, forms, shadow, etc. and get excited about nonsense (or maybe I just don't get it). This sort of art appears to get the value it does only because high-brow art society types have said it's good.

Because art doesn't have any true practical use, it can get away with anything. In architecture, you can put expression and emotion into a building, but at the end of the day, you're limited by the fact that the building actually has to stand up and be functional. You can put emotion and expression into music, but at the end of the day you are limited by rhythm, meter, and key.

?
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Actually,there are many works of music that are the musical equivalent of many of the works spoken of above - and they are not held prisoner to rhythm, meter and/or key. And they are played on occasion.
 
I think Pollock produced some great art. Including Number 22. I guess I'm in the minority here on that issue; well, opinions, ********, etc.

Wikipedia tells me that this is the second most expensive painting every sold:
Woman3.jpg

It's not that I don't like it, but ... 137 million dollars? Really?
 
Gregory said:
I think Pollock produced some great art. Including Number 22. I guess I'm in the minority here on that issue; well, opinions, ********, etc.

Wikipedia tells me that this is the second most expensive painting every sold:

It's not that I don't like it, but ... 137 million dollars? Really?
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That's what I'm saying. Art is art; love it, hate it, be indifferent, just don't think it's worth $137,000,000.00. Try unloading that piece now there's a global financial crisis going on, and see how much it's "worth".
 
fuelair said:
Actually,there are many works of music that are the musical equivalent of many of the works spoken of above - and they are not held prisoner to rhythm, meter and/or key. And they are played on occasion.
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That would be the anti-music called hip-hop, rap and country.
 
Back when I was listening to the local jazz station every night on the midnight watch, (due to the lack of anything else...) they would play pretty much staightforward stuff early, then get more and more "outside" as the night wore on.
You always knew you were in trouble when the DJ would say things like, "These guys are actually good musicians and they really do know what they're doing..."

Then they would launch into a "progressive" piece that sounded for all the world like a group of 10-year-olds had been given a bunch of instruments and told to "make noise".

Then, to go along with "minimalist" art, we had "minimalist" music.
The "broken record" school of composing....
 
One thing missed here is that individual works of art don't exist in a vacuum.

The pieces we're walking about here are a part of many histories:
The history of that artist's work, where it came from and where it went
The history of a an art movement.
The history of our visual world in general and how these "overrated artists" became the influence for the designers who created the clothes you wear and the buildings of our cities.

The art market is Bull, just like all markets are bull (what is a barrel of oil really worth?).

I don't have any sort of money at all, but if I did, I would gladly pay for a mediocre peice by an artist with an interesting carreer, knowing that it was part of the story.

Just like an old baseball is neither more beautiful or useful than a $5 one from the corner store, if it had been hit by Babe Ruth, I think people would be willing to pay a bit for it.
 
On the subject of "If it requires explanation, it's bad art"

That is such rubbish!

Are you saying that anyone can enjoy James Joyce without a bit of special eduction and outside preparation? How about Chaucer? Proust? Pynchon? Foster Wallace?

The best things that art can give you often require a bit of work to tease out, not because they were deliberately hidden, but because they are complex rewards that can always be accessed that way.

Good visual art can be every bit as serious as literature, and may have a barrier of entry that requires you to KNOW something to appreciate it.
 
Andy Warhol is overrated, in my opinion. I'm not saying that he didn't have some good ideas, but I think he gets more credit than he deserves. Um, deserved. Whatever.

I see the parallel with music though. I personally enjoy some of the more experimental, avante-garde music. And I enjoy some abstract art as well. I remain quite impressed with Pollock's Blue Poles which is still hanging in the National Gallery of Australia.

But art is worth what someone is willing to pay for it. If someone is willing to pay thirteen million dollars for something, who am I to say whether that's ridiculous? It's that person's choice to pay that much, not mine.
 
Cavemonster said:
Just like an old baseball is neither more beautiful or useful than a $5 one from the corner store, if it had been hit by Babe Ruth, I think people would be willing to pay a bit for it.
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But Babe Ruth is independently famous and talented without that baseball. The baseball is valuable because it was hit by a famous, talented guy. The guy was famous because he could play a game well.

In the case of art, however, that argument becomes circular. An artist derives his fame from pictures, so how can the pictures derive their value from the fame of the artist? There needs to be something about the painting itself that gives it value independently from the artist (unless the artist is someone like Hitler, in which case the paintings would derive their value similar to your Babe Ruth example because Hitler is famous for things independent of his artwork). I would think that should be the quality of the work.

I agree that the art market is made of a lot of bull, but I don't agree that it's entirely bull or that all markets are bull.
 
Pablo Picasso (I expect no one to agree. All art is subjective.)

Oh, and for music...Kanye West
 
Cavemonster said:
On the subject of "If it requires explanation, it's bad art"

That is such rubbish!

Are you saying that anyone can enjoy James Joyce without a bit of special eduction and outside preparation? How about Chaucer? Proust? Pynchon? Foster Wallace?
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I think that if Sefarst and I were saying that, we would have said it ourselves.
 
Cavemonster said:
Good visual art can be every bit as serious as literature, and may have a barrier of entry that requires you to KNOW something to appreciate it.
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I don't disagree with you. For instance, I probably wouldn't be able to "figure out" Picasso's Guernica without knowing something about the Spanish Civil War. Just as I might regard Huck Finn as a pointless children's story if I wasn't familiar with American history and literary traditions.

Compare that with my pet example of Jackson Pollock. Even the titles of many of Pollock's paintings give us no clue as to what they are suppose to be about. From wikipedia:

Wikipedia said:
Pollock wanted an end to the viewer's search for representational elements in his paintings, thus he abandoned naming them and started numbering them instead. Of this, Pollock commented: "...look passively and try to receive what the painting has to offer and not bring a subject matter or preconceived idea of what they are to be looking for." Pollock's wife, Lee Krasner, said Pollock "used to give his pictures conventional titles... but now he simply numbers them. Numbers are neutral. They make people look at a picture for what it is - pure painting."
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He encourages me to "look passively" and not bring a preconceived idea to the painting. He wants me to look at a picture as just a pure painting. He doesn't even give me a title to work with, just a number. Maybe we could say that Pollock wanted his paintings to bring something out of me rather than me taking something out of it? At this point, though, it feels like we're just reading tea leaves. He splashed a bunch of chaos onto a canvas and is now basically telling us, "you figure it out." Perhaps some people like that--being able to read any meaning they want into a painting. But, at that point, his paintings are really no different than an ink blot test. He hasn't really put anything of himself into the painting.
 
Stubbs.. He Presumably intended realistic portrayals of horses, failed miserably.

I like Cezanne
 
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