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Comment by BruceIV | Hacker News Reader

I visited the Tate modern art museum in London while on vacation this summer, and left bothered by the idea of modern art. I could put a collection of furnace ducts in a corner, or hang a mirror on the wall, or bedazzle an internal combustion engine (all exhibits), but it wouldn't be art, because I don't know why it's art, and neither would it take any particular skill. It bothers me that this 'art' lacks both skill and approachability. As a PhD student, I'm no stranger to obscure academic fields that can't be understood by anyone outside your narrow specialization, but at least even the most obscure theoretical work in computer science might actually be useful to people who aren't theoretical computer scientists, and that possible future approachability to people outside the field seems to be lacking in modern art.

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Like obscure results in computer science, (post-)modern art requires the observer to actually engage with both the field and the art object in question.

Like obscure results in computer science, few will bother to do so. Of those few who do, even fewer can translate it into something that has any impact on the general populace.

Dali was one of the few surrealists that connected to a large audience. Kandinsky is one of the few Bauhaus people to produce art accessible to a larger audience. Andy Warhol left a huge impact on the public as well - but again, not many pop artists did. All the above qualify as modern art, and all of them are approachable to a wider audience.

I'd argue that we see the same in CS. And I suspect that "approachability" is a function of time - we forget about all the ones who had no success, and remember the ones who did. It'll be interesting to see what people say about modern art 100 years hence.

In computer science, the later approachability comes from people finding ways to use the work, and eventually we get to the point where the people using the work aren't specialists anymore (one of my professors used to say that if you're the first to do something you're a scientist, if you're the second you're an engineer, and if you're the third you're just a technician). With modern art (my impression at least) is that the art is contained in the commentary on society and the dialog with other contemporary artists, and that will never become more relevant or approachable, you'll just need to be an art historian to understand it in a century.

That said, what I find approachable is not a terribly important criterion for art, I just found the it irritating that the actual art was in the process but the context of being in a gallery suggested that the artifact was the art.

(For what it's worth, I also find theoretical computer science papers that produce unimplemented and likely unimplementable algorithms which shave log factors off existing bounds irritating as well, but that is again a matter of personal taste - those at least might give some later researcher a hint about how to actually build a usably better algorithm, though.)

The difference is, if you don't understand or care about the lambda calculus, the computer scientists who do won't judge you. The practitioners and patrons of the arts who go off on these rarified tangents that require "engaging the field" do judge and dismiss those who don't understand or care for the creations of these practitioners.

Thesis: if you did decide to "engage the field" of modern art, it would take about a year (i.e. equivalent of one serious college course of two semesters) plus intermittent reading from a popular journal such as ARTFORUM to stay current.

Related: How to Deconstruct Almost Anything http://www.fudco.com/chip/deconstr.html - basically a detailed explanation of the equivalent of modern art in modern literary theory from a scientific person who went to great lengths to dig into it and understand what these people are talking about.

I feel the same way, despite being a fan of Dadaism and Marcel Duchamp. You might find it interesting to investigate the Stuckist movement, made up of artists who are similarly exasperated by institutional hostility to representation.

Let's play devils advocate: If spilled paint on a canvas, and accidentally produced a fresco by Raphael, would it cease being beautiful (because it took no skill to make?). Do you go to art galleries just to be impressed by someone's skill? Is art a talent competition?

Furthermore, what is unapproachable about a collection of furnace ducts? It's not to hard to understand. Just a pile of ducts. Does art always have present you with a puzzle to figure out, or contribute to some theory? Why can't I say "Look, a pile of ducts. Neat, huh?"

By that logic, you should come see me play the guitar and sing. I am terrible at both (really, truly terrible; not being shy, objectively, you-would-rather-listen-to-nails-on-glass terrible). But you should come see me express myself and attempt to do this. It will be super artistic, I promise.

The thing is, we agree that there is music and there is noise. People draw the line in different places, but we all agree that it exists. Why is it that I can literally shit on the floor in front of you and when you yell "what the fuck is this?" I can answer "it's art" and have the audience go "oh, he's good!"? Is it perhaps because, no matter what, I can say that my brand of art is just so new, so advanced, that nobody has understood it yet? Then have some PhD candidate years from now write a dissertation on how I managed to portray the human condition to validate the shit I put out.

Wow, that turned into a rant...

I define art as creation that does not have to do anything but could invoke some feelings in the recipient.

What's important is that you don't have to like art. If it evokes feelings in you that you don't like then just stay away from it. Appreciating art is not a contest. If someone expects you to appreciate same art as them that's their problem with expectations management not yours with performance. I would come to hear you play but if your music would invoke feelings in me that I wouldn't want then I'd leave. Some other person might like the chaos brought by lack of skills crossed with enthusiasm.

The problem starts when people start talking about art ... they say dumbest things and often get away with it.

