be snobbish and thoughtful about all art indiscriminately
“it’s not that deep” you have no fucking clue how deep it is
I want to agree with this so bad, but
Like, ok, small thing big- that’s cool, fragile thing hard- weird and cool fine, childhood wonder and nostalgia- cool sure, but that’s all Jeff Koons does! Balloon dogs.
What am I missing?
This is going to sound cliche, but try and expand on what you’re feeling. Does it feature a nostalgic subject or does it actually manage to feel nostalgic? Does the ambiguous material provoke frustration in you? Do you want to touch it? You might be left cold, but that’s an entirely different well to fall down. Try and say the same thing again, but longer. Grab the feeling by its cheeks and pull them apart, look between the kerning of your text. Bullshit your way into it until you find something true. Look up the artist, look up his contemporaries, gain context, shade your opinions to give them depth and definition.
Note, my post didn’t say “All art is good.” Sometimes being snobbish and thoughtful means being critical, but good criticism is a form of respect. It’s a form of self-love, to give your base thoughts a body.
It’s also perfectly fine if a piece of art doesn’t speak to you. A lot of it just won’t, for whatever reason. It’s fine if a piece of art comes across as boring, or dull, or…just there.
Work can be technically demanding and still not “it” for you. Just don’t let the experience of “this one piece didn’t work for me” color your perspective of the artist, style, or medium.
