Hating the false intellectualism of contemporary art

Contemporary art can be thought provoking. But I have no space in my head for things that become art simply because someone with an education added a lofty description. Here’s the stereotypical pretense.

“In simplicity, art becomes more direct and incisive in its dissection of the human mind, a more lucent mirror of our collective subconscious.”

CRAP!!! It’s a frikkin rock. It doesn’t say anything to you unless it does. If a description is required then it might as well be a thought experiment with no physical subject.

Take ‘Levitated Mass’ for example. The image above. It’s just a rock. While the artist thankfully won’t describe the piece, that hasn’t kept art critics earning their keep from layering a huge pile of crap over it’s simplicity. And I think in the process that something gets lost. Maybe the artist would agree. Contemporary art has become more about education than perception. In other words, you can’t appreciate it unless you have been trained to do so.

While I appreciate that art can be more greatly appreciated with an education, and that there is room for intellectual art, there’s also a whole lot of mental masturbation, false creativity, and exploitive career building going on when a pile of dirt gets a label and becomes culturally relevant.