Immersive Van Gogh: Why Art is in Crisis
Вставка
- Опубліковано 22 тра 2024
- Jack Hazan's A BIGGER SPLASH is streaming on MUBI in Canada and the US. Get a whole month of great cinema FREE: mubi.com/broeydeschanel
Rehash Podcast:
podcasters.spotify.com/pod/sh...
Rehash Patreon:
/ rehashpodcast
Follow and support the channel!
Patreon: / broeydeschanel
Instagram: / broey_deschanel
Thumbnail by Hannah Raine:
hannahmrain...
SOURCES:
Walter Benjamin, “'The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility” (1935).
Joe Coscarelli, “How Drake’s $100 Million Bet Saved the Long-Lost Art Carnival Luna Luna” The New York Times (2022).
Douglas Davis, “The Work of Art in the Age of Digital Reproduction” Leonardo, Vol. 28 (5), Third Annual New York Digital Salon (1995).
Jason Farago, “Submerged in van Gogh: Would Absinthe Make the Art Grow Fonder?” The New York Times (2021).
Melissa Heikkilä, “This artist is dominating AI-generated art. And he’s not happy about it.” MIT Technology Review, (2022).
Colin Moynihan, “Why Warhol Images Are Making Museums Nervous”, New York Times (2023).
Maya Phillips, “Paintings, Projections, V.R. Starry Nights: Can We Ever Know van Gogh?” The New York Times (2021).
Gil Appel, Juliana Neelbauer, and David A. Schweidel “Generative AI Has an Intellectual Property Problem” Harvard Business Review, (2023). - Розваги
debate! debate! EDIT: I think some people are missing what Benjamin meant by the "aura". He isn't placing any value on the idea - just that the aura is how the work exists in time and space, not that the work isn't "good" or something. A lot of people here are arguing that film can have an aura. In the context of Benjamin, it can't. It doesn't exist anywhere in time and space (unless you're looking at a physical reel I guess, but that's not the film itself). There's nothing wrong with not having an aura, it's just that reproduced works don't have one.
Vincent didn't take his life. New scholarship has shown up in the last couple of years. He was covering for a couple of teens who were playing with a gun.
I'm a tad surprised you didn't know this.
Sorry, we can't debate. UA-cam keeps rejecting out comments. UA-cam does not like anything with peersonal experience in it.
@@davidannderson9796 you mean UA-cam doesn't want you insulting her with obscenities and slurs.
@@beejlsI saw a video about this theory but I remember it as just a theory. Has there really been such a definite consensus about it?
@@beejls I was trying to describe my positive personal experience with digital art on the internet
And UA-cam apparently thought that this meant I was advertising something I was selling
I have had this happen a lot
Think about it- how many comments with obscenities ever get taken off? Obviously they aren't taking down posts for being mean- there are so many posts like that that are still out there! They care more if you are selling something.
I cannot even mention that I an an @uthor without it getting blocked!
I was so disgusted by the immersive exhibit. The worst part for me was how hard they tried to convince you they had the best intentions in bringing awareness to Van Gogh's tragic life. And then the gift shop at the end sold mugs with his face where the ear disappeared when it got hot.
What the actual fuck?? That's ghoulish.
Yeah. I love Van Gogh but that kind of "merch" is just sickeningly tasteless.
omg
Omg yeah! I was so disgusted when they told his story and put in gun sounds in the part where he probably shot himself!
When I went they had some kind of memorabilia where his ear was removable. Can’t remember exactly what it was but it definitely ruined the whole experience for me. It seems especially sadistic if you realize that a lot of the art community struggles with mental health and will see this stuff and think, wow people could get their jollies from my despair. Dystopian af.
"I have enough money to buy art, therefore I am on the same level and as creative, and imaginative as the mind which originally dreamt up the art I bought, and spent decades developing the skills to share those dreams."
God, I hate tech executives.
I genuinely wanted to bash his skull in when he said that
"I have the rights for this art" is a horrid expression by itself.
I Hate Art - the business of
It's much worse than that. Accumulating money and power means people who speak critically of them hold no value to them. They're insulated by a group of yes men who not only will never speak against them but convince them that any criticism of them is rooted in jealousy. They are the only people rich enough to buy and sell art but it is really only being exchanged between a small group of people. Whether we like it or not they basically own and finance the art industry and can thus take it in any direction they want.
You have to wonder how many artists are the pastimes of idle rich. Pollack really got famous because some midwestern tycoon enjoyed the company of Pollack and his wife. It's like painting the earth, the dirt. How John Wayne.
This reminds me of how Disney churns out remake after remake because executives are too scared to make something new. It's this capitalistic way of viewing art that banks on "marketability" and rehashing what's safe in order to maximise profits. Corporations would rather milk tried and true cash cows rather than support current artists trying to innovate. And the result is soulless every time. Because good art is not spawned from a desire to make as much money as humanly possible. It's spawned from something genuine and human and that can't be grasped when your only concern is numbers.
Thank you for putting this into words! It makes me think of the value of artists being inspired by other works and making it their own and chances for innovation. But when it is so removed from the artist for corporations to make something that everybody will buy then that spark/soul/aura feels removed. We are at an interesting crossroads
With Disney, it’s also because they already have the merch lines, rides, etc. for those characters. Synergy!
Boring, boring synergy!
Same things happening in the music industry, you ever notice how all the songs on the radio these days are borrowing hooks from classic tunes? Or how most local bands fit very snug into a specific genre, never truly pushing the boundaries?
@@dandinkler6315 that's another perfect example! i was literally thinking about this the other day
It also robs this era of real culture
Even museums are becoming “instagram factories” now. I was just in Paris and went to the Orsay and was appalled at how everyone was just rushing from painting to painting, snapping pictures. People actually got disgruntled when anyone got close to actually admire the art and see the details up close, “blocking the shot.” It was really frustrating and disheartening
The last sentence with I agree very much.. it’s like seeing two species of humans right next to each other. Just painful to see and have that be a moment of reality that is forgotten but stained
I was there 4 years ago, but it wasn't that bad. all of my travel experiences to popular places usually have lines of people just there to take a photo. really hard to enjoy the ambience cause there is none at that point
Yoooo I hate this so much. Was at a Matisse exhibition in Tokyo and every single person moved like clockwork through the paintings taking a picture of every single one without even really looking at them. What is the point of this???
As an art historian and someone who works in an art museum, I definitely have worries about art history programs being replaced by "visual culture" programs. I can certainly attest that a photographic reproduction of a work of art can never capture the same experience as looking at that work of art in person. I think it's also a persistent issue in the art world the tendency to want to erase the hand of all the people who work to bring exhibitions to life. Museum photography is a really fine balance and there's a lot of work that goes into even creating these images that then get uploaded onto the website to be put into the public domain.
I agree, which is why i think we should value the Works of people who make high quality reproductions instead of these hacks
I worked at the exhibit in Cincinnati when it first arrived, and they played these quotes over speakers throughout the duration of the exhibit that were Van Goghs words but they sounded nothing like him. And the gift shop was robbery
"inexplicably pouring milk for a crowd of onlookers" got me good.
This kind of AI generated widening is paintings is a fun toy, but really, as you mentioned, messes up the context of the painting. But even on a simpler, purely aesthetic sense, it just destroys the composition. The result looks nothing like something a Vermeer would have created. All the individual elements maybe, but that's clearly not what makes a great painting.
@@rastamonsotherchannel2802 I live in Cincinnati and was going to go to the exhibition but the prices were outrageous and even worse it seemed to be a different exhibition from the one everyone was raving about for years. Glad I ended up not going and it sounds like working there wasn’t that great either.
As someone who is a photographer of reproductions in art museums and always open to new concepts in media and art, I don´t think this will replace museums and seeing and experiencing the paintings at all.
But I think as shallow and capitalized as these showings are, they brings attention to the art and the artists to people, get appreciation of the artist and maybe wouldn´t go to museums frequently before and then want to see the original by themselfs.
And this is a good thing.
I´m much more afraid of art becoming investment objects and kept away from the public eye. Art is for everyone.
i think a big issue around this that i've seen almost no discussion of is the shift in language to talk about "consuming" art/literature/movies/music/news/culture. i never heard anyone speak like that until the early 2000s, and it was businesspeople who started it. the first time i remember hearing that framing was the netflix ceo talking about how his company allowed people to have more control in how they consume movies, and it made me do a double-take. it commodifies everything and makes it all disposable. once you've consumed that van gogh, you're done with it. on to the next thing. my relationship to art is not one of consumption - there are works of art i've been thinking about for more than 3 decades at this point. i understand that language evolves, and there's probably no turning back now, but it's worth engaging with how that evolution happens and what the effects are. we're devaluing artists because we've spent the last 2+ decades devaluing art.
I agree and the author of the video is a part of this problem. You can see this kind of corporate speak creeping into everyones life with terms like “sexual marketplace”, “high value men/women”, “building support system” which refers to having friends by the way, “consuming art/movies/books…”, “creating content” etc.
this is definitely a tangent but i think your point is part of why people immediately write off the idea of degrowth. the language of consumption is so pervasive in america that imagining a world where we consume less feels like an attack on every facet of life
I think you should probably do a little studying into art history, because art has ALWAYS been seen as a commercial commodity.
