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...or just quite dislike :lol:

Tepid and lukewarm opinions are as welcome as your absolutely hateful and extreme opinions.

We've had several threads about music we hate and I haven't really updated that artist of the day for a long time due to not having the time or regular access to the internet. So most of you i'd imagine are aware of the sort of art I like, and I your particular tastes. But apart from Best Bastard's genocidal sentiments regarding the YBA's and their ilk I realized this morning I don't know what genres or artists get your heckles up. By now i've learnt what gets your individual musical goats but my knowledge of your visual/conceptual/craft/medium/etc cons is strangely lacking. So lets have at you. What art/artists DON'T you like?

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I've always taken issue towards a sizeable percentage of Victorian and early 20th century art, particularly painting in the - *a h e m* -"social realist" style. A genre thats about as realistic about society as Kelvin McKenzie is an intelligent fully-rounded human being. Based purely on my own admittedly biased post-modern sensibilities I can only attempt to imagine what grounds those people were working on when making, commissioning or critiquing art.
They were so obsessed with taste and refinement that, in my opinion for what little its worth, it prevented them from acknowledging art that challenged their own sense of self worth. In Britain at least at the rise and decline of our empire, its arguable that many people simply weren't prepared for works that dissected or attacked our confidence as a nation. Today we are much more cynical (some of us comfortably so) on all levels of society regardless of class or education.

"The Slave Ship" or "Slavers Throwing overboard the Dead and Dying—Typhoon coming on by J. M. W. Turner

Laying Down the Law by Edwin Landseer

It would be arrogant of me to dismiss all Victorian art buffs as philistines for not adhering my own limitations and ideals. But its hard for me to understand why people of that era couldn't recognize the brutal stark brilliance of the topmost painting (by this time in his career Turner was much derided by many circles) but on the flipside could find nought but critical appraisal and approval of a painting of a fucking dog by Edwin Landseer.
If I was in the mood to be self-critical i'd realize that quite a lot of modern art is equally people pleasing and conformist. But its odd how I can get quite angry at the Victorian industrial elite for buying pictures of rosy cheeked children in sunny hayfields when most of them employed near-infantile wretches to work in their dangerous cotton factories for a pittance, filling their lungs with dust and disregarding their own terrifyingly hypocritical tastes.

Monarch of the Glen by Edwin Landseer

If I could return to Laying Down the Law for a moment to bring up another point. Animals have been used in art and ritual to represent aspects of our own identity and culture. Certain animals have moral or behavioural associations or are symbolic in a plethora of ways, which has affected the fortunes of species for or against their favour. To Landseer's credit he was exceptionally good at portraying animals in paint, plunging into the Victorians love of animals (whether this was genuine affection or ulterior interest varied) with a relish that ensured his success and acclaim as an artist.
A painting like Monarch of the Glen is composed brilliantly, in colour and positioning. There is part of me that likes the arrangement of deer and hilly backdrop. There is also a part of me that wants to invent a time machine so I can go back to 1851 and punch Landseer in the face.

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:lol:

Oh dear. Sorry about the length of this post. I hope you enjoyed my little half-arsed half-clever rant about art. I think I can already see what direction this thread will be going in anyway. Lets just say I doubt they'll be publishing in Art Review any time in the foreseeable future. I'll be back...

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