what is "poor art"? Visual poet Andrew Topel and others would seem to say "poor art" is art that doesn't look good, without ever defining what "good" is, as if "good" is a given. Pushed to define, some pin "good art" to strong drawing skills which 90% + of viewers (western European) would confirm as strong--the drawn hand looks like my hand, the eye my eye, or is done in such a way as to deftly suggest such objects. But think of the many artists that criterion would exclude (in the western canon, it would exclude many German Expressionist painters). "Good art," Topel and others might say, is decorative (and yes, shocking can be decorative).
"The questioning of the beautiful is always at least as important as the establishment of the beautiful." Charles Bernstein, "How Empty is My Bread Pudding"
Technical skill in and of itself does not produce "art," though facility with one's medium may increase the likelihood of its production. Technique is one of the many factors and ultimately no easier to quantify/qualify than any other factor. What are the millionsbillionstrillions of superbly executed landcapes/portraits/still lives missing? They function as decoration over the bed-and-breakfast breakfast table, on the walls of banks, in the alcoves of office buildings, but why don't they do more than decorate?
In our culture, originalty still carries considerable weight, e.g. "I've never seen anythink like that," or "That painting does something with composition I haven't seen before." Goldsmith, Perloff, Place and others rightfully challenge the cult of originality (following in Warhol and others' footsteps). Does compelling art have to be original?
Can we--do we have to--agree upon a set of criteria to judge art when once that judgement's made a hierarchy's writ in stone, the chosen (privileged) criteria doing the writing?
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