It never was, but it is still important as it always has been.
> There's certainly an element of it but it's gotten very meta and abstract these days.
Art is about many things. I agree that a lot of art can be esoteric nowadays, mostly because its in conversation with specific things, so it can feel like an inside joke, or a private conversation you are not privy to. If I make an art piece critiquing an article from The Economist and you never read business news then my piece will be unparseable for you, regardless of quality.
Many art pieces are in response to other art movements, or to niche communities, or to conversations happening in the art world etc. If you jump into a modern art gallery and someone is replying to the art that was in Art Basel Miami, which was a repsonse to internet art, which in itself was a response to figurative early .... and then you go to this art gallery and you cant get a painting because its talking to someone that is not you.
> where the need to be accessible vs original are pit against each other.
I dont think thats true. There are certainly artists that manage to break new ground while being accesible, while other prime originality over mainstream appeal. That is an artistic choice to be made, in the same way retreading comfortable ground or releasing a Christman Carol album is.
> Da Vinci, Monet, Turner, Picasso - the art is fairly accessible.
Trying to understand the last supper without knowledge of Christianity would make Da Vinci fairly hard. Monet was a counter culture leader against The Salon in France which prized craft, and execution over more ground breaking attempts like impressionism, so hardly accesible when his entire life was a fight against the culture of the time. Picasso can be called many things, but accesible is not one that comes to mind. Gernika can be considered striking, but cubism, his portraits of women (and their significance), his pottery... there is plenty of his work that needs analysis and is plain ugly on first watch.
> But who will be remembered as being accessible and "serious" from our generation in music?
There will be plenty. Kendrick Lamar won a Pulitzer for his lyrics, to give a simple example his song Swimming Pools about the many faces of alcoholism and its raveging effects on the black community is both a popular song as well as really well written narratively. From the 90s you could easily pull Nirvana for offering grunge as an alternative to the hyper corporate, pro capitalism, runaway train that american political and social life was engaged in, while having incredibly catchy songs. If you wanna go further back Bob Dylan and The Beatles are absolute masters of catchy tunes and powerful lyrics.
You said what felt to be in the present with List? Well you had Lisztomania, an absolute uproar of women turning up to see him. This was mocked/replicated by the beatles with Beatlemania. You could argue the Boy band, Justin Bieber phenomenom was that same effect although the musicality, and the corporate interference shows a darker more manufactured side to the art.
And in terms of art you have incredible art of every type right now, never has art been more accesible or easy to produce. What we are missing is search tools, surfacing interesting works and specially people curating what stuff is good from the muck. But if a tree falls in a forest, it still makes sound and rn there are countless artists dropping trees you just need to perk your ears up
Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I think you've addressed to some degree what I was trying to think around. That art may be difficult to evaluate in its time. Monet may have been a counter culture artist in his time but today he has a somewhat universal appeal. Is that cultural? Are we now primed to like Monet because people have told us to like Monet?
No doubt in his time there were factions, those who pandered to the institution and those who fawned over innovation and originality. I'm sure these cycles occur in every present.
So then what will be remembered from our time? As you say a lot of today's art is esoteric and holding a conversation not all of us are privy to.
I also agree that to some extent we do now have the most art we ever could have. The internet and the creator economy has unlocked creativity in many ways. I recall some discussion the other day about the "hollowing out of the middle" in musical instrument proficiency, and more widely a lot of other skills. Technology and convenience has eradicated a need for many skills at a "mediocre" level but we also have more access to information and learning than ever before.
> Monet may have been a counter culture artist in his time but today he has a somewhat universal appeal. Is that cultural? Are we now primed to like Monet because people have told us to like Monet?
The counter culture of his time was only because France had tried to make art be controlled from the top down. Part of the enlightenment was related to the idea that you could find "truth" in all forms through discovery like in science. So Aesthetics and language also became Prescriptive, where a central authority says what is right (just like science academy says what is right in science).
English for example is a non prescriptive language and there is no central authority, so english dictionaries describe how english is used not how english should be. France still has an academy of writers who says how French SHOULD be.
