Tic

High Wire

Watermelon

Gregory K H Bryant on a Modern Art Prize Winner

When I first posted this piece on bad art that won a big current prize, my friend Gregory K. H. Bryant a great artist and brilliant thinker, added his comment.

What’s most annoying to me about all of this is that work of this sort has been around for over a century now.

There is nothing challenging, cutting edge or avant garde about any of it.

From the the absurdism of the Dadaists to Claes Oldenberg’s soft sculptures, and Jean Tinguely’s self-destructive pieces – among countless others who did it much better – these artists are simply regurgitating well trodden grounds that anyone with a first year college course in art history should be embarrased to repeat for being so obviously, naively and slavishly imitative.

Painting Revolution

Most modern art substitutes weird for quality, narrow isms for scope, and trendy for depth. It also refuses to change or even talk about progressive ideas in art like those that follow

Too many treat art as a marketing scheme. Modern art has become a trendy clique and the art now is mostly over promoted footnotes to greater art that was done 100 years ago. But art is too important to be reduced to a trendy clique.

Post-ism, is art for a new century, not a continuation of last century trends.

1 Mass Market Paintings like Prints. When any art form is mass marketed it enters a golden age. This has happened with books, records, and film. Let’s add paintings. Most art is in storage in museum basements. Mass Marketing allows art to tour in copies and allows artists to make royalties on copies.
Why do you think the world gets so excited about a new great book, record, or film; but no one cares about a new great painting? All are mass produced except the painting.

2. End a Century of Isms. Dump the genres and formulas and let all kinds of art be a part of the art world.

3. Shift Emphasis From Trendy to Quality. Shift emphasis from the latest trendy art, to quality art in any style. Just because art is weird does not mean it is great art.

4. Free the Art From Museums and Galleries. Get the art out of the ivory elitist museum and gallery towers and back into the world. Have city art centers open to all artists. Make art that is relevant and communicates with people. Start with the first generation of artists online.

5. Postism is Part of a Bigger Revolution. Postism is part of the bigger art and media revolution out of Dallas, that includes art, music, lit, film, media, and a lot more.

6. Postism online: Online artists are the new wave of art. We had all the isms of last century. Now we have a free for all, of all kinds of artists, that are not sanctioned by any museum or gallery, displaying their work. Out of that comes the next wave and revolution of artists.

Last century the goal was to fit the ism. This century the goal is to do great art – no ism, no boundaries. Fractionalized art then, synchronized art now. Even calling something modern art is a type of ism that separates that art from the art of the past.

The 20th century was a century of experimentation in art. Now in the 21st we can choose from all those styles and / or start one of our own.

Then too if someone devises a way to charge and collect a penny per view on a webpage, that would allow any great artist to get money for their art and have a career without any middlemen.

Duchamp broke ground 100 years ago – but now his clones are just shoveling dirt. Weird art is easy, you put a strip of raw bacon across an expensive violin, but it’s not good art.

Join the art revolution and pull the art world out of last century.