Go back to previous page
Forum URL: http://www.truefresco.com/cgidir/dcforum/dcboard.cgi
Forum Name: The Bar Stool... Just Art!
Topic ID: 50
Message ID: 29
#29, RE: The Death of Painting
Posted by abvg on 04-Feb-02 at 06:53 PM
In response to message #27
Douglas,

The points I wished to comment on were these:-

I do not think anyone is suggesting that technology itself has caused or is causing the death of painting. The point about modern technology is that we have used it (particularly communication technology) to create a mass popular culture/artform. This is a modern phenomenon. It could be argued that there always was a high art and a folk art, but folk art was localized. The technology allowed the globalization of mass culture. Now whether you want to call this high art v kitch or, as I prefer to think of it, avant garde and rearguard is completely at your discretion. My contention is that POP art closed the gap between avant garde and rearguard.

The interesting thing is that the avant garde deliberately and with malice aforethought abandoned painting because they believed that painting no longer had the stuff. That is to say they believed that painting could not influence culture beyond the narrow confines of the ruling (artloving) class.

Postmodern artists would seem to agree. They do not work with the big things in mind. Whether this is because they are not interested in the big things or simply because they do not have the clout anymore is central to the question of whether or not painting is dead as a valid and vital artform.

I regret using the word 'rich' in one of my previous posts. A better expression would be an elite class. I do not mean elite in any superior kind of way but elite in the way that Art (with a capital A) has always been elitist.

Finally, my thanks to the Patriots - they won me a tenner.