Modern Art – Crap is the name of the game.

Everyone talks about the modern world going to the dogs. Our culture, lifestyle, moral values, etc. but i didn't know that even our art was going to the dogs too. Sorry my canine friends, I am sure your art would be better than the human modern art.

I visited the Weisman Art Museum on the UMN-Twin Cities campus to check out some modern 'art'. I thought that I would come across as cultured and intellectual by visiting art museums. But I wasn't prepared for the rubbish that was in store for me. Utter crap is called art. The more vague and hideous a painting or sculpture is, the more it is revered. Anything simple is considered unintelligent. I felt the world has lost its aesthetic sense. Things that you might not even spare a passing glance at a garage sale is kept at the museum. Some paintings were so hideous that I may get nightmares tonight. On the other end of the scale, things might go into the thrash bin are hung as paintings. There is a 'dirty paper' which is hung up as a piece of art. Read the description in the adjoining picture. Then there was plain colored paper. And some pieces of paper which looked like scribbles of an elementary school kid. And some more paper with water color splashes on it which looked very similar to my rough paintings when I first used watercolors. Oh and for the piece de resistance, there was an exhibit that consisted of a plane steel rod keep diagonal to the corner of the room. In the description it said, the steel rod enhanced the feeling of space. There was so much stuff which really taxed your imagination. You had to think hard to find something worthwhile about the painting.

And the best part was the talk between the guide and other visitors. How such nonsense could conjure such ideas and interpretations is beyond me. These rich people have no other work but a ponder over useless stuff like what the artist was trying to portray, or what led him to paint that particular piece of crap. I bet the artist is laughing his ass off at such in depth analysis of something that was meant to be nonsense! Here are some of the phrases and sentences used by people to describe the paintings; “minimalist and conceptual”,”rejected convention and tradition”,”Individualism, uniqueness, and personal expression were prized.”,”Artists labored to bare their inner souls, and each necessarily forged a new and different visual vocabulary.”,”look closely for a deeper perspective of the openness of the era”,”broke free from the bonds of yore” I could stop myself from laughing. I unwittingly attended the best stand up comedy show.

There were some positives from the visit. It inspired this post. It made me treasure my $1 painting even more. It helped me pass a lazy winter afternoon for free. It gave me a back up profession. Yes an artist. A crap expert like me can definitely put crap on paper.

Oh Leonardo, O Michelangelo, where art thou?



picture credit: http://www.roslynoxley9.com.au/images/galleries/FRANK_SoreThroat_2007/020.jpg