I think when the word “consumption” is used here, it’s not used in the “consume something then shit it out and never be associated with it ever again” way. By consuming a piece of media, it becomes a part of you; you consume it and it stays inside of you it remains consumed (this sounds weird sorry I couldn’t find a better way to phrase it lol). It permanently becomes a part of you, your memories, your experiences and how you see the world; you are what you eat.
is this always a global always or a european always
I’m an artist and went to one of these. It was definitely underwhelming and over priced. However, my 3 year old was mesmerized. It was a great way to introduce her to art and a time for us to bond. I hope it’s obvious to everyone that seeing a real Van Gogh is better than going to one of these. I think it is. But a lot of people don’t have access to that opportunity. From the perspective of a parent who currently living in a suburb, sometimes, you’re just desperate for something new to do outside of the house. The gift shop part is definitely consumerist, but that has existed in museums way before all this “tech art.” I have a huge tapestry print of Sargent’s Lily, lily, rose, because seeing that painting in real like was so impactful to me. Having the print is a reminder of a memory, rather than pretending I own the real thing. I suppose I’m defending the concept of these Van Gogh projection show, but not the full execution. It needed a couple of real paintings of his as part of the experience.
Well 3 year olds also like cocomellon
I understand what you’re saying. But please remember that Van Gogh’s paintings and sketches are extremely valuable, and held in only a handful of different museums. Most of them are in the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam.
The world is a very big place, and art is very difficult (and expensive) to preserve and transport safely. To include his physical work in a display that’s meant to help bring things to a much wider audience would make it even more inaccessible.
I agree that these shows aren’t much compared to seeing the real thing. Van Gogh was a master with textures, and there’s nothing quite like seeing his work in person. But not everyone can afford flights and accommodation to Amsterdam or NYC. Shows like this might be much more shallow comparatively, but if they can get people even a little interested in art - especially kids! - I personally am not going to be a snob about it.
@@LikeTheProphet There is something about it though that makes me feel squeamish in my stomach. The spectacle and the high costs. The immersive experiences are much pricier than the museum. I never went to museums until I was in high school but I remember going to the public library and just being transfixed and in awe of all the art in these free books as a kid. The quietness of flipping through the old pages and making up my own stories about the paintings because I was too young to read. It was up close and personal and quiet and all mine as a kid. It built a deep connection to the images. Then in high school when I saw Van Gogh paintings in person in the Atlanta, Ga High Museum i felt so much more immersed and awe struck that I walked out in a daze. It was magic. I now teach art history and I'm always trying to help students find that magical moment of connection to the art. But there's no way that I would take them on a field trip to a Van Gogh immersive for selfie time instead of to the art museum or local gallery. It feels so yikes and sad and I dont want the next generation to have that as their only art experience. Maybe I'm just a stick the mud but it's a gut feeling. But god I love ol' Vincent and his art.
@@EurekaKatie I feel like this is a really good point in all this. There is merit in highlighting Van Gogh, but there is no huge chasm between his work and the works you can find in most art museums around the world. There is so much good and interesting art out there. On its own, disregarding the price, these aren't necessarily bad. I've never seen a Van Gogh in person, and this might be a better spark than the computer printouts or small textbook images I would have seen growing up. In context, this sort of reproduction of a reproduction thing pales in comparison to the "real" pieces you can see in a nearby art museum, probably for half the price or less.
@@EurekaKatie again, I’m not completely disagreeing with you. I went to the Klimt version of this show in Amsterdam last year with someone who wasn’t as familiar with art history as I am, and I got a lot more out of it than they did. But they still very much enjoyed it. I look forward to seeing a Klimt in person, but I also know I won’t be able to afford a trip to Vienna or NYC anytime soon to do so. It isn’t just the cost of a ticket - it’s the cost of everything involved with that.
I guess having grown up in a small American town where there was no art or art education in a poor community, I try to avoid snobbery when it comes to art. I understand that I have been extremely privileged in my life to have been able to leave that town when I graduated high school, to have had the opportunities I’ve had to experience art in person. I understand the weight of not being able to see art in person because the nearest small art museum was over 3 hours away by car. Most of the comments on this video saying they didn’t mind the exhibit, I can’t help but notice, are people who explicitly say that they don’t have the money to travel to see Vincent van Gogh’s work in person. All of the people praising the video seem to be people who have already had the immense privilege to see his work, and seemingly just want to feel superior.
Even when I was studying art, I learned very quickly that one of primary failings of the art world, historically and today, is snobs gatekeeping how and when people enjoy art, deciding what is or isn’t art, and the like. Personally, I’m gonna remember the look on the kid’s faces as their stared up in awe at enormous projections of Klimt’s Tree of Life, because those were the faces of art-lovers everywhere.
Maybe the exhibit wasn’t for you, and that’s fine. But I don’t really think it’s fair to call anything that isn’t paying loads of money to see the painting in person a waste, either.
So it’s not art that is in crisis, it is artists. Not due this or that circumstance, but due to art being reduced to nothing but a commodity, and commodities being trapped in the chain of maximal profit at minimal costs, viewing every reduceable investment as an easy target to cut costs at
Capitalism ruining things as usual.
I don't think most artists are really producing work with capitalist considerations in mind. I think the infrastructure of the art world, galleries, auction houses, schools, are much more influenced by capitalism.
@@jess0006 I do. Most people dedicating themselves to art have to think of how they are going to maintain their livelihood. that requires either monetising their art, reducing focus on creating for jobs, or giving up on making art to focus on survival. Unless it’a more of a bored rich people hobby, which it also could be, I wonder if there’s some statistical source I can dig through to find what’s the divergence of socio-economic status between artists
@@benzur3503 Okay, I think we can agree to disagree. I suppose I'm thinking of my local contemporary art scene (I live in Melbourne, Australia). Most artists I know rely on a day job and do art part-time, or there are grants available from the government to compensate for their artistic labour. In art spaces outside the major galleries, there are many artists who are making beautiful and interesting work, basically for free.
I would argue that artists have always suffered with this though. Idk if you’ve ever been to the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam, but they have hundreds of his personal letters on display, and it helps us understand his life better. One very famous one is a letter to his brother, telling him that he used his last few cents to send the letter to ask for money, because paints were so expensive that now he couldn’t afford to eat. Van Gogh was not famous in his own time. People who weren’t fellow artists generally didn’t care for his work, and he depended heavily on the generosity of his family and friends to survive, especially considering his many episodes of psychosis he endured.
His brother was his primary art dealer, and worked very hard to sell his painting, but they just didn’t sell.
His mental health certainly didn’t make things easier, but in the end, it’s widely believed that the letter his brother sent him telling him he could no longer financially support him is the reason for his ending his own life, as it was received and read shortly before he did so.
Artists and art have always suffered under capitalism.
I went to one of these "experiences" back in 2019 with a friend and as soon as we left we started mumbling about our dissatisfaction with the presentation, the overpowering music and the speed of the videos leaving us dumbfounded and perplexed. Most of all, I was angry - I didn't learn nothing new about Van Gogh, I didn't fell entertained or moved, I didn't feel anything at all, except from, well, harsh dissappointment. The exhibition had the original "Bedroom in Arles" exposed before the giant illuminated rooms, and the striking tiny size of it, the simplicity of the subject made me stop and just, look at it for a good 20 minutes - while the nearby classical music blared from the speakers, the painting screamed nothing. It was just there, in its silence.
I am studying Art History and while I loathe the centuries-long, ever-recurring "But then what even IS art?" question, because to me it isn't supposed to have just one answer and one answer only, I think I can say, "It's just there." Just like me and my other friend were there to see it. Just like a cat, or a river. It is there, art, and it's there in a specific, unique way - it's on the marble of the 16th-century sculpture as it is in the long piercing gaze of Marina Abramovic in her performance "The Artist is Present".
With the manipulation and artifical expansion of well known masterpieces, art isn't there - art was there, as we can recognize the original blueprint, but, to me, it's gone. There's only a whiff of the subtlety, the tecnique, the creative output of the author. I don't think it's a matter of art knowledge; it's a matter of humanity. We, as humans, know art when we see it, just like we recognize one another. AI doesn't recognize, it just selects and reproduces.
I don't really know where I was going with this comment, but it's a matter I am very fond of and interested in. I am not completely against AI, I think it works great in IT and science and I think it's definitely too soon to have a clear understanding of what are its limits. And instead of asking myself, "Should we use AI in art? Should we call entirely computer-produced images art?" what I am more interested in is, "Why are we even using AI in art? What do we want to achieve, what do we want to see? Why do we need bigger, better, expanded images than the one we already have?"
Why are we digitally expanding the "Bedroom in Arles", while the exact point of it it's its tiny insignificance?
I really like Schopenhauer's approach to art(s) as a clue of how one might define it.
The "transcendental" (feeling) - and I am saying this as a kind of anti-transcendentalist in regards to metaphysics - is to me what really makes (great) art.
And I even think one might be able to link this to Benjamin and even work something better out dialectically.
Unfortunately, that might take someone brighter than me to do ;)
I feel like I'm not as negative as a lot of people about this, and I can look at myself when I was 24 and say I'd be more repulsed by this than I am now. What you're saying, I definitely felt some of that when I went though.
I think the key for me is in attribution and misrepresentation. Like if some rich amateur George Bush type got drawn into Van Gogh enough, started painting his own versions, and then put out an exhibition titled, "How I see Van Gogh," I wouldn't really object to it. Likewise if a couple of tech/vfx oriented people liked Van Gogh enough to futz around with his paintings and make these kind of immersion things, then made an exhibition and titled it, "Like, isn't Van Gogh really cool, bro?" I wouldn't really care. Of course, what they're trying to say with these projects is basically that, so it's not very interesting, but it's not offensive to me either.
I think the dissonance here is in trying to say, "come here and experience Van Gogh, this is Van Gogh," instead of saying, "this is VanGoghFan99," or whatever. They are trying to claim the status of Van gogh and impose it onto their own work which is a boring lie and invites the obvious suspicion of capitalist greed. The flip side of this is that in some star trek future Van Gogh would have been rewarded for being a member of a caring society, so that problem of rewarding the artist doesn't seem to be unique to these exhibitions or to the art world in general. It's just capitalism. I think a generous reading of these artists is that they're living in capitalist realism, that they can't see or aren't particularly looking for a way out. Of course you tell some weird ceo podcast whatever they want to hear so they'll support you. There are art snobs that will pay for Van Gogh, so maybe this is a version of making a blockbuster movie to make enough money to support making your weird indie movies. Maybe they're really cool and supporting anarchist art collectives or something with the money from this. There's no particular reason to think this, and it's probably a lot more grim than that, but I've never looked it up. I lost interest in this whole thing before I made it to the gift shop.
