#these responses to abstract art stem from do not be a classist ass and maybe acknowledge that these instructions could do better

[cinematicbookworm]

Saw a TikTok complaining about anti intellectualism and making fun of people who are going to modern art museums and missing the point of works by saying oh I could do that. Long rant about us academic intellectuals missing the whole god damn point of the criticism under the cut… tldr… people keep complaining about anti intellectualism with out acknowledging the failings of museums to provide context for art pieces that would otherwise make no sense or come across as opaque and pretentious with out the proper context and background and that it is not the fault of the people who are unfamiliar with the piece when they then either horribly misinterpret it or dismiss it as garbage that is likely little more than rich people being pretentious. And the people who complain about these people need to fucking acknowledge when us ivory tower intellectuals are the ones who are the problem because anti intellectualism doesn’t exist in a vacuum

The persons whole argument about why these people standing next to works of art saying they could make that piece was stupid and an example of anti intellectualism was to provide the entire backstory of that art piece a backstory which clearly was not displayed next to the art and I’m of two minds yes the piece that they were having fun laughing saying they could make that was indeed more than just the piece itself and was important with context. however my problem with the argument provided and a lot of the modern art world in general, is that one this is not the case for all or even arguably most modern art and two even if a piece has that context the museum it self fails in its purpose if that context is not provided for the people visiting and your gotcha argument of um actually it’s got a real impressive backstory is not valid in defeating the actual problem here because a person who goes to a museum should not have to look up a third party thesis paper on the piece to understand the context that gives the piece it’s meaning otherwise either museum or the piece it self fails in its purpose. that context should at least in part be provided by the museum and I have been to numerous modern art museums in different states where they do not do that at all, and the particular pieces that where being talked about seemed to only have the usual dates name and small blurb about the artist with out context for the piece, so of course people who do not have easy access to that information or even know that that information exists are going to criticize what looks like a a random sheet or a single color canvas. Anti intellectualism is a problem yes but so is this ivory tower academic, and yes pretentious, mindset of if someone isn’t engaging with the context of art they must be a lazy slob who isn’t interested in the greater context of the piece. Because the whole reason a lot of people have the mind set of modern art being pretentious and opaque bullshit that’s good for little more than rich people money laundering is because that is at least partially the case. The very fact that these people where in a museum in the first place shows that the argument that these people are lazy and unwilling to learn the greater context is false because they were in the museum they paid the money to go there to see the work they obviously want to see and learn something or else they wouldn’t be there. The whole purpose of a museum is to be an educational space and if all they are doing is providing a date and name of an artist you cannot then get mad at the person who misses the point of a piece when they weren’t even aware that the point existed in the first place. Especially when there do exist pieces of abstract art whose whole purpose is to make people think that abstract art is bullshit. If context isn’t provided people are not going to be able to tell the difference. It’s like if you got mad at someone for not knowing today was your birthday when they’ve never even met you before. Satire is only effective if people know it’s satire. A piece of work is only going to be effective if context is provided. And if your reaction to someone going somewhere to look at modern art where the context of that art fails to be disseminated in any meaningful way and then to say hur dur look at these idiot plebeians who know nothing look at them missing the point entirely I hate to break it to you are a pretentious asshole who is part of the fucking problem anti intellectualism doesn’t exist in a fucking vacuum.