Is It Artistic….Is it Art…. Is It Fine Art?

Lately I’ve been seeing on my social media feed these “artists” who enjoy throwing paint all over a cavas. They use various creative methods: Putting different colored paint in a bucket with holes where the paint comes out and patterns are created. They swinging it around, by way of a cable, while upside down, travelling above and around the canvas, resulting in pretty abstract patterns. It takes some skill, and it looks fun creating these objects. It’s a show. Is it artistic? I would say yes. Is it art?  It’s not what I would define as fine art, as it lacks any form of critical intent or thought behind what is being created. It looks fun to do on a video for Facebook or Instagram for the public’s enjoyment, and it might attract the non-artistic connoisseur to buy one of these fun and lickable pieces.  It can be intended as a decorative piece to be displayed proudly above the fireplace in the retirement condo in Boca or Palm Desert. Perhaps it might be considered home decor rather than anything in the direction of Fine Art within the closed mystical realm of the fine art world. Or maybe it’s just pushing paint. After all, that’s what they are doing. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with pushing paint, but to sell it off as fine art might be considered a bit of a stretch, and the creators of that type of art would not be staying in their artistic lane. Making good art takes thought, grit, determination, education, sweat, and tears.

I remember later on in his life, Salvador Dali would sell one-off pencil or ink drawings.  He would draw them on a napkin or a piece of scratch paper and sell them off as fine art.  I happen to own one myself, but I don’t even know if it’s an authentic piece. The thing is, it was fine art. It came from an individual who shook the foundation of the Twentieth Century art world and influenced how everyone saw art. Those line drawings were taken down to their common denominator, a basic line drawing. But he had all that history behind him, whereby anything that he created, even something reduced to its bare simplicity, was fine art. And given his due, he tore up the art world and reinvented it. It was avant-garde.  

Although my work concentrates on the figurative realm, I love great abstract art. The art of Mark Rothko haunts me every time I see one of his works.  It’s a visceral and intense emotion that his work evokes.  Jackson Pollock or Kandinsky does the same thing.  But when I see paint being pushed, I’m not as easily charged by these online artists.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s fun to watch the paint being pushed around. It just doesn’t have the same punch or emotion, at least for me, as the masters. Polick was the first to apply paint using gravity onto a canvas. By literally putting the canvas on the floor and applying it with an aggressive physicality that had never been done or considered before. And he used house paint, a scandal right there!

These artistic paint pushing artists try to up the ante to the next level, thinking that if they go bigger with the canvas size, the outcome of their execution will be even more dramatic, perhaps so visually.  But is bigger better? They will most likely make more money.  Learning the theoretical ropes on what it means to be “a fine artist” takes art to a place where meaning takes a front seat and where thought becomes the primary consideration in regards to creating a work. Fine art is important in the fact that it represents who and where we are at a specific time when it is created. It also represents the thinking and the social happenings that are going on in the world at large within that specific frame of time, and all the baggage that goes with it. 

So many artworks are created with artistic determination, thought, and intention, along with a myriad of processes to choose from. To be considered are the surface materials on which to execute the piece. Is it created on a wall, a canvas, a piece of paper, or a piece of marble? Then how will it be executed? With Ink, paint, charcoal, dye, or a blow torch? What about the medium? Should the ideal vehicle for expression be video, photography, painting, drawing, collage, or graffiti? How does the work deserve to be created? Specific considerations take place when executing a serious piece of fine art. There is meaning behind those considerations. And now and again, a work stands out far ahead of what is out there and is communicated in such a way that an impact of grand proportions takes place. It’s noticed for one reason or another, and it takes off. It becomes part of the conversation and is talked about within the art community, and then everyone jumps on the buzz. It then becomes a big thing. 

Recently, the art world and the world at large experienced the second sale of a banana taped to a wall by way of duct tape. It was marketed by the artist as a commentarty reaction regarding the art community and all the trappings that go with it, and the Art Baselers ate it up.  Everyone in the art establishment took the bait. These things seep into the fine art scene now and again. The scene buys into it with an eye roll, and it sells for a ridiculous amount of money to someone who has the monetary fortitude to buy into the joke, wink, or whatever you want to call it. This time, the buyer was a young asian tech guy who purchased it. And the greater world at large, loses its collective mind, reducing the piece to a pop culture anomaly, whereby leaving those outside of the art world scratching their heads, and they have the right to ask the world at large, is that fine art? Yeah, probably as the piece did what it was supposed to do. It did have an impact. The buyer even ate the banana to further the circus show. 

I would rather look at a Mapplethorpe bull whip photograph than a rotten banana taped to a wall. At least I know what I’m looking at, and there’s a bit more of a sense of something being done involved within the mix. At least you can say “ ouch”. Sometimes a banana is just a banana, and then perhaps not. 

Then the whole question of “what is art” comes into play.  It’s an age-old question that has existed and will continue to as long as the art keeps on being produced.  Artists. Critics, buyers, and lay people get to play the game, and it keeps the mystification along with the confusion of the art game well into play.. The effort that it takes to create the Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo versus an artist like Cindy Sherman, who photographs her work with specific intention, precision, and purpose, varies completely in the execution of its approach regarding a work of art. It is the intent, purpose, and reasoning behind it that makes it interesting. The approval of the work by curators and buyers is the icing on the cake, which then puts the artwork into play. There is this dance between the artist, connoisseur, and curator. They all have their defined reason and purpose for having their place in the sun.  They all have their passionate reason for loving art the way they do. The players all play their role with grit and determination, and they all think that their position in the chest game reigns supreme. I’m sure there is a screw in the light bulb joke in there somewhere. But hey, all have their important place within the system. It’s a symbiotic system that continually plays itself out. 

It’s fun to see a bucket full of paint with holes at the bottom being thrust around a room with a canvas underneath, and the different colors flow out, creating a pattern. It’s dramatic, it’s fun, and it’s a gosh darn good time. It is artistic expression for sure, but not to be mistaken that it’s not fine art, no matter what that artist says, because it is.  They are either lacking the understanding of what the fine art game is and where they belong, or don’t belong within it, or they are intentionally being disingenuous.  But at the end of the day, it can still be a nice-looking art piece, and there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s nice to put something colorful above your mantle in your condo in Boca or Palm Desert.  It’s a conversation piece.  You can tell your guests the background story of where you bought it from this online artist and how much you paid for it. And that’s perfectly okay!