The irony here is that if you reduce art to its most utilitarian "purpose" -- "A painting is for hanging on the wall to make a room look nice" -- then one of Rothko's color fields obviously *does* do that, from an interior design standpoint, much better than classical artworkhttps://twitter.com/NMamatas/status/1382130467990753282 …
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What's funny is that we've had this debate in popular music so many times Punk and grunge and lo-fi and whatnot all emerging as this response to obnoxious musicians trying to show off virtuosity "Stop trying to get laid by showing off your Dex score and just play the song"
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It's why the next step after Abstract Expressionism was Pop Art - "Anything a person made that makes other people feel something 'counts', even if it was for a commercial"
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I mean you know the old masters will disappoint you if you think of them as dogs playing tricks Most of the Sistine Chapel was actually physically painted by apprentices, etc
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The big "exposé" that the camera obscura was a vital tool for the Renaissance masters when painting landscapes That's right, snobs, they fucking TRACED PHOTOS
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They hadn't invented film, yes, but they'd sit in a little dark room (a "camera") and just put a piece of paper on the wall and trace the image that came through the pinhole Like a hack on DeviantArt
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(As always the correct answer to "What tools should a great artist be allowed to use" is "Whatever the hell works" Stop trying to see how the sausage is made and get out of the way of the hungry customers)
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Anyway what strikes me about people policing "real art" is they're trying to impose Marx's labor theory of value on the art market, which is adorable Especially because a lot of these people consider themselves right-wing capitalists
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"I don't object to you thinking a Rothko print is a nice thing to put on your wall I object to the idea that he deserved six figures for the original painting at auction" Well sheesh why is that any of your business
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"I simply do not accept that Rothko's painting can be worth more than a detailed realistic portrait, the amount of effort isn't comparable" Well gosh dude I could put EVEN MORE effort into a work of art than your favorite portrait painter and get paid NOTHING for it
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People spend their ENTIRE LIVES on works of art that no one will ever pay them for because no one wants them Is that unjust, somehow? Does everyone who puts effort into anything deserve payment for that effort even if it's not of benefit to anyone else
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They're so close to stumbling on Nozick's "Wilt Chamberlain" problem, that capitalism will always be perverse and silly all over the place Do pro athletes deserve to get paid 10,000x a teacher's salary to play a game? Is their signature on a ball objectively worth $5,000?
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People get so lost in the weeds about how rare athletes' physical abilities are and how painful their lives are and how high the risk of injury But that's obviously missing the point Nobody took a vote that NBA players should make that much because their lives suck
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They get paid that much because people really really enjoy watching basketball games, and pay a lot of money for that privilege, and the players demand they get a big chunk of that or else they won't play That's it Welcome to markets 101
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Don't like it, rebuild all of society on a different system Until then don't come complaining to me about the one part that annoys you because you don't share the customers' tastes
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(Talking about art and music, there's this one guy who can make his hands make that farting noise by pressing his palms together and he can do it with enough fine control to play recognizable tunes)
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(This is an EXTREMELY rare skill, it's estimated that there are less than a dozen "manualists" in the world who can reliably reproduce sounds this way, and he's the best at what he does AFAIK all he has is a middle-tier YouTube channel)
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(And you know, before the Internet he wouldn't have that The rarity and difficulty of what you do really is not the point and doesn't matter, the ONLY thing that matters is how much people like it)
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End of conversation
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