This weeks Work in Progress thread
Identifying Artwork thread
Weekly Discussion 26/08/2013
Can an art work be judged to be good or bad?
On the surface is seems like a very straight forward answer but are they the right words to use? Saying things are ‘good’ or ‘bad’ are very definitive terms and largely suggest that you’re taking opinion out of it.
People often judge work by technical proficiency (normally based on ‘realism’) but would they claim that this work by Paul Cadden is better than Picasso’s ‘Guernica’?
This begs the question of whether the aesthetic is important or whether it’s the contents of a painting, do you get more from ‘The Gypsy’ by Laura Knight or from ‘Philistines’ by Jean Michael Basquiat, people can argue that the first is boring albeit techincally skilled and that the latter is childishly naive.
Here is a painting by Vlademar Cher, ‘Dog bites man’, taken from ‘The Museum of Bad art’, it’s technically poor but does it tell us something interesting about the painter. They’re obviously trying to express themselves through it, with the blue tones and infliction of pain. It’s arguably a tool that they’re using so does it matter that it’s not very proficient in it’s skill? Is it a bad piece of work?
Here’s an article people may wish to read to give some thoughts about the topic.
via [Weekly discussion 26/08/2013] Can an art work be judged to be good or bad? : Art.
