A HOLIDAY QUEST FOR MITIGATION

In the comments with readers after my last post I wrote,
if you go online and look at the 2,284 drawings in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, you will be stunned by the amount of unmitigated crap in their collection....the ratio of money to talent at the MOMA cathedral is downright asphyxiating.
Some of you scolded me for hyperbole.  After all, would the distinguished Museum of Modern Art really acquire "unmitigated crap"?  Surely I am just applying outdated standards to these pioneering works?

In the spirit of the holiday season, I thought I would post some of the offending artwork to see whether my more open hearted readers can point out the mitigating qualities I am missing.  Here are some of the masterpieces currently enshrined in the collection of MOMA:













As I browsed through dozens of crummy drawings like these, I noticed that whenever I was tempted to give a drawing the benefit of a doubt I ended up deducting points for pretentiousness. For example, MOMA does not appear to own a single drawing by Disney, yet it proudly features many lame drawings of Disney subjects by inferior artists:









Why should MOMA display such drawings while turning up its nose at Disney's original work? Perhaps the answer can be found in a press release issued earlier this year, wherein MOMA celebrated "a psychological collage made by slicing and reconfiguring the pages of Walt Disney coloring books." The drawings in MOMA's collection are not lowbrow Disney entertainment, buster, they are psychological collages.

To be clear, MOMA has many exquisite pieces.  But someone at MOMA obviously believes that no matter how poorly a picture is drawn, it can be redeemed by an intellectual purpose. Regrettably, these drawings and their "intellectual purpose" both strike me as unmitigated crap. However, I am confident that my network of art lovers out there can explain what I am missing.

Popular posts from this blog

THE SKETCHBOOKS OF ALBERT DORNE

Image
Albert Dorne was one of the most remarkable characters in the history of illustration.  The upcoming book,   Albert Dorne, Master Illustrator  (out in November from the fine folks at Auad Publishing) describes how Dorne used his drawing ability to climb from the depths of poverty and illness to international renown as an artist, business leader, educator and philanthropist. Detail   From the introduction to the new book:      Starting with nothing but a talent for drawing, Dorne became (in the words of advertising titan Fairfax Cone) “the highest paid, most successful commercial artist of his time.”   From that position,   he used his drawing skills as a platform for building a multinational corporation that trained tens of thousands of students around the world in the creative fields of art, writing and photography.   Now a wealthy man, he went on to use drawing to help the disabled, became nationally respected for his charitable work and was appointed by the President of the United S
Read more

GEORGE BRIDGMAN'S ART CLASS

Image
These are original student drawings from the 1911 class of the famous art teacher, George Bridgman. Bridgman, constantly inebriated and chewing on a large black cigar, would rail at his students about the importance of mastering anatomy: "Don't think color's going to do you any good. Or lovely compositions. You can't paint a house until it's built." His students adored him and vied for his approval. Some of the students in this class would grow up to be stars, such as Norman Rockwell , Mclelland Barclay or E.F. Ward . But in 1911 they were still ambitious teenagers dreaming of the future and striving to develop the kind of academic drawing skill that many illustrators today consider irrelevant. The crowded classroom was warmed by the stench of tobacco, charcoal, perspiration and turpentine. Many of the models were girls who had come to the city to work in department stores during a peak holiday season and were laid off after the holidays.  Desperate for money
Read more

FIRST CONTACT

Image
. Every once in a while we do a post on science fiction stories here. For me the genre is just endlessly interesting thanks to remarkable storytellers who break new ground with each advancement in technology, biology, evolutionary psychology, etc. If you add into the mix recent discoveries of planets potentially capable of harboring life in other solar systems, suddenly novels of "first contact" have intriguing new playgrounds. A recent novel I haven't been able to stop thinking about is Blindsight by Peter Watts . It in part explores the questions: If an extrasolar intelligence arrived, would it even be possible for us to parse a completely alien psychology? And how would we react if it seemed to refuse contact or took no notice of our attempts to do so? We have a poor track record in dealing with things we don't understand and that frighten us, and Blindsight is a frightening novel. It has a kind of Richard Dawkins fueled bleakness that makes the story compelli
Read more