"AI doesn't recognize, it just selects and reproduces", sums up really well why AI art will never live up to the art produced by humans.
The purpose of using AI in art so far seems to be to put as little thought into the image as possible. And a big part of art is thinking about it, both from the artist and the audience. For the artist you have to plan and consider details and the audience to draw meaning from it. But media literacy is so looked down upon no wonder people are missing that.
It was so strange to me that of all artists, it is van Gogh they chose to make these reproductions of. I don't know much about art, but to me, one of the reasons I really appreciate van Gogh is because how textural his paintings are. I've only had a chance to see a few of his originals, but when I did, I felt like I could almost feel them with my eyes.
A friend invited me to the exhibit, so I didn't know what I was walking into, but when I saw all these flat images projected onto walls and canvases, at first I almost wondered if that was part of the point, how lifeless they had become in their reproduction. It made me rather sad, but I didn't feel I could mention it at the time because I didn't want to ruin anyone else's experience...
I don’t know quite how this fits into this conversation but I think the 2017 movie Loving Vincent is an interesting and important comparison to how an artists work can be reproduced for the masses in a new form of art-a movie without feeling quite so exploitative and far from the artists original intentions and actual life. I highly recommend that movie. It is entirely hand painted in Van Goghs style, based on scenes he painted, that focuses on his life and his relationship with his brother. I think it provides a more “immersive experience” to his artwork while still connecting the viewer to his life, focusing on the art as his work and not just a pretty aesthetic backdrop. There are certainly still conversations to be had about co-opting his style and the distribution of his work beyond his actually paintings but it is worth a watch. Also I obviously have to give credit to this movie for employing actual incredibly skilled artists and animators. Highly highly recommend this movie it’s incredibly impressive, and also it’s not gonna cost you $35 a head to see. Love the video btw, so glad you covered it, it’s been so odd to me to see how widespread and popular these types of shows have become.
I thought it was quite a bad movie, particularly as a fan of animation.
Fristly, conceptually, randomly scattering pieces of Van Gogh's imagery throughout a story of his life is too presumptious.
Secondly, because of the logistical requirements it was mostly painters doing the paintings and no actual animators, as a result it looks like some of the stiffest, not literally but looking indistinguishable to rotoscoping (which is a great tool when used correctly!).
They just painted the refrence frames as accurately as possible, there's no interpretation in the movement, and these super realistic humans clash with the Van Gogh style aesthetic.
It never really cliked for me, it always looked like a cheap production in front of a green screen.
It would've been better to first shoot the reference footage, then have actual animators do a pass of actual animation using just lines and then for the painters to combine the movement from the animation and rendering from the live action footage.
Agree, it is a very visually striking and interesting movie. While I may not believe in some of the theories it presents, it gives a good insight into at least the last year of his life.
@@tvsonicserbia5140 I have similar feelings in terms of visuals. It pretends to be entirely animated with paintings and yet it does not use the strength of animation to enhance Van Gogh's story. And that's because it's rotoscoped animation - a live action movie with an Instagram filter on, albeit a very good one.
I suppose there is (or was) a live action version of Loving Vincent, but it wouldn't be nearly as impressive if it was released without all the traced paintings. To me at least, people are way too hasty to praise the movie for the amount of work done on the paintings alone, without questioning how it enhances the movie or if it could be done better. I thought the movie was supposed to be an animated Van Gogh painting about his life, so if we take this interpretation directly, we get exactly that. But that's not how I experienced the movie.
@@TheMikirog Yeah, exactly, just keep in mind it wasn't actually rotoscoped but it was painted to refrence frame by frame. It would've been near impossible to actually rotoscope cause most of the shots were done on a single canvas
Loving Vincent felt very bland to me. The animation was to uptight for an artist wirh such variety. I recommend the Julian Schnabel movie about him.
Every now and then on twitter or elsewhere on the internet, there's a debate that erupts with Rothko's work at the center about the whole "i could do that if i REALLY wanted to, why's it hanging at the Met??" but these people give themselves away because they've only ever seen photographs of his paintings. i saw one of his paintings in person recently and it literally stopped me in my tracks. there's an indescribable quality to them that just gets totally lost when all you see is a reproduction. and of course, it's a shame that not everyone interested in art gets to go to the Moma, but there are art museums and galleries in every city.
True, and you don't always need world acclaimed masters to be amazed, and to be absorbed, in art. There's great, and challenging stuff happening everywhere.
this!!! they reduce the painting to an image, some people really can’t understand art that’s created for any other purpose or expression they really only see it as pretty images
There's a depth to Rothko that always stuns me. I was able to make it to his chapel in Houston recently, and it was an all-encompassing experience. Not beautiful, not awe-inspiring, but contemplative and calm. Truly powerful.
"i could do that if i REALLY wanted to, why's it hanging at the Met??"
"But you didn't. Rothko did."
@@admanios i mean i did, it just didnt get shown
i loved my trip to a van gogh immersive experience but i think thats because i loved seeing these things in some way in real life- i have never seen an actual van gogh despite my love for him for my whole life. i have read his letters with his brother and love everything about his life and just loved to see these things and the expansion of them. i totally see the fact that it is a poor substitute for actual art and his gorgeous paintings but it was wonderful to be able to see it in any way even if it was a poor representation and these short flashes with a forced perspective
Based on the experience of others, it sounds like there's a variety of ways the Van Gogh immersive exhibits are presented. I recently went to one in DC that had several rooms showing a huge number of pieces on the wall with their normal shape and size, a significant amount of information in terms of the history of the pieces and Van Gogh's life, and then the large final room. It wasn't too crowded, so we could go in whenever we wanted. There was no herding, no crowding in the room, we could stay as long as we wanted. The music and quotes were lovely and didn't seem like they had an agenda, and although no substitute for the original pieces, I really enjoyed seeing the art in such an immersive, unique way. I am am an art history major and a lot of the criticisms are valid, but I had a positive experience and others seemed to as well. We were all in awe, particularly the children. And I do think it's admirable to have more people be able to see these pieces.
my experience was similar, there was plenty of context around van gogh and his life that was presented. and everyone was free to move at their own pace. i really enjoyed my experience and seeing the van gogh paintings in a new way. you also get to see a wider variety of van gogh, a museum might only have one but the projection i went to showcased plenty of paintings i had never seen before
This sounds similar to our experience and we really enjoyed it. I have seen Van Goghs in real life so this was a really fun way of seeing the works in a different way.
I went to the one in Montreal and it was also a very nice experience. There were several rooms and it was overall really beautiful... a lovely experience!
yeah that sounds like the experience i had. there was a large room before the immersive part full of information about his life.
I saw the DC one as well and was pleased with how much context they gave. It was quite good, though it felt more similar to ARTECHOUSE than going to the National Gallery. I'd choose the gallery any day over the Immersive Van Gogh.
“And if the argument for art without the artist is that it’s cheap, well then we have a pretty big problem on our hands… don’t we?” Damn. Freire trying to educate me about all that is dehumanizing and I hadn’t even considered what was happening to art. Thanks for the video.
Very interesting. It’s a complicated issue. All I know is that, for me personally, an “immersive experience” could never bring me to tears, but standing in front of an original Van Gogh painting and seeing his actual brushstrokes was one of the most profoundly moving experiences of my life.
art is too human for it to ever be divorced from the artist. art evolved as humans evolved, and it just doesn't seem like it will ever be a "stand-alone" thing that exists by itself without the artist creating it. in fact, the very notion of it not being man-made makes it lose value. it's not just the brand of an artist that gives it value, but the fact that it's a human creation that allows for human expression and interpretation.
But as we can see from AI art and holographic concerts, we don’t actually need an artist to have the experience of art… and if a motivation for creating art is to make money, and exploiting others’ art or creating it out of thin air are cheaper than paying an artist to create… we will start seeing a lot more art that needed very little human creation in order to produce human experience.
@@Nonya_Busyness
you're only appreciating holos because the artists already created the legacy for you to enjoy. holos are 100% built on the artists' creating their catalogue. you don't go to a completely AI-generated holo with unknown songs. you go to a holo concert because you already like 2pac for example.
AI art is trash. you can't give a single example of AI art that is actually revolutionizing the art world the way an actual artist or art movement does. AI art is 100% reliant on stolen art online which are all made by humans. if you actually understand anything about how AI art is generated, you can't possibly hold the opinion that it is in any way, shape or form original or that it has the capability to create new art movements. AI art is basically a very advanced copypasta.
@@maggyfrog I think you misunderstood my point, which mirrors the point of the video. It doesn’t matter if AI art is trash, just like it doesn’t matter that Tupac never consented to be a hologram. The art will continue to be produced at a higher capacity and by very large and influential firms, because it is cheap to do so.
Art doesn’t only exist when human creation is responsible for it. It also exists when people experience it… Which is why a sunset or a flower can have the same impact on a person as a painting or sculpture. No human created the sunset or flower, but it can still be experienced as art.
The exploitation of artists by AI is indeed the issue, I never argued it wasn’t. I was comparing it to holographic artists to emphasize that point.
We will start seeing more art removed from the original artist, because capitalism prioritizes profit over people.
