I hate to be that guy, I really do. I love art, and any art lover worth their money would hate to be that guy; you know the one: the snobbish, stuck-up, well-dressed guy in the museum gallery, staring at a Picasso and ranting to anyone who will listen about the “downfall of art” and how modern art is “soulless” and “empty” and “lazy.” I’d hate to be that guy…
…but he’s got a point.
Most of you have probably heard the saying, “Even a broken clock is right twice a day.” It’s this idea that even the worst arguments or the most ridiculous statements can have some sort of underlying truth, some sort of factual basis, despite the flimsy nature of the actual thesis. That saying is the epitome of that guy, the pretentious Picasso pundit; his argument that modern art is a waste of space and time, while shallow and often lacking imagination, is one shared by many around the globe. Contemporary art, or more specifically, pieces done in the abstract or postmodern styles, is criticized for being a meaningless and low-effort form of human expression by both the average audience and some art critics.
The abstract and postmodern art movements are characterized by nonrepresentational, symbolic structures, often taking the form of shapes, lines, and bold color. They don’t typically feature realistic figures; dramatic stylization is a hallmark of both movements, although photography does not typically follow this system. Abstract and postmodern art is not inherently bad or simple—there have been countless instances of contemporary art exemplifying both depth and complexity, whether in message or in form. Chinese artist Xu Bing’s “A Book from the Sky” exhibition is composed of over 4,000 fake Chinese characters, designed to make the viewer question their ability to understand Chinese and showcase the power of the written word over a person’s way of thinking. “A Book from the Sky” is a clear example of the beauty modern art can possess—the exhibition is interactive, thought-provoking, and sends a clear, strong message.
However, most museums nowadays are flooded with abstract pieces that are often difficult to grasp. Art is meant to be worth a thousand words in a single glance, but paintings framed in some of the most prestigious cultural centers in the world now often require a blurb on the side to even be understood. What once was a visual form of human expression has now become a reading comprehension exercise, no different from an article you might read online. How often have you walked into a museum and seen a black canvas with a single red dot in the middle, titled something arbitrary, with three paragraphs of text on the side theorizing that it’s a symbolic representation of human greed? How are you meant to grasp that meaning from a single dot? If there are a million and one different ways to interpret a painting’s message, does the painting really have a message at all?
The abstract and postmodern movements have devolved from creative and hyper-stylized to oversimplified and overpriced. There can be beauty in simplicity, but many pieces just look low-effort and can sell for a thousand times the price and effort it took to make. I am all for artists pricing their art for what they think it’s worth, and I am fully aware that the value of something relatively worthless is something that will always be hotly debated. In general, though, a piece is priced based on the time, effort, materials, and skill poured into it—in some cases, you’re also paying for the artist’s name. A Monet, for example, would sell for way more than another piece of the same caliber.
Contemporary art rarely follows these pricing principles; if you take a look through websites selling modern art pieces, like Tappan, you’ll see hundreds of works that cost thousands of dollars, with many of them being essentially blocks of color, stuff I’ve seen my five-year-old cousin do at her kitchen table.
A rather famous example of contemporary art’s ridiculous price and shallow meaning is Marcel Duchamp’s “Fountain.” It’s a urinal—that’s all there is to say about it. Duchamp purchased a urinal from a sanitary ware supplier and submitted it to the Society of Independent Artists. Although the piece sparked controversy at the time, it is now widely regarded as a groundbreaking work that challenges the definition of what art could be. Replicas of Duchamp’s “Fountain” have sold for over $2 million dollars.
Duchamp took something that already existed and called it his own—that’s not art. No matter his goal, art is ultimately done by human hands, created from an individual’s own ingenuity and creativity. There is nothing innovative or creative about buying a urinal and reselling it to museums and art collectors.
Duchamp’s “Fountain” is indicative of a larger issue in modern art. The abstract and postmodern movements that were meant to challenge the norm and push the boundaries of human creativity have instead become a cesspool of unrestrained capitalism and meaningless, over-celebrated mediocrity. The acceptance of this low-effort and overpriced market is killing the art world, especially as it becomes harder and harder for artists to find jobs due to AI.
The human aspect that makes art so special and meaningful is quite literally being painted over in front of our very eyes, and in our desperate attempts to protect the feelings of people who make millions off of a single paint splatter on a canvas, we hang up essays in galleries, newspapers, and online forums to explain away the death of human expression.
