CAN SOMEONE ENLIGHTEN ME ON WHY SOME OF THE FAMOUS “FINE ART” WORKS ARE CLASSIFIED AS ART? PLEASE!!!

          So it is the beginning of the summer season here in Buffalo, and to all of you that live or are from here and have relocated, you know it is the start of the festival season. Here is Buffalo there is a festival for just about any and every thing… food, cultural, ethnicity, art, music, so on and so forth.  According to www.allentownartfestival.com “The Allentown Art Festival takes place in the Allentown Historic Preservation District of Buffalo, New York. Tens of Thousands art patrons visit the Festival to enjoy the beauty of Buffalo's weather in June, the charm and uniqueness of the Allentown area and the quality of the art and crafts presented by the over 400 juried exhibitors.”    

          This is a fantastic idea to help the local and non-local artists get together, sell their works and try to make a name for them self. But this brings me the question of what exactly is art? Let me make clear that this rant of mine is focusing on painting as an art.  If you type “definition of art” in to the google search engine, this is what comes up.
art

noun /ärt/  arts, plural The expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power - the art of the Renaissance - great art is concerned with moral imperfections - she studied art in Paris Works produced by such skill and imagination - his collection of modern art - an exhibition of Mexican art - an art critic Creative activity resulting in the production of paintings, drawings, or sculpture - she's good at art The various branches of creative activity, such as painting, music, literature, and dance - the visual arts - the art of photography Subjects of study primarily concerned with the processes and products of human creativity and social life, such as languages, literature, and history (as contrasted with scientific or technical subjects) - the belief that the arts and sciences were incompatible - the Faculty of Arts A skill at doing a specified thing, typically one acquired through practice - the art of conversation

          OK now that we have the definition clearly listed above, CAN SOMEONE ENLIGHTEN ME ON WHY SOME OF THE FAMOUS “FINE ART” WORKS ARE CLASSIFIED AS ART? PLEASE!!! If you go to http://www.albrightknox.org/ and view the collection highlights, you may feel the same way as I do. If not, I need to talk to you so an argument can be made convincing me why some of this “art” is just not worthless crap.

          This all started at work, someone was talking about some jackass that was going to “stand and contemplate Jackson Pollock’s Convergence, 1952, for forty hours over five days.”(1.) This painting looks like a bunch of paint splattered onto a canvas. If I gave my 2 year old son some paint and a brush, he might be inclined to throw the paint at the canvas or a wall for that matter recreating this work. How is something like this considered to be art when definition says something about human creative SKILL? Skill is the key word here, throwing paint at a canvas is not a skill, and besides, a monkey can do it.

          I keep going though the collection highlights and I see some very fine pieces… I also see more crap. The Yellow Christ, 1889, by Paul Gaugin looks like a 10 year old drew it, but at least it is an actual picture of something, art if I may, not like Orange and Yellow, 1956, by Mark Rothko which is a canvas painted orange with a yellow rectangle painted inside of this orange canvas… I also think that this Rothko painting is crap, elementary at best and not worth a squirt of piss in my opinion.

         While on the subject of piss, my creative streak has come alive! After seeing what is considered to be “fine art”, I feel that I can create a painting of my own that can rival some of this crap. Call it abstract, conceptual, insane or brilliant; it will be art in my mind. My piece would probably fall under the "Conceptual Art" section in the art community. They give some kind of bullshit explanation where the concept out weighs the artistic merit... I consider this to be a scapegoat for shitty artists and their concepts to be accepted as a part of the art world.

          So, I am going to briefly describe the concept of my upcoming masterpiece (we can go more in depth at a later time), and if I see anything like this appear on the web, I’ll know that you stole this idea from me! Fucking thieves, I know you are out there... Anyway, I am going to title my work Piss on the Canvas. At one point I had thought of naming it Yellow Snow, but I just was not feeling the same inside as when the words Piss on the Canvas flowed out of my mouth. You may ask what is my inspiration... Since I have referred to other works as crap, I want to add the other excrement that generally goes with feces; no I will not be adding actual piss to the canvas (That has already been done, by some extremely famous artists if I may add). But rather, my piece will resemble piss, which is not a far stretch from what some of the fine art of the world looks like. It is my vision... I can just see the yellow paint running down the canvas in all of its brilliance. I am just going to take the blank canvas, and squirt some yellow paint that has been thinned to a liquid onto it as if it were piss flowing onto the ground while tailgating.

          I know, you might not see the brilliance or genius in this as I do, but that is probably how people feel on my views on the fine art pieces that I had mentioned earlier. Remember there is a fine line on brilliance and insanity… We are still on the fence on what side I actually fall on, but I believe that to be brilliant, you need a bit of insanity in you as well.

I give you... "Piss on the Canvas"

1. Reference:
  www.albrightknox.org/news-and-features/features/article:05-25-2011-interview-jonathan-vandyke/