@@Nonya_Busyness
comparing a sunset or a flower as the same experience as looking at a painting is completely missing the point of art. it's the fact that it is totally man-made and does not have to have any kind of utility, yet its value is its own artistic merit.
the video is totally disregarding the fact that we value artists and their art just because we all designate it with artistic value from the experience the art allows us, and that has nothing to do with whatever eye-gouging price the "art market" puts on the pieces.
the very notion of mass producing or attempting to mass produce this without an artist creating it is completely missing the point as well. it's like comparing hand-made calligraphy with the printer. do you honestly think that a printer has the same artistic merit as a human calligrapher? don't be joking 🤦♀
@@maggyfrogsome people don’t care a piece of art comes from, or mass prints wouldn’t be profitable. In the video, the tech-minded entrepreneurs outright said that the technology is enough, that it’s the next step in artistic evolution, and we don’t need artists. AI generated “Drake song” was a hit until it was taken down. Yes, it was not truly original because it just spit out things from a bunch of data. But if people don’t care about the difference, then we’ll move toward a future where art becomes commodity, and we’ll get Drake songs after he’s long dead.
the one 'transformative' work of van gogh's that i genuinely adore is the film 'loving vincent' that came out a few years ago - a huge team of artists hand-painted an entire animated film in van gogh's style, in order to tell the story of van gogh's life itself. to me, that is such a beautiful tribute to both him as a person and to his works, and really showcases influence he had on our culture, without just copy-pasting his works onto a new piece and raking in the profits without crediting the original artist and taking the work out of its original context. you can really sense the love and care that went into creating the film (it was a pretty indie production and it took aaaages to complete), so it doesn't feel like another quick cash-grab that's using an easily marketable image to achieve its goals; it genuinely wants to understand van gogh and convey that understanding to the viewer as well, without stuffing one set 'message' down your throat. i really recommend giving it a watch!
I agree with you. Even before watching it, I was anticipating it to be a big event of some sort. I was hoping that it would be shown on our cinemas here in my country, or at least in the city that I was in (which was one of the major cities in Indonesia). Turned out, it played in the cinema for a very limited slot of time and not even for a week, it was considered not competitive enough for the cinema compared to a superhero movie that was on screen at the time that had way more slots. I ended up having to pirate the movie to watch it because there was no streaming platform that carried the movie :/ needless to say, in the end of the movie, my friend and I wished that we could see the movie in person, it definitely is worth watching. We also wished to see the place where they hand painted the scenes for sure, because looking at the behind-the-scenes footage, it was truly a labor of love.
Now many years later, my hometown is now a place where a Van Gogh Live exhibition is hosted. Of course, the same friend and I was excited to see it. When visiting the website for the first time, they have had sold out their super early bird deals and their early bird deal was extended due to high demand, per their own words. (Edit: I also notice that the time it is running is waaaayyy longer than the Loving Vincent movie, the exhibit is expected to stay in the area July-October 2023 meanwhile the movie was barely even a week in the slot). I kept stalling to see the exhibition, even to order tickets, I never knew why, maybe because I thought partly that the ticket is expensive (it's about 250-280k Rupiah (~16-18 USD, which may not be a lot for most but it's definitely a lot for us), but I know for sure the lingering feeling of, "what if the exhibition was not worth it?"
We are still unsure what makes an immersive art exhibition worth the price. Later we kinda ponder on our first ever immersive art experience in a "3D painting" show where one can take a picture with said paintings and look as if we're a part of it. It was fun, to say the least, but we remember that at some point in our trip, we stopped taking pictures and walked around the gallery, hoping to find beauty in the art itself. The latter was rather disappointing to us, some of the art was actually good for our taste and knowledge of the time, but most we agreed that we couldn't appreciate it fully because the purpose of the art is to be used with the viewer and to be taken as a picture. For us shy-camera folks, it was definitely not worth the money.
After watching this video, now we definitely have more things to think about.
I wanted to go but the tickets were ridiculous at 28 euros even for a student, so instead I booked a 3 day trip to Amsterdam to look at actual Van Gogh paintings and it was amazing. The extra money I spent was worth it for the culture and fun I had visiting a country I had previously never been to
I had the opportunity to see a large Van Gogh exhibit in an actual art museum (Van Gogh in America, Detroit Institute of Arts) last winter. It was so meaningful to me. I've always loved Van Gogh's paintings. I really treasured the amount of time I could look at his actual brushstrokes, his use of color, his choice of framing and focus. To see so many works of art from one artist, you can kind of imagine what their sensibilities might have been. You get a sense of their personality or "soul" as you said in the video. I look at these "Immersive" exhibits and feel a pit in my stomach. Van Gogh is a treasure. His works are treasures. They are warping it and turning it into something fast and cheap. I don't know what to call it, but again and again I see this Instagramification of art. It's almost sacrilegious, the disregard and callousness shown to the real artistry of Van Gogh. It feels unholy.
I was there too! I went in thinking Van Gogh is cool but don’t get the hype. When I saw them in person it all made sense, and I fell in love with his work. The mastery is clear when you see how large the brushstrokes are but they still can create a somewhat realistic scene. There’s no way the immersive event is able to capture that
I was also there with my dad. Gosh was it beautiful.
Hear, hear.
True
I believe this AI movement has a lot of greedy people excited about the potential of creating something that's percieved as valuable without putting any effort into it.
I'm cautiously optimistic. I keep seeing people say it is taking jobs away from artists. It is not. It is taking work away from designers. My optimism is that, through being forced to understand the difference, we might collectively develop a greater appreciation of art.
Wouldn’t it get stale after a while because less people go into it and less work can be feed to the IA. Like the entertainment industry in stuffing from can few go into written etc and new ideas are explored. We now that Hollywood not able to steal people work as easily as they use to because people catch on. The back bone I noticed in a industry is look down on and paid less but their the backbone that make it possible for wealth at the top to happen. AI needs to be feed we haven’t become gobs and can create a human conscience in a machine, we can even create life without the block of it already there for us to play with.
They just be stealing less and less quality work off the internet and it just going to get very uninteresting and boring.
A person beat IA by playing the game beyond dumb to win. Because the IA only know plays that it learn off the internet and world known players. The human knowing this know no player would make moving that stupid so he use that play book to fool the IA. Look up the video IA is BS. The power that be want us to believe it there but it not there yet it like the wizard of OZ as they are the ones really controlling it in the background to fool the masses in the long run.
@@Handles_are_garbagedesigners as in concept artists? Or animator? Are they losing jobs? Genuinely curious.
@@rickstube5299 your genuine curiosity shows you didn't really get what I was saying. Perhaps my fault for not phrasing it well.
What makes humans different to AI is their insight. AI just creates to a brief but it has no way of tuning, accounting for taste, adding stylistic flair and so on. I wasn't saying people aren't losing jobs, but rather through this process (which is, granted, a painful process for some), perhaps societally we can come to terms with which artistic jobs people should be doing. Because some designers/artists have effectively been doing the same as AI for years: churning out sub standard, derivative work and believing it to be creative. You could argue that they're just working to a brief too, but then if AI can achieve the same thing faster and cheaper, the actual artist could, in theory, do something more with their skills. Of course the theory falls down if they can't afford to do that. And the "painful process" I mentioned involves a timeline where AI art gets used in everything and people think it's not good enough.
What I would say is this tech is here to stay and that means embracing it rather than complaining. I work in tech and have used AI to help me figure out problems if I'm having a moment of brain fog or if I'm learning something knew I don't fully understand. I think there is scope for artists to embrace the technology in a similar way. And that will be how the artist remains valuable to the capitalist machine but also to express their existence in new ways if they're actual artists (as in people who express ideas through creation - that's not to undermine anyone, just to delineate between someone whose work you'd see in a gallery vs whose work you'd see on a takeaway menu for example).
The short version: society thinks that anything pretty is art, which undermines art. Through forced devaluation of "work" and hobby art, people might start to have a greater appreciation of actually art.
@@Handles_are_garbage I see. I was asking from a point of whether designers will still be relevant. I mean obviously they will be on an artistic level, but the market may shut down all together in favor of AI. That's what I was asking. Cause I want to pursue animation and design sometime in future as well. And if there is no there that cares about my art or AI is used by all big companies for generating their version of 'art', I may have to starve. But I understand. Perhaps I phrased it badly too.
One of the big incentives to using ai is that it allows a person to seemingly bypass years of committed practice and skill building. A person I know that wanted to be a painter for many years, but didn't take the time to do it, has recently started using an ai subscription to make logos and other images. He was so proud of these images as though he had drawn and painted them himself. In fact, he had been showing them off to others and already, someone has hired him to create logos for her business. He said they look good because he has the art history knowledge, but really a quick and simple Google search will also give you that in a matter of seconds.
I couldn’t use AI, it would feel like i’m giving up what makes the art mine. I think that’s the divide between many (but not all artists) and text prompters. Having not experienced the process of creation to them it’s entirely theirs. Maybe it is…I dunno. It just doesn’t feel right to me. Having invested so much in a skill there is something deeply disheartening about it. But this has happened to many skilled occupations. Still i cannot wrap my head around an AI generated peice truly being the work of the person who types the text.maybe i’m elitist but i really can’t
@@91Vault I feel the same. Also, there is the process itself that is so rewarding, something as simple as as mixing colors, and learning how to effectively create the illusion of shadows and highlights...All of this cannot be derived from inputting the right text into a computer. He was trying to convince me to do it "to save time" but I just said "That's not why I do it. I can't explain it to you. You have to do it on a regular basis to understand."
@@scoodleryeah I think you’re really hitting the nail on the head here.
Making art is meditative and therapeutic and builds both a creativity and a discipline muscle.
Text prompting is fun and exciting (at least for now) and helps someone expand their visual boundaries and imagination quickly without worrying about overcommitting to a piece or learning an elaborate skill.
They’re just two completely different activities.
I enjoy both.
I think when people get tired of the way ai art looks, they’ll move back toward real artists. (And ai art does seem to always have a recognizable je ne sais quoi.)
