Ever wonder how “modern art” ever became a thing? I did, so I thought about it and the answer came up fairly quickly in my analysis: It’s a medium invented for elitists.
While “art” as traditionally known is something that takes skill, “modern art” is just the application of the artistic label to literally anything. Whether its a mish-mash of colors or a collection of shapes presented in a minimalist layout or a dog pooping – its “art” that isn’t actually art. Obviously anything can be looked at and studied with an artistic eye and symbolism, parallels, allegories, metaphors, and deep meanings can be applied to them. But humans already knew that. That act is a gift of our human brains, capable of critical thinking, imagination, and self aware application of knowledge for logical and creative ends. Thinking about things isn’t “art”. Yet Modern Art tells us that anything that we think about after looking at is itself art worthy of pedestalisation (a verb I made up to denote “putting on a pedestal”). But why the need to make a movement out of elevating non-art?
The truth is not that modern art is actually art – which it obviously isn’t – the truth is about inventing art.
If you define art in the classical sense of skill, technique, and quality – then you’re limited to those parameters and anyone with those things can make, identify and appreciate art. That’s no fun for an elitist. Elitists, by definition, want something more Emperors-new-clothes about the things they like, or they are no longer in the elite. So the way to tear down the establishment in the realm of art is to call anything art. Suddenly when John Q Public says “huh?” you are elevated above him because he doesn’t get it and you do. Elitists love that stuff. Nothing makes an elitist happier than to be able to correct or explain something they think they’re well versed in that average unwashed masses aren’t privy to. And that’s why Modern Art exists…
For more, see this Prager U video answering “Why is Modern Art so bad?”…
For two millennia, great artists set the standard for beauty. Now those standards are gone. Modern art is a competition between the ugly and the twisted; the most shocking wins. What happened? How did the beautiful come to be reviled and bad taste come to be celebrated? Renowned artist Robert Florczak explains the history and the mystery behind this change and how it can be stopped and even reversed.