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Don't be mean. I promise to do my best to judge that fairly.
Fountain is unfathomably based. I've used this history lesson to reassure my cousin who started painting for his PTSD and got told by a bunch of shitheads that he wasn't a "Real Artist" when he sold some art.
This stuff is a litmus test for when you're in a culture war with people trying to hide the fact they're warring with you on every front they can
If he sold art he's definitely an artist.
If he hadn't sold any he would be too, but selling it is undsniable proof that someone else across him as an artist.
People were still assholes. I think they just wanted to hurt him because of their own internal problems and he appeared as an easy target
Only people who don't understand art say that people "aren't real artists." It's the most obvious way to know that someone's opinion isn't worth listening to.
You're only "not an artist" if you're not making art. If you make something and don't want it to be art, then it's not art, and you're not an artist.
That's about it as not artist goes.
That got me thinking;
a welder creating a sculpture: artist
a welder making a tool: artisan
Is the tool a functional piece of art?
It can be. If presented as art, then yes. If crafted so masterfully that it's perceived as art, then also yes.
If neither intended nor received as art: no.
The functional contains beauty. It can be artistic to remind someone that functionality is a type of beauty. It's also possible to create an expression of form so perfectly that you can't help but notice the beauty.
While attempting to find some images of beautiful tools (I was thinking fine wood carving tools from the mid 1800s were a good bet), I found this: https://fortune.com/article/beauties-of-the-common-tool-walker-evans/ I think it does a good job conveying the notion. :)
Perhaps, I think I'm guilty of that too in this exact thread. The generative AI question is a focal point if such notions and it doesn't seem like there will ever be a consensus without at least some learned people asserting that something isn't art.
The same thing happened to photography, and other kinds of modern art, too. Things are often excluded from being art until they are included (to at least a subset of people).
With AI it is often questionable how much 'intent' someone has put into a work: 'wrote a simple trivial prompt, generated a few images, shared all of them' results in uninteresting slop, while 'spent a lot of time to make the AI generate exactly what you want, even coming up with weird ways to use the model (like this / non-archive link)' is a lot more interesting in my view.
The difference is photography can be art, but it isn't always. Photo composition and content are used to convey meaning. The photo is a tool under the artist's complete control. The photo is not art on its own. Just like if you accidentally spill paint on a canvas it isn't necessarily art, a photo taken without intent isn't necessarily art. If I accidentally hit the camera button on my phone that doesn't make me a photographer.
AI generated images can not do this. The user can give a prompt, but they don't actually have control over the tool. They can modify their prompt to get different outputs, but the tool is doing its own thing. The user just has to keep trying until they get an output they like, but it isn't done by their control. It's similar to a user always accidentally doing things, until they get what they want. If you record every moment of your life you're likely to have some frames that look good, but you aren't a photographer because you didn't intend to get that output.
I mean the toilet is quite obviously art, you can understand exactly what the artist was expressing. AI art literally isn't art because it lacks any expression or meaning.
Evidence? Show me an expressive piece of AI "art". There is none.
They say “traditional art”, but they mean “shut up and paint, with no subversive messages hidden”.
But the thing is, the time period they consider “traditional art” is chock full of artists being told to “shut up and paint”, and not appreciating that very much and deciding to sneak subversive messages into their works, knowing that their patrons would be too dumb to catch on.
In effect, they’re saying “can we go back to a time when I didn’t understand that you thought I was dumb?”
Shall we talk about Caravaggio? Most notably Basket of fruit?
He was an atheist sneaking anti-church messages in his church-bought paintings. Iirc he got found out a couple of times and people weren’t super happy if being played for fools.
I had to look it up; what a beautiful painting!
From the outset it looks quite normal and enticing but on further examination:
Sorry for the wall of text but I found this fascinating, also serves a great alt text (which I don't know how to add with my client) or for a screen reader
... a good-sized, light-red peach attached to a stem with wormholes in the leaf resembling damage by oriental fruit moth (Orthosia hibisci). Beneath it is a single bicolored apple, shown from a stem perspective with two insect entry holes, probably codling moth, one of which shows secondary rot at the edge; one blushed yellow pear with insect predations resembling damage by leaf roller (Archips argyospita); four figs, two white and two purple—the purple ones dead ripe and splitting along the sides, plus a large fig leaf with a prominent fungal scorch lesion resembling anthracnose (Glomerella cingulata); and a single unblemished quince with a leafy spur showing fungal spots. There are four clusters of grapes, black, red, golden, and white; the red cluster on the right shows several mummied fruit, while the two clusters on the left each show an overripe berry. There are two grape leaves, one severely desiccated and shriveled while the other contains spots and evidence of an egg mass. In the right part of the basket are two green figs and a ripe black one is nestled in the rear on the left. On the sides of the basket are two disembodied shoots: to the right is a grape shoot with two leaves, both showing severe insect predations resembling grasshopper feeding; to the left is a floating spur of quince or pear.
For the symbology (of which I remember only parts)
The apple is a symbol of Christ, so have a worm hole undercuts Christ himself.
The wine grapes are symbol of the resurrection, but they are sick.
The figs… maybe you can guess? Another Christian symbol, looking sickly and overshadowed.
The basket itself is a symbol of the plenty that God bestowed mankind, and is overhanging the side of the table, ready to fall.
This painting metaphorically says “there is no god, and definitely no Christian God”
Thanks for posting the picture, I still haven’t figured out how to do it!
I was one of those people who derided “Fountain,” until about thirty seconds ago. Thank you for this.
Conversely, I was one of those people who were thrilled by "Fountain" from the second they first heard about it. Thank you for this.
👌😁
I didn't care about fountain and now I still don't. But the discussion was engaging, so I kept reading.
I don't think he's a genius, maybe he was just having fun and doing inside jokes to himself while creating all of this. Art can bring out emotions, one of which is laughter. Who knows besides himself?
Gonna be honest: Gatekeeping what should be defined as art ist kinda stupid. Art even includes discussion about what art is. Art is just a visual (or audiotory) effigy of big parts of philosophy. If a piece inspires you to have deep philosophical discussion about what art is, it is art simply by forcing you to think.
At first I thought this tradpost was pro pissing on feet instead of in urinals
remember kids, it doesn't need to be difficult to make to be art, it just needs to make you think of it as art
People who hate on modern art are either too stupid to understand it or afraid of it.
Like you don't have to like or love it, but imagine saying it's not art...
I came here expecting tired discussions about how "modern art" is all just ~~degenerate~~ money laundering, but it seems like AI is the new big topic
Great post and very good art.
The urinal is not art. The reaction to the urinal is art on a mastercraft level. No one has quite reached the same level of artistry since. You can duct tape a banana to a wall, but it just doesn't create the same outrage as the urinal did.
Did we read the same series of posts? I thought they made it very clear that the urinal is art and explained how the reaction was desired and how the artist tried to create that reaction?
So what you mean to say is: "Trolling is a art."
*an art.
(Unless your trolling grammer nazis.)