"it's the journey not the destination" people are missing out on so much personal growth by skipping past the training and learning that takes place to become a good artist. It's childish and self-satisfied. I have known some lovely people that just should not be the kind of artist's they want to be because they really don't want any part of what makes that art happen. Mimicking a style instead of understanding why it looks that way (the ideology of the artist, the time period, the material or time) but no surprise those people LOVE ai art and somehow find it to have more soul than art created by a person. Ofcourse it's easier to love a person or artwork created exactly tailored to your wants, but it's no effort. I'm afraid with algorithms tailored to us, art generated for us we will more and more not have to reach out for art at all. Never taking on the challenge of standing in front of art we don't like at first but then find compelling after a while.
i just want to leave a bookmark on this comment thread this discussion is very insightful 4 me
I went to one of these exhibitions, and by far my favourite part was after the immersion room was a room where they provided colouring pages of a bunch of Van Gogh's works and oil pastels. I felt far more "immersed" in the art while messily colouring in with a group of strangers, studying his pieces for inspiration, than in the immersion room.
Actually everything besides the immersion room was, I think, far better than the ones I'm reading about in these comments; the first part was a gallery section, with big big sections of writing, very respectfully explaining Van Gogh's life and details about certain paintings and his inspirations, interspersed with some reproductions of his paintings and videos explaining some critique of Starry Night.
Between that and the colouring in room, the immersion room just felt like indulging their gimmick. It was undoubtedly the main event, but had far less value than the rest of the exhibit.
I bought a cheap Van Gogh wall calendar and when my smart home automation ran while I was looking at it to switch to dim, orange light before bed, I felt like I was seeing the painting in a new light (well, I guess that is literally what was happening, lol), but like, by adjusting the color and making it a little harder to see the details, I ended up recognizing some aspects of what he was trying to convey with the painting that I hadn’t before, and it almost felt like I saw the scene in the way he saw it. For a moment, it felt almost like I was looking at a photograph taken through Van Gogh’s eyes rather than just at a print of a painting he made.
the actual problem with ai and lazy reappropriation is the system of speculation and private property it exists in, and which gives their users free reign as long as their pockets are deep enough. epochal talents will keep having to ask for comissions or reposting during bandcamp friday on tumblr until the drakes and musks of the world are expropriated and unable to exploit others
musk? not the illegals, cartels, child rapers, laywers and bankers? wtf is wrong w ur momy
This is not art. It is entertainment. 😊
Yup. Place for tinder dates and what not.
I was just at the MoMA yesterday, so this is awesome timing! Very interesting discussion. Art is such a complex concept, and exploring how it has been influenced by capitalism is so interesting to me. While observing the more "famous" pieces of artwork yesterday, I found myself thinking "do I appreciate this for what it is? Or am I drawn to it because of the name/brand?" These are clearly pieces that earn a lot of attention and profit for the museum as well... Anyways, great video as usual! Got my brain cells firing 💥🧠
the tagline "Still Goghing" makes me want to cut my ear off
i quite liked the one i went to, it was called ‘beyond van gogh,’ which i think is a more apt name considering it did occasionally expand his art to fill the room. the reason i think i enjoyed it though was because, for the most part, it was about gogh. leading up to the immersive experience, there were large, backlit stands that read letters to and by van gogh, letters from his brother or other people in his life. as for the experience itself, it featured quotes and context for the art it displayed and often times opted to fill the space with multiple pieces rather than expansions of one piece. for example, it introduced one segment by stating that van gogh liked to paint portraits not only of himself, but of friends, kin, neighbors, etc. and then proceeded to fill the space with many examples of these portraits. i don’t know if i will ever get to see any of van gogh’s work in real life, this experience let me see many pieces and gave me the context from which the art was brought forth. i also liked how they told this story, through quotes written in text displayed on only two walls, it was optional. you could look at the art and come to your own conclusions, or you could read about where he was in life when he created it and view the work through that lens. overall, i would say that there is a value in this kind of experience, or at least i derived personal value from it.
A ramble after watching this amazing vid
There's a lot of cruelty against art in our societies. We underestimate art and artist, the labor of individuals as well as the colectives behind this works, indulging not in what is trying to say to us but in how it does it and at the end of the day the artist becomes a pest.
An inconvenience between us and the pretty thing, this in part thanks to the great capitalist machine that turns a wraper into an object of beauty, beer advertisement into catharsis and at the same time gallery art becomes more alien to the public.
The artist, a worker, is reduced just to tecnical and sometimes intelectual ability and the emotion, sensitivity and honesty that grows from and because of the art produced is discarded if is detrimental to profit.
Sorry for my trashy english and thanks for this great vid
That's so true! Add to that, artists are always either portrayed as extreme narcissists, lazy bums, or both. Like you can't just be a """normal""" person and still create things.
Art without the arist loses the human connection, which is ultimately what we go to art for in the first place. Great work Broey!
I don’t feel like that’s the case for everyone tho. Don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy a lot of art for that human connection. But a majority of people only seek media for the final product and not for the beauty of the process behind it. I doubt the people who turn off their brain to watch Fast and Furious movies really care about the artistic thought process behind it.
@@insertnamehere7228 maybe they don't. But I'd argue that the more you turn your brain off, the less you're wlling to pay money (that is harder and harder to earn and keep for most of us these days) on it. Like for instance, the only people i know who go to the cinema several times a week or even a month, are people who have a genuine interest in motion pictures and the human craft that it is. The more corporations remove the human element, the more they strengthen the case in favor of piracy or just straight up disinterest. Piracy will just get better and more wide spread. When it gets more and more obvious to the public that there is no human involvement, not even a real human to see on screen and form fandom around, those AI movies will eventually feel like the scams that they are and all you'll need is to get the alternatives ready, market the shit out of the fact that you have the REAL Vin Diesel driving in your movie and bam!
I disagree that there was a shift in art from primarily "cult value" to "exhibition". It has always been a part of communal practice, communication, and experience (this is my contribution to the debate and algorithm 😊)
Yeah, I find it hard to believe a lot of religious art throughout time was all "cult". It was often used to exhibit the power of God and help followers to have a more immersive faith experience
I think you're misunderstanding the difference placed on what cult value and exhibition means. Ofcourse people found these things beautiful or interesting or ugly in a moving way on them individually or as a group- but the way the art was made and why was totally different. The system around it had an internal reason for itself, you draw animals you hunted to make a chart of animal migration or tell the story of how to hunt to the children. You build a church or tomb to honor god, people see it and it commands power, moral superiority and respect. It has a social function to bring people together, a community with shared ideas. Beauty provided by what ever form of society they have and that enforces that society. Is this the same? Maybe? Are we here to worship the goods of capitalism? Do people think the system provides us all with such great beauty? Well most people don't. Exhibition is about the individual in the public, not private art owned by the rich or public art with a social function. Crowds of people coming to a place only for artistic experience, not functional, spiritual or communal value. You may still disagree but just cause we do things together dowsing doesn't mean there's communication and community. There's a profound lonelyness in many of these emersive experiences.
@@k8g8s8 interesting. The terms are definitely misleading so I think that's where we went astray. Sometimes I need to treat theory terms more like math terms and actually try and fully understand the rigorous specificity of the meaning instead of inferring from definitions of "cult" and "exhibition"
Chavin De Huantar is an ancient example from Peru of the cult value. The primary artifact from this ancient temple is a huge stone statue like a pillar with a god carved into. This temple brought thousand of ancient people to it on pilgrimages, but these people did not see the statue because the statue is underground in the center of a maze of tunnels. It was not meant to be seen by the public, only priests. It was sacred and it's purpose was not spectacle.
just commenting because i think this thread is interesting and want to come back to it later
Im a huge Van Gogh fan, so my wife and I went to one of these in our city for my birthday. It was incredibly disappointing. It claims to be immersive but it felt more like I was using bad vr goggles or watching a bad 3d movie. Plus the music and confusing visuals at times were super overstimulating. I was under the impression it was rooms of art exhibits decorated to be the paintings with some projections on the walls too. But a huge warehouse projection show with more people around and more empty space than anything was sad
i urge anyone who is thinking of going to those van gogh shows to rent or purchase “Loving Vincent” instead
it’s an amazing and beautiful animated film that was all done with actual oil paintings and i think it gives a more well rounded and sympathetic view on vincent and the period just after his death of the people he loved and who loved him
I avoided the van Gogh immersive thingamajig when it came to Belfast until a few days before it closed. To my surprise I loved it, but part of the charm was that I was one of only three visitors, so I got to lie on the floor of the huge repurposed church wrapped in a couple of the blankets provided, and enjoy the projected images and the music that accompanied the exhibition. I don't think I would have enjoyed it had I been amongst a crowd.
I think that anything that brings the work of a great artist to many people's awareness is worth doing.
There's an immersive Claude Monet in that space now, and I will probably visit late in the evening one day soon.
Edit: my reason for replying to your comment was to say that some people might be motivated to view Loving Vincent after attending an immersive experience.
One of the things I like most about the original artwork is being able to see the brush strokes. To know that someone hundreds or even thousands of years ago touched and poured their soul onto the canvas you are standing mere inches from. I love that feeling of connection through time. I recently visited the Juliette Gordon Low house inSavannah and was able to observe the magnificent portrait she had painted of her mother. Obviously, art is not what Juliette, founder of the Girl Scouts, is known for, but to be so close to such a great work from such an incredible woman made me feel so connected to her. It made me tear up in the moment
the "no stone left unturn" reminds me of the growing trend in video games where they're all vastly open world and exhausting. i never thought of it before your video, but it felt very similar. they're forcing expansion to overwhelm and incidentally reducing the initial essence
If anyone is interested in learning more about Van Gogh’s thoughts and his artistic process, I would highly recommend picking up a translation of his letters to his brother Theo. They’re fascinating and a wonderful snapshot of life in the late 1800s. I have a copy of the letters filled with dog eared pages, scribbling, and post its.
