Lichtenstein's "Whaam!" 1 1

[vodou]

5 hours ago, Randall Dowling said:

Sure.  Clearly, a lot of people with way too much money feel the same way as you.

There's a line?

How much is way too much?

How much is just too much?

Or merely much

And then if you could just divest yourself of your net worth above any of those numbers and send it to me...please that would work fine and I'll blindly agree to whatever you post here forever more

3 hours ago, Bronty said:

GIven that the 1950s art scene was from what little I know governed by non-representational abstraction, I wonder if gallerygoers and critics in the 1960s reacted positively to pop art out of sheer joy to look at something they could understand

Let's first acknowledge that Paris lost prominence as the art capitol of the world post-WWII. It shifted to NYC (where many of the big private collectors and gallerists relocated their inventories and often themselves to escape a certain form of persecution risk in central Europe roughly 1933-1945...) And then there was the exhalation of relief (that effing war is finally over) followed by rampant and exuberant consumerism everywhere. Is it a surprise that people were just tossing anything at the wall to see what would stick? Some artists chose to express the void of whatever (the human condition?) with Ab-Ex, others saw that, mocked at the seriousness of it all and went the opposite direction. There's your Pop Art right there. Er, comics, overall as an industry, benefited mightily too 1950s-late 60s. There was a lot of work for a fair number of hack artists grinding out product...make of that what you will, as much as some would like to discuss how certain artists were stolen from and BAH! reparations must be made!!

2 hours ago, Rick2you2 said:

So, you want to define not just "what is art", but what is "good art", by deciding if you don't like it, then it must be bad and overpriced as well? Seems a little presumptuous to me.

Price does not define quality, although a high price means it has a high level of market interest. For example, there are some excellent comic artists whose works are not particularly expensive.

 

Nothing to add

[Rick2you2]

30 minutes ago, vodou said:

Nothing to add

[Randall Dowling]

3 hours ago, Rick2you2 said:

So, you want to define not just "what is art", but what is "good art", by deciding if you don't like it, then it must be bad and overpriced as well? Seems a little presumptuous to me.

Price does not define quality, although a high price means it has a high level of market interest. For example, there are some excellent comic artists whose works are not particularly expensive.

 

I never asserted a definition of what is art.  Not sure where that came from.  My comment was more on the sad current state of the fine art market.  

[Randall Dowling]

1 hour ago, vodou said:

There's a line?

How much is way too much?

How much is just too much?

Or merely much

And then if you could just divest yourself of your net worth above any of those numbers and send it to me...please that would work fine and I'll blindly agree to whatever you post here forever more

I really don’t want you or anyone to blindly agree with me. Again, my commentary was on the sad current state of the fine art market.

[Randall Dowling]

1 hour ago, vodou said:

Some artists chose to express the void of whatever (the human condition?) with Ab-Ex.

This is pretty far off the mark for what abstract expressionists were after.

[vodou]

1 hour ago, Randall Dowling said:

This is pretty far off the mark for what abstract expressionists were after.

Note my specific use of the word: some.

I'm certain that I can find one AB-Ex artist my statement is true for before you can exclude all of them from that same statement.

[Will_K]

Out of curiosity, outside of comics, are there any ongoing debates about Lichtenstein ?

If so, what are those topics ?

 

[Randall Dowling]

3 hours ago, Will_K said:

Out of curiosity, outside of comics, are there any ongoing debates about Lichtenstein ?

If so, what are those topics ?

 

This is an excellent question.  And the answer is yes, although believe it or not, it’s mostly fellow artists that I’ve known that question the validity of his work.  The mainstream art auction crowd tends to perpetuate the myth religiously.  And most people follow their lead figuring they must know something.

The topics really boil down to the lack of depth behind the work.  Lichtenstein’s panels are what is coomonly referred to as a “one-liner”, a clever little joke that doesn’t mean much.  For many, this is all they need and they generally subscribe to a hyper-subjective point of view that nothing means anything and beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  Others feel that great art should accomplish more, that it should connect the viewer, unambiguously, to the emotion or experience of a time and place and share something about the human experience that isn’t easily communicated.  Typically, there is a belief that beauty is like truth in that it is universal but difficult to comprehend.  Still others have questions about the nature of beauty and why do people find anything beautiful at all.  And their work is an exploration into that.  Hard questions that many artists sidestep by saying there’s no way to understand the answers so you might as well just do whatever arbitrary thing you feel like.

It’s a really good question, Will, and one that very few have the courage to ask.

[Randall Dowling]

4 hours ago, vodou said:

Note my specific use of the word: some.

I'm certain that I can find one AB-Ex artist my statement is true for before you can exclude all of them from that same statement.

The obvious exploration of the void shows up in Rothko’s Chapel.  But that’s an exception and not the nature of exploration that Pollock and his contemporaries were after.  

[Red84]

Interesting discussion going on over here.  

[Rick2you2]

12 hours ago, Randall Dowling said:

I never asserted a definition of what is art.  Not sure where that came from.  My comment was more on the sad current state of the fine art market.  

 

6 hours ago, Randall Dowling said:

This is an excellent question.  And the answer is yes, although believe it or not, it’s mostly fellow artists that I’ve known that question the validity of his work.  The mainstream art auction crowd tends to perpetuate the myth religiously.  And most people follow their lead figuring they must know something.

