In Defense Of Modern Art

I was recently checking out a post at TYWKIWDBI, one of my daily must read blogs (mentioned here when Brain Rage was added to the blogroll there) written by an elderly yet prolifically posting fellow who goes by the name of Minnesotastan, wherein he repeated a common lament that he just did not "get" modern art. One of his commenters echoed his dirge and linked to the following commentary by the similarly elderly and also perpetually whining 60 Minutes icon Andy Rooney:


Now I can somewhat understand Stan's and Rooney's worldviews as they pertain to this subject. Both of these men most likely came of age in a culture that celebrated the traditional "masters" of the art world, growing up in a time when most credible "art" meant a skillfully constructed painting or sculpture that actually looked like what it was supposed to be portraying. True, the modern art genre has existed for over a century now but outside of the artistic community the views of those like Stan and Rooney have largely persisted as the mainstream of American society.

I've often heard the similar opinion from many other people that modern art is just not as meaningful or well done as that of the traditional masters but I must respectfully disagree. Now this is not to say that I don't appreciate great traditional works. In fact, as I type these words in my humble abode I'm looking at framed prints of "Ancient Rome" by Giovanni Paolo Panini (which I viewed at the Louvre in Paris) and "The Great Wave off Kanagawa" by Katsushika Hokusai (which I viewed at the Met in New York City) but at the same time they hang across the room from "Lucifer" by Jackson Pollock (which I viewed at the MOMA in San Francisco), one of my absolute favorite works of all time.

So, which of these is the best painting of the bunch? Which is obviously the most artistic? They are each as radically different from each other in form and style as art can be yet I have an easy answer to this largely academic question: They all are. I say this despite the fact that one of the originals is obviously the most expensive while another has almost certainly been deemed the most important and meaningful by the artistic community but I say it mainly because I love each of them for very different reasons.

Now of course I would never assign myself the title of "Arbiter of All that is Worthy and Artistic in the World" (although that would certainly be a kick-ass addition to any resume) but I do know what I do and do not like as far as the art world is concerned, and I'll be damned if I'm going to let some curmudgeonly old commentator like Andy Rooney dictate to me what is and is not "art" as if I were some wholly uneducated bumpkin uncomprehendingly staring at an amorphous splash of paint on a largely unmarked canvas. Rooney's certainly entitled to his opinion on this score (as is Minnesotastan) but I'll be the final arbiter of what I find worthy of artistic praise and merit.

It is often said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and this is often said because it's true. I myself refer to various pieces and installations as either "good" art or "bad" art on a routine basis but I realize that my personal opinions and designations hardly make these judgements true for others and the same applies to those critics within the art world with educations and personal collections far in excess of my own, and it especially applies to serial scolders like Rooney. If you personally like a piece of art, it's good; if you do not, it's bad. Don't ever let someone else tell you what to think about any particular piece of art just because they claim to have some mysterious insight into said piece, but at the same time don't presume to judge anything as "non-artistic" for everyone else just because you don't appreciate it personally. I enjoy living in a world teeming with art even if I'm not always particularly fond of every piece I come across and unlike Rooney, I'd rather have "bad" art than none at all.