Understanding Abstract Art

[peter]

I've been trying to get to grips with what abstract art is and what it hopes to achieve and to that end was interested to watch a 90 minute program that promised to 'explain the rules' that underpin this most elusive of genres. The problem with abstract as opposed to figurative or representational art is that you have nothing to hang a judgement of its 'goodness' on. If I draw a horse, you can immediately see if it is a good representation or not. I might move away from a Stubbsian representation toward a more impressionistic one - but you can still look at it and say "that works" or otherwise. Pure abstraction is for most of us different: Basquiat works might be brilliant - but how do I know? They have not the display of 'craftsmanship' that allow me as a lay person to make a judgement. What of Mondrians rectangles or the simple black square of Malevich?

One of the ways in which abstract art is explained is by analogy with music. It's like a song without words - a shape without recognisable form. It's reducing visual perception down to its basic elements of colour and form without the distraction of recognition intruding. In discussing a particular work by Kandinsky, one of abstract arts earliest practitioners, the presenter drew attention to the composition as comparable to the composition of a piece of music. The idea is that just as you might throw any old random notes down on a sheet of music and produce a cacophony of disordered sound, so the same applies to color and form on a canvas. If however the notes are positioned according to certain rules of musical notation, combination etc, then harmony results ; aesthetic quality is drawn from the combination where previously there was none. This, the argument runs, applies equally to the positioning of form and color on the canvas and furthermore for the same reason. It is a reflection of a principal of an aesthetic reality that exists at a more fundamental level; that juxtaposition of certain 'vibrations', be they of colour or sound will produce harmony, where random positioning will not. This say the abstractionists, will be reflected in the visual just as much as the auditory experience.

Well, this might be so - indeed who am I to deny it. But I'm going to stick my neck out and say that for all the reading I've done ( not much, but a bit) the programs I've watched (many) and the thinking I've applied to it - I still don't get it. By the end of my 90 minutes I was no closer to seeing any rules that did not seem random and arbitrary, pretentious explanatory tricks that could easily have been cooked up from any random ingredients and presented as serious explanation, than I was at the start. So I think I'm not being unfair in saying that (in my opinion) the experiment in stretching the bounds of creativity that is abstract art has been a failure.......

BUT........

It has failed in the most wonderful way possible and has created some of the most beautiful, challenging, mind-blowing art I have ever seen. So I'm going to stop trying to understand this creative activity, ignore all the explanatory bullshit and just accept it for what it is. A case of "Shut up and look at the pictures!"

[Avatar]

I like Mondrian. But Malevich leaves me cold.

Not generally a big fan of abstract, and certainly never try (much) to understand it.

It's one of those "If it looks good to me..." things I think.

--A

[peter]

I have somewhat similar reservations about conceptual art; the idea that it is the concept - the idea behind the work that is the art, the work itself being merely the 'craft'. To this end the work can easily be created by a second party simply following the instructions laid down by the artist. Thus we have Koons commissioning his grand designs from workshops all around the world, and at the extreme, the guy sending a case of bricks (not even the original ones which had been returned to the New York builders merchants when they failed to sell years earlier) to the Tate with instructions as to how to pile them into his required order - and being paid hundreds of thousands for them.

On this basis I screwed up a ball of paper into the a pretty good circular shape in homage to Martin Creed's Work 88 which I could justifiably sell as an original (since there is no requirement for the artist to actually do the making or for the original material to be used) as Creed himself did with a few hundred at ninety pounds a pop. I haven't had the courage to stick it on eBay yet - but there is absolutely no reason why I should not because Creed himself described how it was the idea, not the work that was important on a program on conceptual art. Unfortunately when pressed he seemed reluctant to disclose what the actual idea was behind the balls (of paper I mean), but in the meantime I've become rather fond of mine (Work 88 copy I mean, not........oh, forget it) and would be reluctant to part with it......them......it.

[Avatar]

...in the meantime I've become rather fond of mine (Work 88 copy I mean, not........oh, forget it) and would be reluctant to part with it......them......it.

Hahaha.

I think I posted this when we were talking about conceptual art, but this (from that same documentary, is still my favourite:

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/me ... ect-t12328

--A

[Vraith]

to that end was interested to watch a 90 minute program that promised to 'explain the rules'

Huh....was that a BBC-made episode of a miniseries [well, what we in the u.s. would call a miniseries, just a handful of episodes]?

If it was, I've had it on DVR for...christ, must be at least 3 years????...and haven't watched it yet.
Maybe now I will.....

[Fist and Faith]

It's an amusing concept, the rules of abstract art.

[Rawedge Rim]

Sorry, but abstract art to me looks like what you get when you put a canvas below Bob Ross, where he beats the brush dry, and the splatter is then brought out and called "abstract art".

[peter]

The program I was referring to V, was a 'one off' called The Rules of Abstraction in which professional artist Mathew Collings explored the genre to try to illuminate it somewhat [as I say above - I think he failed].

I've seen most of the BBC art series in the last few years V. Perhaps you'd tell me which one you have - I might remember something about it.

The thing is that 'pure abstraction' is very rare - and very difficult to achieve. Figurative/representational art grades so imperceptibly into abstract that there is no clear defining line between the two. Representation can creep in so 'insidiously' into any piece, particularly in the eye of the beholder, so deep seated is our need to make sense of what we see. But this is not a problem I'd concern myself with overmuch; as I say above I'm less than convinced by much of the commentary I've encountered on the subject - it seems often to be pretentiously trying to justify that which imho needs no justification. Paul Klee's Ancient Harmony is simply a painting that I like, explanation forthcoming or otherwise. If the artist considers it worth furnishing an explanation of his thinking behind the work, that's interesting to me - but while it might add to my enjoyment of a piece the absence of one will never detract form it. At the end I'm going to like it or not, explanation or otherwise notwithstanding. If the purpose of abstract is to tear open the bowels of being and root around in it's guts looking for the dark secrets therein, then I think it has failed. But as a joyfull [and sometimes not so much] expression of the pure harmony of colour, shape and form - then yes, bring it on is what I say. Good art elicits an emotional rseponse - in the absence of this it is mere decoration

[Vraith]

It's not on my DVR here, it's the one in minnesota, so I'll have to wait till I go back there.

But that guy is the guy from on of the episodes. Maybe it wasn't a series originally, just a collection of shows they'd done about it. One of the shows has a bunch of ab artists talking about ab art. I believe it was on BBC4??? And the lead/title or whatever was about art breaking free or somesuch.

Fist---I haven't watched it yet, as I said, so I'm talking out my ass, and could be wrong, but I'd bet it isn't so much "rules" as the purpose, intentions, aesthetics, values.
Like "Thou shalt not kill" is a rule...respecting human life is a value.

[peter]

That might well be the case V - certainly it was a BBC4 production. When you do eventually get to see the programs let me know what you think. Those guys have produced some good stuff over the years!

[Skyweir]

It's an amusing concept, the rules of abstract art.

Hahaha I get that too ...it is funny.

Im with Av .. if it appeals to something in me .. I like .. but mostly not so much.

One of my least fave places in the Museum of Australia which is filled with weird modern art .. upside down washing lines, a spoon on a chair and shit like that ..

I mean wtf is uterus art et al .... etc etc ..

And art work that I am sure my kids when they were littlies could ace. But may well just be evidence of my extreme lack of culture and artistic appreciation.