The topics really boil down to the lack of depth behind the work.  Lichtenstein’s panels are what is coomonly referred to as a “one-liner”, a clever little joke that doesn’t mean much.  For many, this is all they need and they generally subscribe to a hyper-subjective point of view that nothing means anything and beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  Others feel that great art should accomplish more, that it should connect the viewer, unambiguously, to the emotion or experience of a time and place and share something about the human experience that isn’t easily communicated.  Typically, there is a belief that beauty is like truth in that it is universal but difficult to comprehend.  Still others have questions about the nature of beauty and why do people find anything beautiful at all.  And their work is an exploration into that.  Hard questions that many artists sidestep by saying there’s no way to understand the answers so you might as well just do whatever arbitrary thing you feel like.

It’s a really good question, Will, and one that very few have the courage to ask.

You are very clearly asserting what you consider to be bad art, and one can’t define “bad art” without defining “art”. 

The idea that “great art” should “connect the viewer, unambiguously, to the emotion or experience of a time and place and share something about the the human experience that isn’t easily communicated”, is nonsense. One of my favorite artists Piet Mondrian, is an acknowledged master artist and father of the Dutch School. Most of his work is as abstract as it gets, but it conveys nothing of the human experience. His classic works are an exploration in the concept of balance between line and color, and his disparate use of seemingly random straight lines and primary colors to achieve it. It is not about beauty or truth, but intellectually stimulating. Great art, I think, is something which impacts a large number of people, for whatever reason, including old covers of the Saturday Evening Post.

Even if you consider Lichtenstein’s art to be “one liners”, it is still excellent. It’s like a piece of chocolate in the middle of a dreary workday. That’s always a good thing (unless you are diabetic). 

But price is not the same as great art, particularly with some high priced stuff today. That is sometimes a reflection of investors or really rich people wanting to show they have style, taste or lots of money. On that point I would agree.

[vodou]

4 hours ago, Rick2you2 said:

But price is not the same as great art, particularly with some high priced stuff today. That is sometimes a reflection of investors or really rich people wanting to show they have style, taste or lots of money. On that point I would agree.

Likewise agree, insofar as anybody that employs an advisor, buyer, curator, picker, etc (in any collectible field - not just art) and isn't following along, to learn and hone their own eye and aesthetic...is a damned fool and deserves to watch the hot air evaporate  regularly and periodically underneath their balloon purchases. Not everyone that deserves it gets whacked every time, but it happens often enough to enough people that I feel the universe is quite balanced on the subject overall

[Professor K]

To me it is plagiarism. I have yet to agree with any argument calling it otherwise.

[vodou]

7 hours ago, kc2112 said:

To me it is plagiarism. I have yet to agree with any argument calling it otherwise.

I question the logical fallacy of loaded emotives, specifically "wrongful" and "stealing", being attached to the word plagiarism. This is a debatable position, one that is open to debate, not settled science Appropriation is a word I'm fine with. While various laws may be written in a certain way, nobody could successfully argue that all laws at all times are always right merely by being law.

[Professor K]

yeah that and he copied someone else's work and called it his own.

[Will_K]

I try to understand all the opinions.  But it doesn't seem like any opinions will really change.

There is the Wally Wood maxim: "Never draw anything you can copy, never copy anything you can trace, never trace anything you can cut out and paste up."

Some people are just better at it than others.  And some can better capitalize on it than others.

Has Lichtenstein ever done anything based on Wood's work ??

[vodou]

11 minutes ago, Will_K said:

But it doesn't seem like any opinions will really change.

This is a sort of maxim for human nature. Shame. Unless one truly does know it all

I do not and thus keep an open mind, open to change. However it takes a very good argument, in premise, structure, conclusion and supportive facts, to change my mind. Most haven't the skills to put such together instead resorting to one or more of the many logical fallacies to get over. That stuff is really popular on TV too. But those arguments do exist and I have turned roughly 180 degrees on a number of major life positions I held, I thought in stone, in my twenties and early thirties.

Hence: I definitely do not know it all

Lichtenstein...the subject is highly subjective, I'm waiting for the compelling objective argument sans the emotional loading to change my mind. It may happen.

But to get there, first, somebody would have compellingly re-prove the invalid argument (as I found it fifteen years ago) concluding that intangible property exists. That conclusion, where accepted, is what leads to the fantasy assignment of property rights and legal protections commonly referred to as IP I haven't agreed with that position since...my early thirties  

Wood...I don't believe Lichtenstein ever referenced (or whatever term you like) his art.

[Brian Peck]

15 hours ago, kc2112 said:

To me it is plagiarism. I have yet to agree with any argument calling it otherwise.

I agree. If Lichtenstein had been in the literary field and copying other people's stories, essays etc and just moving some words around or bolding or underlining some words he would have been sued and labeled a thief. But people let it slide because its just comic book art. Sad. 

[vodou]

6 minutes ago, Brian Peck said:

But people let it slide because its just comic book art. Sad. 

I don't think so. There is a philosophical divide on the issue, regardless of media type in question.

See: Richard Prince and all the lawsuits.

[vodou]