His letters with his friends were equally enlightening imo. In Amsterdam they have many of his letters on display, and it was really delightful reading his handwriting in person. A very intimate look into someone’s life for sure.
I am so glad someone is talking about this. I went to a Van Gogh one in Perth Australia for my birthday, at the end of the wall to wall slide show they played the sound of a g*n shot and immediately followed it a car add from the sponsor of the show. It was sickening. We were then ushered into an area to take photos and then the gift shop where we had started from.
Great video.
I just want to say that I happen to work at a small studio that handles many of the branding/ promo/ and supplemental design work for several of the "original" Immersive Van Gogh show locations. You can actually see some of the design work I personally did in some of the posters you showed at the beginning of the video. I love Van Gogh. He was my first favorite artist as a young kid. I think the show is... okay. We went once, paid for by the company, to get a sense of what we'd be advertising. I wouldn't pay for the experience myself. Seeing one of his paintings in person is worth much more than that. I hope that these shows DO help some people connect more with his art and art in general but I don't know exactly how that would work. In the beginning of the project, I was excited to be tangentially related to Vincent, in even this perverse, strange way. I even made some custom artwork for the LA location lampooning classic album cover art with Van Gogh imagery. But as the project has continued, it's really lost the original appeal. We were hoping to create our own experiential exhibit that the company could ruin along side the Van Gogh ones that would be totally original, not based on some dead artist. That hasn't happened and after doing designs for some other dead artist exhibits, I get the sense that maybe, hopefully, the fad is dying out- I didn't really see the public interest in the other works anyways, tbh. So maybe we're moving on from that era of it, but as you pointed out, I think this weird new age that we're in with art usage and consumption will be a forever-struggle that will always feel...icky.
Don't know if my perspective actually adds anything here lol I guess I just have had a weird relationship with this thing for the past few years and while everyone I interacted with on the projects were very kind and excited, I think these definitely come from a very misguided place to say the least.
Cheers.
I'd be much more interested in artists using this type of room as a medium for their own art. When you're surrounded on all sides by that sort of projection, what would you want to express that actually fits that environment? It's an expensive canvas though so I'm not surprised if it's not feasible for most artists.
@@CounterfittXIII That was more or less our approach with our planned project. We had a few different artists and producers lined up to collaborate on something designed from the very beginning for that medium.
Gonna be contrarian to your take here. I went to “Beyond Van Gogh” in my hometown in Wisconsin and I appreciated their retelling of Vincent’s life in depth before the show. The show itself was really cool. It’s not at all like looking at the paintings but it was a new way to experience them.
Starry Night and many of VG’s works are in MoMA or other expensive, far away museums. I’ve seen one in person and pictures don’t do it justice. That said, if I’m in Wisconsin my options are pretty limited without traveling! I’m glad to have this option.
Worries that it’ll replace museums or anything feel misplaced. They aren’t really comparable. As everyone here agrees, it’s not the same.
I keep coming back to a line from Steve Martin's "Picasso at the Lapin Agile", where an art dealer explains that the most important thing about a painting is its frame, its boundaries. "Do you want to see a soccer game where the players can run up into the stands with the ball and order a beer? No. They've got to stay within the boundaries to make it interesting. In the right hands, this little space is as fertile as Eden."
That this isn't enough for capitalism isn't surprising but it's depressing.
AI generative fill is context for people who don’t like art. It’s for the kids who were mad that they were asked if the blue curtains could symbolize something, or were told they were the voyeur gazing upon the bathing nymphs. Now they have certainty that the curtains are just blue for the sake of being blue and they don’t have have to endure that strange feeling of being the voyeur bc other things exist to make that experience placid.
having lived close to amsterdam twice, i’ve been to the van gogh museum three times-which i know is a privileged position to be in in relation to van gogh’s work, esp as an american. the van gogh museum is itself its own kind of money-making venture and comes with its own baggage, but having said all that, my god, seeing those paintings in person ruined me for any kind of reproduction of them. they are not the same when made two-dimensional, let alone when projected to cover whole walls in repeating patterns. the way the light interacts with the texture of the paint is integral to their effect, and it’s impossible to replicate in a print.
they were awe-inspiring paintings to see in person, and i wouldn’t trade that experience for anything. I also know that, at the end of the day, a few blocks down from my house is an incredible artists’ studio with rotating artists in residence, and i can go see and buy incredible art made by people who are practically in my backyard. I also know i can make art! and make it as weird and wonderful as i want!
i guess all of which to say-art made by an artist, with all the artist’s intentions and care and choices in the piece, is both accessible to anyone, and more interesting and fascinating than a reproduction made without the artist’s involvement.
that subject absolutely needs more coverage, thank you so much for talking about it. I knew a abandoned building occupied by artists in Paris. There were ongoing creation, exhibitions and workshops there. The city threw everybody out to make an digital art center in it. I remember paying 20 euros a ticket, to see the immersive Klimt show cause family pressure. Kids were exited for 10 minutes. I felt absolutely livid. There were no art in that. Why do we hate living artists? Why are they never paid or protected? Even sacred masterpieces aren't protected from those goodies factories. Is the aura still existing for anyone?
Honestly, as an artist, I don't think immersive art as a concept is necessarily a bad idea- it's just the execution. Like places such as Meow Wolf are a great example of it done right. It's not just taking another artists' original work and putting it into a context it was never meant to be viewed in, it's creating a totally new experience that involves touch, smell, sounds, visuals, space, etc. Like at Meow Wolf none of the art is projected onto a wall, you're supposed to interact with it and even play with it. It incorporates the participant into the artwork instead of having them stay an observer.
I think a huge part of the problem is that people are actually extremely illiterate when it comes to art. That is why when generative ai images came out so many people thought it was amazing. Making a drawing, painting or sculpture is a skill, it is skilled labor, and ai is more unskilled at creating coherent digital images than your average five year old on its own. It is a tool, just like photography and there is a world of difference between an artist using ai as a tool and random people with no experience just typing stuff into the ai and saying the image is good enough to replace artists. There is a world of difference between the images at 16:55. But because people see detailed rendering they think that this is what good art is. There is this idea that good art is subjective and you like what you like, but that isn't true. There is actually logic behind what makes a Rothko painting a good painting and there are specific skills that artists learn that ai does not seem to have a handle on. And yeah, I specifically chose abstract expressionism because a lot of people see Rothko and think "I could do that." No, actually the average person couldn't do that. We are told that in order to be sophisticated and intelligent that we must like art, but I think what is really revealing about our current moment is how many people have demonstrated that they actually don't know what art is, or don't care about art. I think what a lot of people think they know is absorbed through the osmosis of cultural narratives that don't hold art as valuable in itself, and don't hold artists as being valuable contributors to society.
I also just want to add that the argument about cult value and exhibition value is weird and ahistorical, as they are not mutually exclusive. Cave paintings are prehistory, so we can't make any assertions about intent. Most of the history of images in temples and churches is didactic because they were made during periods where literacy wasn't common. Renaissance art isn't entirely about aesthetics, but had multiple social functions.
I sort of agree with you in general, but what about the art of pasting a banana to a wall? It IS unskilled, I feel the human vs ai discussion should be more than a skill discussion, intend feels more like the core of what art is
@@MaBurro2112canalC/W for talk about s/a breifly
hmmmm well when it comes to modern art, I always think that the artist's intent is paramount. The 'banana' changes with context.
A good example is an exhibition where a bunch of completely normal outfits were displayed. The outfits were what various women were wearing when they were s/a'd. The point of showing them were to make a point against the whole "but what were you wearing argument". But any person on the street *could* theoretically hang all of their outfits in a museum and call it "art". It's about the story of what the mundane thing is trying to say when it comes to most modern art, in my experience.
Also if you go to your local gallery of modern art, I guarantee that the kind of "mundane thing put in context" is going to be less that 10% of what's actually there. Plenty of modern art is skilled technically as well as in the story it's trying to tell.
Something a researcher recently deduced about cave paintings completely contradicts the idea that they were the original “art for art’s sake”. He intuited that cave paintings featuring animals with their heads in multiple different positions, when viewed by flickering torch light, would appear to move, similar to the frames of a film. Testing proved the supposition true. A kind of primitive magic, but surely also intended for exhibition.
@@shinyshinythings the first animated movies.
As someone who works in museums (though more on the history side than art) I find these exhibits really interesting. Particularly the focus on images with very little information. Some of the best art exhibits I’ve seen often contain thoughtful and provocative labels discussing context and analysis of the work. Often the art has been organized in a specific thematic way. I feel like these exhibits are void of any of that care.
There are lots of statements and discussions at these, or at least the ones I went to. All kinds of quotes and descriptions
The one in Melbourne,aus is transitioning to displaying works by the First Nations artists so even more flame to the fire. But it will have the physical works in a gallery nearby
love this discussion and your video. i also think that if people want to find ways in which art can be interacted with by its audience, they should really try giving video games more of a shot. it's a medium created specifically for interaction of that kind, and it's got an extremely underlooked artistic legacy. i'm not a big video game person (understatement) but i do listen in on discussions and i appreciate the artform.
I went to Antoni Gaudi's beautiful Casa Batllo in Barcelona and at the end of our tour of the architectural wonder, there was one of these immersive experiences. I can't help but think it cheapened the art, and also made it seem like the museum didn't think the art itself could hold visitors' attention. Really made me worried for the integrity of art exhibitions and the voice of artists. Great video as always!