That is very close to what I consider art, with the proviso that it should invoke the feelings the artist intent (or tell the story the artist intent) and that simply being annoyed at what people can waste government subsidies on should not be considered a feeling.

I think invoking feelings artist intended or even requiring artist to intend to invoke specific feelings is too high of a standard. I agree with you on the second point.

Your definition is the thing I hear a lot. It makes sense in the abstract, but when you start applying it to actual examples, it breaks down. I will refer you to the "Can you fry that?" skit from The Community: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qcjse8Opobw.

Basically, unlike what your definition suggests, some art is objectively better than other. Some art takes more skill and invokes more and better feeling than other. Take a look (ideally in person) at Rodin vs Shapiro's work. See which makes you feel more and more intensely. Modern artists substitute enthusiasm for skill way too often for my taste.

Skill is not the point of art. Feelings of the beholder are. If you create hyperrealistic portrait then the creation itself is worthless for me because it evokes no feelings because it looks like yet another magazine photo. The process of creating hyperrealistic portrait is worth more as a piece of performance art because at least it evokes some feelings.

I agree that some art can be in some sense better than other. But the only thing you can do is gather statistics about what feelings and how strong any given piece invokes in some population sample. But feelings don't have clear definition of better. Also statistics doesn't have it either. So even objective comparisons are subjective because you have to subjectively choose what you objectively compare.

There are people who have shat on the floor and called it art. And there are people who go to watch it. (google "poop artist"). You don't have to like it (I personally don't) but you're naive to ignore a whole community that upholds pooping as art. And many of those shit artists have classical art training too!

And I'd love to see you play guitar and sing. It may not be "correct" by contemporary standards, but if it's an honest attempt at expressing yourself, and I enjoy it (I personally love to hear bad singers), then why not?

> If spilled paint on a canvas, and accidentally produced a fresco by Raphael, would it cease being beautiful (because it took no skill to make?). Do you go to art galleries just to be impressed by someone's skill? Is art a talent competition?

I'm less interested in the skill than the beauty. But that seems to be missing from a lot of modern works. I don't want my art to be political, or self-aware, or even particularly thought-provoking. Or at least, I don't want it to sacrifice beauty for those goals. Random paint splatters are, I think, less beautiful than Raphael's frescoes.

> Furthermore, what is unapproachable about a collection of furnace ducts? It's not to hard to understand. Just a pile of ducts. Does art always have present you with a puzzle to figure out, or contribute to some theory? Why can't I say "Look, a pile of ducts. Neat, huh?"

You can, but I see equally appealing piles of objects every day on my way to work. If something's worth elevating to a gallery I'd expect it to be better than the things I see out there in the world - otherwise why bother with a gallery at all?

I would argue no, because those frescos are littered with deep symbology and meaning that are being assembled in one work. The art is in the beauty of the work, the story it tells and what it represents.

I worked for a long time around 1960s/1970s abstract art. Much of it was of questionable quality in my eyes, but there are some really amazing pieces that really make for amazing and beautiful spaces.

My beef with the abstract stuff is that it seems to cut off the oxygen for everything else. Art is fashion, and the patrons of art tend to be fashionable people.

If you spilled paint on a canvas and accidentally produced a fresco by Raphael, it would be considered one of the wonders of the world. It would sell for a higher price than any real artwork ever, and people come from all over the world to see it. The occurrence of this vanishingly unlikely event would be a major event in world history, which many would claim as proof of the existence of God, while others would come up with other even more bizarre hypotheses to explain it. Oh, and it would still be beautiful, although it would not be "art". (Though I'm sure many books would be written debating both sides of that very question...)

As a more realistic example, many naturally-occurring things (trees, mountains, women) are beautiful but are most certainly not "art". So I'm not sure what the real debate here.

As for furnace ducts: sure, you can say "look, a pile of ducts!" You can say that for anything. You can follow me around all day and point out random objects and say they're neat, and heck, I'll probably agree with you the first couple of times before getting annoyed. But it's like writing a book consisting of only one word -- it might get you a press release, but nobody's gonna buy it.

I'm not trying to convince anyone that the furnace ducts would be beautiful. I personally wouldn't care for it. But you can't argue, as the OP did, that they aren't approachable.

If you accidentally spilled a fresco then it would be pure luck, not to mention astronomically unlikely.

Skill in anything is just a way to screw probabilities in your favor. I am a computer programmer, not a doctor but it is possible that I might be able to save somebody by doing surgery - it is just more likely I kill them, but a doctor would be able to do it safely.

It would be possible for my grandma to write program to do something useful, by accidentally slamming some keys, but I can do it deliberately, time after time after time.

In your case the problem is that there is no objective definition on art, and as such everybody can consider themselves an artist, which means that skills are meaningless (remember a skill only screws the probability of success in your favor, which is meaningless if there is on definition of success).

There is no objective definition on art. But that's not a problem. You seem to think it is.

Everyone can consider themselves an artist. And you're free to despise all but the ones you like.

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