In the arts however the Salon failed, because art is not prescriptive and there is no right way to do art. Some people might work tirelessly to make a 200ft tall painting of virgin mary, and some might make a tiny postcard of a boat in their hometown and you cannot tell which one will move you from that description alone.
> So then what will be remembered from our time?
One of the main drivers of quality is influence. Its hard to tell what is good art when seeing it, but in 10 years when everything either looks like that or rejects that or responds to it in some way then that was good art. Bad art is forgotten.
So what will be remembered from our time is easy to know because things like the internet have accelarated cycles. People now get tired and move on to the next thing much faster.
So when people come back to hyper-pop, early, internet aesthetics almost 14 years later you know that it was good art (see 100 gecs, charli xcx, sophie). When more bands start being mysterious, adding lore through internet channels, adding metal and noise influences into hiphop you can tell Death Grips was good art.
In more traditional art you have an entire wave of artists now who are hyper sensible, honest and earnest. This is a rejection of artist like Koons or Hockney with their hyper capitalist "it sells" attitude that dominated post Warhol. That means those were good artist if everyone know wants to not be like them.
What wont be rememebred would be the awful graffitis facebook paid to have in their offices, or the Beeple NFT art that sold for millions at auction. Because it moved no one, it means nothing and it largely for headlines to move stock prices and nothing else. No one even hates that art, its just completely ignored as irrelevant.
It never was, but it is still important as it always has been.
> There's certainly an element of it but it's gotten very meta and abstract these days.
Art is about many things. I agree that a lot of art can be esoteric nowadays, mostly because its in conversation with specific things, so it can feel like an inside joke, or a private conversation you are not privy to. If I make an art piece critiquing an article from The Economist and you never read business news then my piece will be unparseable for you, regardless of quality.
Many art pieces are in response to other art movements, or to niche communities, or to conversations happening in the art world etc. If you jump into a modern art gallery and someone is replying to the art that was in Art Basel Miami, which was a repsonse to internet art, which in itself was a response to figurative early .... and then you go to this art gallery and you cant get a painting because its talking to someone that is not you.
> where the need to be accessible vs original are pit against each other.
I dont think thats true. There are certainly artists that manage to break new ground while being accesible, while other prime originality over mainstream appeal. That is an artistic choice to be made, in the same way retreading comfortable ground or releasing a Christman Carol album is.
> Da Vinci, Monet, Turner, Picasso - the art is fairly accessible.
Trying to understand the last supper without knowledge of Christianity would make Da Vinci fairly hard. Monet was a counter culture leader against The Salon in France which prized craft, and execution over more ground breaking attempts like impressionism, so hardly accesible when his entire life was a fight against the culture of the time. Picasso can be called many things, but accesible is not one that comes to mind. Gernika can be considered striking, but cubism, his portraits of women (and their significance), his pottery... there is plenty of his work that needs analysis and is plain ugly on first watch.
> But who will be remembered as being accessible and "serious" from our generation in music?
There will be plenty. Kendrick Lamar won a Pulitzer for his lyrics, to give a simple example his song Swimming Pools about the many faces of alcoholism and its raveging effects on the black community is both a popular song as well as really well written narratively. From the 90s you could easily pull Nirvana for offering grunge as an alternative to the hyper corporate, pro capitalism, runaway train that american political and social life was engaged in, while having incredibly catchy songs. If you wanna go further back Bob Dylan and The Beatles are absolute masters of catchy tunes and powerful lyrics.
You said what felt to be in the present with List? Well you had Lisztomania, an absolute uproar of women turning up to see him. This was mocked/replicated by the beatles with Beatlemania. You could argue the Boy band, Justin Bieber phenomenom was that same effect although the musicality, and the corporate interference shows a darker more manufactured side to the art.
And in terms of art you have incredible art of every type right now, never has art been more accesible or easy to produce. What we are missing is search tools, surfacing interesting works and specially people curating what stuff is good from the muck. But if a tree falls in a forest, it still makes sound and rn there are countless artists dropping trees you just need to perk your ears up