> Here's a topic I don't see people engaging with: I could in principle make the same kinds of completely abstract paintings Pollock did, but if I do it, it won't be art because I'm not in the art world. I have no access to galleries, I have no patrons, and I generally don't move in those circles, so I have no ability to be taken seriously for doing it.
Interesting that people miss that so much of art is about the idea, not the execution. Most musicians can play a beatles song (ex. thousands of dead on cover bands), anyone can take a photo (ex. see shot on iPhone campaign), a lot of people can paint the mona lisa or other famous art (ex. see faked paintings).
It's that someone had the wild thought to do it in the first place.
A cynical take is that people are just so far away from the level that they see the execution as the difficult part. Like saying, I could type out the linux kernal.
No, my point is that even if I had the idea (abstract art) I wouldn't be taken seriously as an artist because my art would never make it into galleries. I'm not in the art world, so it doesn't matter what my ideas are.
In terms of distribution or fitting in, this is not unique to you or this moment in time. Art has always been this way, even worse back in the day of having to get a painting in the Salons in Paris where it was judged by a few people. It's actually more common for this to be the case, as a truly unique idea doesn't fit in the the critics opinion of "art" ex. painters who only get famous years after death.
There are not many things in life that you can just "be good at" and the world unlocks. Even as an athlete, something very meritocratic, you have to convince someone to hire you onto a team and if you don't do it the correct way (college -> NBA/NFL) no one will care because you're not in the right "circles"
I don't know, but the commenter would be wrong. Art is art regardless of its credibility in "the art world," whatever that means. I suppose they meant they couldn't be as famous as Jackson Pollock for doing what he did, which seems to be confusing the value of art with the value of celebrity (the "ability to be taken seriously".)
What made Jackson Pollock's work art was the intent behind it. What made him and others like him famous was the CIA (as inevitably mentioned elsewhere in this thread.)
> Here's a topic I don't see people engaging with: I could in principle make the same kinds of completely abstract paintings Pollock did, but if I do it, it won't be art because I'm not in the art world. I have no access to galleries, I have no patrons, and I generally don't move in those circles, so I have no ability to be taken seriously for doing it.