Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Art Speaking?

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 It should be added that the reductive quality of the facture notates the accessibility of the work. 
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 I'm surprised that no one's mentioned yet that the iconicity of the purity of line brings within the realm of discourse the inherent overspecificity. 
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As an advocate of the Big Mac Aesthetic, I feel that the disjunctive perturbation of the sexual signifier visually and conceptually activates the substructure of critical thinking.
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It should be added that the subaqueous qualities of the sexy fish spatially undermines the larger carcass. 

I just couldn't resist. I had to generate some "art speak" for these mini abstracts I did this week. I was in the process of making new work to add to the Etsy shop when I came across this blog post by Eric Armusik. I love what he had to say about what he calls ABS ~

"If you haven't heard me before on the subject, I have a big problem with art speak.  I've even given it an acronym: ABS - Artist Bull Sh*tting.  I hate it, and it is rampant in our profession.  In the 19th Century and before, artists spent their time honing their technical skills.  Today artists spend their time reading theory and looking for inanimate objects to trick everyone into believing they are art."

Many times when I see some of the ridiculous paragraphs that accompany artwork I just shake my head and wonder who comes up with this crap? Sometimes it's the artist but sometimes I think it's the critics who write about the artists and their work. Of course this is seen much more often next to abstract or non-objective work. Why does it always have to have an explanation? I paint in realism and also enjoy painting mixed media abstracts. Do I feel like I have to explain my abstract work? No. Sometimes the reason behind the work is simply that I love texture. I love design. I love certain color combinations. It really is that simple. No ABS needed.

How did I come up with the ABS that I added under each of these little abstracts? By using The Instant Art Critique Phrase Generator. A friend of mine shared this gem with me and I found it quite amusing. The numbers under each painting are the numbers used to generate the CRAP - Critical Response to the Art Product. Give this a try for a good chuckle. 

Thanks Eric for sharing your insights on the ABS. The rest of us who feel the same way appreciate it.

PS: the CRAP that generated for the last little piece with the fish was complete coincidence! I was amazed when I plugged in those numbers at random it came up with a line about a fish.




2 comments:

Kate Watson said...

This is great! When I was in college, I thought I just wasn't smart enough to get it, but as I've gotten older, I've realized that if I don't get what someone is saying about their work, it's often because it's a bunch of meaningless garbage. Thanks for sharing

Carlynne Hershberger, CPSA said...

Thanks Kate, I used to think the same thing. "I haven't gotten that far in school yet. I guess I just don't understand. Someday I'll get what these artist's are saying...." HA. That's the big joke - IMHO there's really nothing to get. And who knows, maybe some artists who the critics claim were going through their 'blue period' or 'yellow period', were really just using up the extra blue or yellow paint they had on hand from a previous project. I know I have a bunch of yellow and red paint left from painting the horse so those colors will probably show up in a selection of little abstracts soon.