I attended what I THINK may have been one of the first of these a while back? No chairs, no herding, no mandatory leave time, no crowds, and before you saw the paintings you were presented a biography of Van Gough's life set up on those big museum signs. The art meanwhile was occasionally swapped out with actual photographs of the same regions/people taken during that era, providing further context to how Van Gough transformed and interpreted the world he was in.
Oh, and there wasn't a gift shop.
Great great content, I love the themes you choose and the well documented nuances you develop.
me and a friend saw immersive van gogh at the start of the pandemic when there was nothing else to do. we were so disappointed with what was basically a powerpoint presentation of pictures we could google. we were in and out in like 30mins. its a 60$ instagram photo opportunity. literally one room of pictures and a whole hallway of cheap van gogh kicknacks to squeeze some more money from you before you leave. now their turning every artist into an immersive cash grab
I wanna send this to all my friends, this video is so well put together and articulated. I planned on going to an immersive Van Gogh show, but it was expensive and the reviews were super mixed and i'm going to the actual Van Gogh in Amsterdam later this year. So i'm glad I didn't go and that I'm privileged enough to experience his art first hand.
Thank you for the video. Obviously we will be getting more of these immersive experiences in the future and props to someone who'll be able to make it right. The best way out of this is to have an immersive experience that will truly make people feel like they are experiencing the work of art. It's really how it works with any art. As always, context is the key.
this video essay/ pod was so incredibly well done i think I could write an entire thesis statement
as an artist, ty. truly incredible.
This is a fantastic upload, Broey, on a topic so near and dear to my heart as an aspiring painter. It's the topic that's on everyone's lips at my university and I think your essay is a very comprehensive introduction to this particular discussion, I'm definitely going to spread it around haha. As a side note, if anybody's curious to discover more artists that explored what authorship and reproduction mean in postmodernism, I'd recommend Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns' work, two very important queer artists active from the 50s onwards. Rauschenberg specifically made the famous "Erased de Kooning", where he literally took a de Kooning drawing and erased it, making it his own. Huuuge bodies of work for the both of them that basically stood at the foundation of the pop art movement.
Would love to see more videos from you exploring fine arts :)
Brilliant video, really put words into some stuff I've been thinking about lately.
I just wanted to say, I love your videos! And I especially love your podcast!! Been watching and listening for a few years now and your content is always excellent :)
Between Rehash and your UA-cam channel, you are truly talking about the pertinent questions of culture and society that appear everyday in front of us, but have quite deep depths when we look at them with a critical eye. It’s really amazing.
I went and saw the Monet and Friends immersive show on impressionists. I think it was a pretty fun way to get an introduction to many popular impressionist painters, but elsewhere in the museum were actual pieces by impressionists. I immediately understood the 'aura' mentioned in this video because it's so incredibly different seeing a Van Gogh or the massive Sunday on La Grande Jatte (spelling?) in person, where you can almost feel the time and the brush strokes and see the depth of the colors and movement and grasp the age of a piece. I might be a bit biased because I do love impressionism, tho. While I enjoyed the Monet exhibit, I feel like I got more out of the experimental intermission pieces between the shows than the show itself. I can see them sparking an interest and excitement about art with younger audiences especially.
I’m not sure it totally fits in what you’re talking about but I would have been interested to see how Loving Vincent fits into this discussion. Like, it’s a work that’s doing a lot of the stuff that you’re critical of these exhibits of doing in terms of transforming Vincent’s art into something with a more set emotion and narrative often by expanding out from images of his most iconic paintings but it’s also something that I think more people would accept as a work of “art” in its own right rather than just a framing of Vincent’s art.
I love the episode of Doctor Who called “Vincent and the Doctor”. I also love the song “Vincent” by Don McLean
Congratulations on the 3rd Season of your podcast! 👏🏽
great video like always! i also went to immersive and it just felt like a theme park - a place for people to get a good instagram shot and leave. on the other thand you have those who loved it bc they felt it was 'so deep'. idk i didnt like the way they disorted van gogh's artwork. like you said it felt like his original pieces arent enough for people, and thats just sad.
Yep. I managed to find some enjoyment there, but I didn't particularly learn or get anything about Van Gogh by going there, and I couldn't escape the feeling you've described. Like a layer of oil on top of a basin of water, just because you can see the water underneath doesn't mean you can get a clean drink from it.
it hurts to witness such a mass-misunderstanding of what art means to most artists.. it’s genuinely painful🥲 thank u for speaking on ur view of it.
I've been wanting to develop an immersive Van Gogh installation and call it "LETS GOGH!"
Or maybe "Gogh-ing, Gogh-ing, Gone..."
No, don't get up...I'll show myself out.
In all seriousness though, my issue with so-called "AI-generated art", be it visual, literary, musical, or otherwise, is the fact that, while an AI is certainly "Artificial", it is by no means "Intelligent". An AI chatbot that fools a person into believing they're having a conversation with a sentient intelligence lacks the fundamental awareness that it is speaking to a human being at all. It doesn't know what a human being is, in the way a human knows what a human is. An AI doesn't know anything about anything in the way a human knows. It accumulates data and information according to a very advanced and adaptable algorithm, then rearranges that data and information in a novel yet wholly derivative manner that adds nothing of substance to the information itself. In that respect, it may seem to be creating something entirely new and original, when in fact it is simply moving pieces around, rearranging elements, and presenting to the consumer an ersatz species of "Creativity'. It doesn't conceive of anything it didn't already have access to from its vast database, it just cuts and pastes what it drew upon to produce the illusion of new and novel.
The Dutch : 🗿
At the end of the Doctor Who episode “Vincent and the Doctor” he takes Van Gogh to the future, to an exhibition devoted to his artistic legacy in the art museum Musée d’Orsay in Paris. Vincent is brought to tears hearing the an art expert describe him “not only one of the worlds greatest painters, but one of the greatest men to have ever lived”. If you don’t watch the full episode, at least watch the clip on UA-cam. It’ll give you the deeply emotive experience the immersive exhibit could not.
There was one Van gogh “immersive experience” that I went to that I actually loved. But it wasn’t for the light show. They had either the real or replicas of Van Goghs work in a exhibition that you had to walk through to get to the show itself. It brought in things like his portraits flowers japanese inspiration, and with little plaques explaining his life at the time of said art and the history of it. All of that and reading it really made me actually appreciate the final light show because it contained everything that I had just read and seen in the exhibit, but in a bit for animated way. I also briefly remember narration? Though I might be imagining things due to limited photography allowed. But also at the very VERY end there was a vr experience that I just liked but also got a headache from. All the other visual immersion’s I’ve been to have never lived up to that first one
I’ve listened to another podcast on this topic and another one on AI in Art so it’s nice to see this topic being discussed here too.
Ohh what are the podcasts' names? I would like to give them a listen
The argument Bartlett gives about the Drake hologram makes me think of a thought experiment that John Vervaeke brings up in his series of video lectures:
“”how many of you would want to know that your partner was cheating on you even if that meant the destruction of your relationship?" To which almost everybody puts their hand up. They're willing to destroy this relationship, that's giving them so much happiness, because they don't want it to be fake.”
Bartlett’s take on live music, and seemingly, by extension, the implications this holds for concepts of truth and reality, seems to seriously misunderstand the utility of art and experience. It totally overlooks people who spend significant amounts of money on art and appraisals to ensure their purchase isn’t a forgery. But at this point let’s just project forgery onto walls and charge thirty bucks! Let’s all revel in inauthenticity, at least I got a selfie with hologram Van Gogh lol!
just started the video and im rivited! youre giving word to my thoughts about these exhibits better than i ever couldve. subscribed ^^
Oh my gosh your summary of Benjamin’s essay was so helpful.
NOOOOO THE TITLE THE TITLE GIRL!!!!!!!!!!!
screaming this like Walter White locked in the car
LMAOOO FIXED
well now i wanna know what the typo was 😭😭
@@voldemortsshampoo4551 it said “it” instead of “is”
art it in crisis :)
Van Gogh was the reason I got into art. I adore him and his story. I even have a Cafe at Night tattooed on my thigh. I spent almost $150 on 2 tickets to the Detroit immersive experience. It was literally 2 small rooms which both played the same projection which lasted maybe 30 mins. There were no blurbs explaining any history, no real rhyme or reason to anything they were showing. I had to sit and explain each piece to my boyfriend who I dragged along with me. I can't begin to imagine this was what he had in mind for his art. It honestly adds additional tragedy to his already tragic story.
loved the essay. hope you cover topics outside tv and film more often. i like getting to know your take
I'm teaching an undergraduate art history course this semester and I'm 100% including this video in our course materials. Thanks, Broey!
I have been to two art shows in this new "immersive" style. They were Klimt and Van Gogh themed, respectively. I remember being disappointed upon entering the Van Gogh show because I had expected them to exhibit actual Van Gogh paintings or some well done imitations. It was a little sad to see that everything was flat and looked like it had just been printed.
On the other hand, I actually really enjoyed the digital show itself. Sure, it felt more like seeing a movie than going to a gallery, but I think this different medium has a lot of power. It can introduce people to the art and (although heavily curated) the artist’s history. Also I’d actually argue that the tickets should be cheaper in order to invite more people. Unfortunately, only a few people have the chance to visit the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam which would probably be the most "authentic" experience, if you want to call it that.
What I really liked about the Klimt show was that there was actually very little info about the artist in the exhibition itself. You had a little pamphlet to guide you but other than that the visitors were left to soak in an ever changing sea of gold.
And yes, I still prefer looking at an original painting on a wall, inspecting it and suppressing the urge to touch the paint, but that’s the ideal. Often times the admission prices for galleries especially to see painters like Van Gogh are quite high and in the end there are 5 people queuing in front of you, anxiously waiting to take a photo.
There are many very interesting points in this video (which I do mostly agree with), however we shouldn’t forget that the "classic" art experience is flawed and not as magical sometimes, too.
