Quote - AnArdvark, you or anybody else including a chimp (no offense mean) could paint those colored squares.....

 

That's why I think those squares aren't very interesting. On the otherhand, I don't think that I could paint one of Barnett Newman's large canvases. There is too much in the texture, the composition, and the transmission of idea to paint. For example, I was really impressed by the "Notes" series, even though they're basically just vertical lines (black on grey or white). Being in a room with several of them at MOMA was almost a visceral experience (perhaps because I'm musically trained.)  Are they worth the millions of dollars which they would probably fetch at auction? Propbably not. I think that abstract expressionist paintings are perhaps overpriced. But are they aesthetically interesting. To me they are.

I think that abstract expressionism is interesting because there are a lot of people who think that they can do it, and even a fair number of people who can create an abstract impressionist work on a lark, or as part of a school assignment, or to prove a point. I'm not really sure why one persons paintings "catch on" and another's don't, except maybe its like actors, or musicians. You have to be in the right place, at the right time, and have that certain something, and have practiced the basics (representational art, and basic techniques) sufficiently to hone your powers of observation, and you have to be able to produce enough of an ouvre for people to notice you. You have to be able to have a show, just like a musician (or group) has to have enough work to play a concert.

In a way, there are musical analogues. I like Robert Frip, and Thurston Moore (of Sonic Youth). Both of them do strange things with guitars. However they both can play the guitar normally (but choose, usually, not to), and it is this difference that distinguishes their strange noises on a guitar from my strange noises on a guitar. Plus the fact that they can make interesting strange noises for over an hour at a time, and mine ceases to be interesting after about thirty seconds.

I think that art can be used to make a statement, aesthetic or otherwise. How much one wants to pay for that expression is another issue.