“Modern”

Fine Art, Modernism

Whenever one is confronted with the random squiggles and daubs that are a feature of “modern” art, there is an irresistible impulse to say dismissively “Looks like something my kid could do”.

Because it’s true.

I defy anyone to argue otherwise when seeing this travesty in what is quite possibly the world’s most cultured city.  (via Insty, thankee Sarah… I think)

Fucking hell.

9 comments

  1. The 4 males (not men) that created this look like (and should be) homeless people.

    The 62 yo mayor that approved of this should be publicly beaten on the town square.

  2. I don’t care for this piece, and this type of thing is not really right for public art in general. However, don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. There is a lot of very good “modern” art (actually not a useful description, a lot of stuff you are complaining about is post-modern or other categories).

    The thing is, there was crap art back in the day too, it just got sorted out over time. 100 years from now people will look back at now and be amazed at all the great art too because the crap will be in the dust bin by then.

  3. That’s not “modern” art, at least not in the sense that the art world would use it.

    Words mean things, right?

    Modern Art mostly encompasses art inspired by, and/or done in the style of the many “movements” from about 1860 to about 1970. Impressionism, futurism, surrealism, fauvism, the Arts and Crafts, Bauhaus etc. Some of the later “modern” stuff definitely got into the “5 year old with a box of crayons” territory (Jackson Pillock)(deliberate), but for the most part modernist painters were trained and skilled even if they chose not to use it.

    To call that “modern art” is like calling Bernie Sanders or Barack Obama
    “Liberals”. There’s nothing liberal about them, and there’s nothing “modern” about that art.

    IMO it’s not even “art”, but such that it is “contemporary” would be the appropriate appellation.

  4. The “gentlemen” pictured should turn in their Man Cards, if they ever had any. The mayor who lauds this should be strapped to it, and then the “artwork” should be run over by a large bulldozer. Repeatedly. Until it is no longer recognizable as anything more than a parking space.

  5. Something tells me that if the Normans/Vandals/Goths/Ottomans whomever decide to sack Vienna, this is NOT one of the things that will be carried back to the victorious capital as a war prize. Perhaps that’s the preventative goal.

  6. Contemporary Art seems to be mostly driven by over-educated dilettantes with too much time and money at their disposal . They become easy victims for the Fraudsters, Charlatans and Con Artists that populate most of the world of Art Dealers, Decorators, and Investment Advisors. Throw in some Greater Fool theory, Cult leadership techniques, social climbing and a sprinkle of “The Emperor has no clothes!” and the result is the Contemporary Art Scene.

    On top of this volatile mixture, add Politics, general Governmental incompetence, and corruption and the result is “Public Art” of the sort on display in Vienna.

    This particular example will disappear soon and in 6 months or it will have never happened in the first place.

  7. This sort of thing has been going on for a long time. In his essay “Gramscian Damage,” Eric S. Raymond writes:

    “On a different level, in the 1930s members of CPUSA (the Communist Party of the USA) got instructions from Moscow to promote non-representational art so that the US’s public spaces would become arid and ugly.

    Americans hearing that last one tend to laugh. But the Soviets, following the lead of Marxist theoreticians like Antonio Gramsci, took very seriously the idea that by blighting the U.S.’s intellectual and esthetic life, they could sap Americans’ will to resist Communist ideology and an eventual Communist takeover. The explicit goal was to erode the confidence of America’s ruling class and create an ideological vacuum to be filled by Marxism-Leninism.”

    This also explains why most of the postwar architecture in the West is so dreadful. It’s just part of the ongoing effort of the Left to destroy Western culture.

  8. that new fountain looks like something I produce after last night’s Indian dinner.

    Since this is a fountain, why not drown these imbeciles until they are unconscious, revive them then repeat a number of times. that eyesore is flagrant abuse of taxpayer money.

    JQ

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