Wonderful video essay! I love anything that brings up Walter Benjamin.
great video that put into words alot of feelings ive had for a while. thank youuuu
3 minutes in and I know this will be the best 30 minutes of my week and it’s only Sunday. Thank you for all your research and insight. ❤
My roommates had tickets and one of them had just broke their ankle so I was able to get a free ticket as an attendant. The mushrooms kicked in while we were in line. At the front of line, after given cushions, a golf cart pulled up and I was thinking helll yeah; thinking this was going to be a Mr Toad’s Wild ride ( a fun Disney ride) experience. And then we were brought to that room. I left there feeling like I had went to a second rate all you can eat buffet where all they served was Van Gogh. Not good but was something to go to following lockdown. I was in there thinking Van Gogh himself would’ve definitely hated being there.
When I browsed the AGO gift shop earlier this year, they were selling a Van Gogh bobblehead and one of the supposed selling points described on the box was "detachable ear!" Made me feel really weird
I just recently saw "Eternal Mucha" in Paris and I have to say that it definitely did a way better job than any other immersive art experience I've seen. I learned so much about Alphonse Mucha and his life and work beyond his posters work in Paris. The projections were more than just a slide show and contained incredible animation, explanations and a chronology of Alphonses life, The Art nouveau movement and his work when he returned to the Czech republic. When there is passionate people who care about the art and the artist for these kinds of expositions it works.
Thanks for this video essay - it's really interesting and well put together. I never went to the immersive van gogh experience when it came to my city, but with so many people talking about it (on instagram), i jumped at the chance to see an immersive "monet and friends" experience, just to see what the fuss was about (and also because i do really love impressionist art in general). And it was pretty - it was fun to see all these projections of artworks on such a big scale, but it absolutely did not capture the aura, because it really was just a bunch of projections. On the flip side, ive been travelling around europe recently and seeing a lot of these artworks in real life, and the experience of viewing these works in galleries is completely different - you get to see the brushstrokes and the colours and the scale of them, and even the experience of viewing it in a gallery space that's specifically created to show off these pieces of art (in terms of things like lighting and placement). you notice how these works look from different angles, how the light catches on these works.
Obviously we cant all travel around to all these galleries just to see these works, but there's absolutely something of a loss when viewing art that's been created to be viewed a certain way and viewing (and paying a fair bit to view) them in a way that's completely detatched from the original medium. And it's not just the "van gogh experience" or "monet and friends" - ive seen ads for other immersive experiences for artists like frida kahlo and klimt too - with the popularity of the van gogh experience comes companies that are clearly trying to replicate that same success.
At the same time something that ive noticed is how people "consume" paintings in more traditional galleries - well known paintings will be crowded around and people will take pictures with the paintings like they're celebrities. I dont think that's a new thing; people want to see things that are supposed to be incredible - that's why you have people packed together just to see the mona lisa. But certainly with social media and digital cameras the way these pieces are "consumed" becomes disconnected from the pieces themselves, and become more about how we're posting them online, or how they look in picture. Something that's stood out to me while visiting these galleries is how people will just go up to the painting and take photos of it without looking at the painting itself.
Sorry for sounding like a pretentious anti-social media boomer, but i just think the way art is "consumed" has been so drastically changed in recent years and it seriously has to be reassessed. While social media certainly had become a tool for artists, it (with the help of good ol' capitalism) also turned it into a consumable - im sure someone smarter than me can put it into more eloquent terms and incorporate some discussion about commodity fetishism or something, but essentially art and the value of art gets reduced to how consumable it is rather than being about the art itself, making artists producers of marketable goods and not, well, art.
My sister and I went to one of these exhibits in Indianapolis... and we both quickly agreed we would have rather seen Van Gogh's actual art...
This is really interesting, I've often thought that the reason AI won't completely replace artists is because part of what we enjoy about it is the fact that it's a person doing it, like regardless of what that dude says going to watch what is essentially a 3D video is never going to compare to seeing an actual musician/performer live in front of you, with the temporality and risk of failure that comes with that. It's most obvious with performance but I think it's the same with visual art and writing too. Too many people think "the death of the author" means the work should be viewed as existing in a vacuum, with the creator and their context being irrelevant to it, rather than a call against the psychoanalysis of them through their work that was a feature of literary criticism at the time - instead I would argue that the understanding that there is an author is often part of a work's power and intreauge.
I'd also be interested in hearing your take on NFTs in relation to the ideas of reproducibility - my understanding is that they came about as a way to solve the "problem" of digital reproducibility and to make digital objects more like physical ones in order to commodity them. It could be seen as an attempt to revive the "aura" of an artwork, but in a way that most people don't care about.
Also your discussion of Luna Luna park made me think of the Dismaland "bemusement park" created by Banksy in 2015, I went to it and I felt like it did a really good job of making an engaging/entertaining experience while also giving people access to art and political ideas that they might not have seen (even if the centrepiece in the castle was a bit of a let down - a scene of Cinderella's pumpkin coach overturned with paparazzi following, clearly a reference to Princess Di's death, which might have been a good reference if it wasn't over two decades old)
This reminds me of Michael Taussig's "The Sun Gives Without Recieving" where he uses Walter Benjamin's discussion of "experience" in "On Some Motifs in Baudelaire". Both are great reads. You're so genius, paradigm shifts happening in my mind rn
I have been thinking about this video a lot the last month. Thank you.
What a wonderful, engrossing video. Although I am feeling a little self conscious about my Starry Night themed anatomical heart hanging behind me in my studio 🙃
Eh, I'm sure Walter Benjamin would've overlooked that with consideration given to your net-positive societal impact as a doctor.
If artists who are still alive are being exploited by AI technology without consent, it only makes it that much more tragic knowing what Van Gogh went through in his lifetime. The creators did not truly respect or put thought into the immersive experience other than to money grab / seem PC.
I've been to an immersive thing about Gustav klimt and it was pretty cool. There was a room with his life story written down on some big wall spaces.
Then there was this immersive part, which was a bigger room with a film being projected on the 4 walls. There were stools and bean bags on the floor. The film itself was a talking about klimts life and most well known artworks. There was a female art student narrator, a woman who was very important to klimt and a male narrator. Overall pretty good, but it was really loud
And the 3rd part was 3 rooms, one where you can take fun pictures in which you play a character in his paintings, a room with mirrors everywhere and some gold 3d things on some walls, and an asmr room, which was a bit weird, but a cool idea I guess
And of course the gift shop. Overall it was really cool, it does more than showing the art, the people who made the film tried their best to show klimts way of expressing sexuality in woman
I went to one of the van gogh exhibitons last year for my birthday, and like you we had the same experience of it had already started by the time we arrived. while I feel like I understood what they were saying through the production, it just felt empty.
I've loved van gogh for a long time and, as basic as it may sound, starry night was one of the first pieces of art I was ever interested in when I started learning about art but seeing a projection of it just fell flat. I've seen that image in digital form or print so many times, it doesn't have the same impact as it would seeing the real painting in person.
Museums and galleries are such special places, and getting to see some of these paintings and sculptures in the flesh is magical. And while I did write a paper for my masters about the accessibility of museums and the use of 3D scanning and 3D printing, I feel there is a loss of the magic or the "aura" in theses recreations.
*It* Art in Crisis
It fart is crisis¿
One of the most horrifying implications of ai "expansions" of art is the idea that artists can't change or grow or be affected by their circumstances. The idea that if Van Gough lived over 100 years to today, he would've made the same exact paintings or made them be interactive animations or wouldn't want to portray his outlook on life. Van Gough isn't as controversial as other artists, his work can be projected upon to an audience who wants a sanitized experience.
Very good video! Thanks!
Very enjoyable and interesting video, these exhibits have always rubbed me the wrong way and it was really great to hear someone with really good knowledge of all this stuff breaking it all down
Yup it’s like I been driving home after work each day muttering this opinion in my head. But then saying no one cares… and then all of us here exist ! Woo
I went to one of these. I have very mixed feelings about it. On one hand it was nice to watch. (the one we went to had a time you had to be there and didn't let anyone in after it started, and it was much quieter) On the other, it's sick to know just how much money these people are making of of Van Gogh's work when he died poor, thinking his work wasn't worth anything.
I've had many a discussion with art critics, museologists and curators about this issue. I've grown in a world of movies, illustrated books, comic books, videogames and animation. Art as an object of cult, as a sacred item that people make pilgrimages to see wasn't on my mind for a long while. I only became aware of that idea as I approached the capital A "Art" world. I've had my mediums of choice shunned for this exact reason: no aura, no "sacral" character to it. Benjamin recognized potential in mass-produced media, yet I doubt he could've imagined a world like the one we live in today. Corporations and capitalism taint the expression of authors through these new media, couldn't be further away from revolutionary, yet it reaches more people than anything ever before and I feel like that's a good thing regardless. I woudln't have an appreciation for art in the way I do if it was locked away in museums and cathedrals. Yet I haven't found a good way to articulate an argument in favor of these forms of art popularized in the age of Capitalism. What's your take on this? Anything you'd recommed me to read about this topic?
For every person like you, we can only guess how many other budding art enthusiasts have have their appetites sated by the McDonald's version of great art. At least you win in this scenario.
this was super interesting! i feel like i learned a lot! thank you :)
Incredible video essay! I love the manner in which you pose questions to your audience to the subject at hand instead of outright damnation. You never talk to down to your audience, but you instead incite curiosity or a drive to expand our knowledge base on a given topic. As a recent subscriber, who is a male, I will admit that most of the film/art analysis videos I find myself watching are also from male authors. I find your video essays to have a tonally refreshing lack of venom. That is not to say that this subtle tonal difference has anything to do with your or any creators gender, but it is an example (personally) of the benefits of seeking different voices around widely discussed topics in art and society. I love your channel and the breadth of topics you examine.