Incomprehensible art from Monet scanned. Will Gompertz - Incomprehensible Art

Do you remember in the movie 1+1 between the two main characters there is a dialogue about contemporary art. When Driss' assistant can't figure out how to buy a white canvas with a red spot for $30,000.

And how many such conversations can be heard among people who are unfamiliar with art: "Yes, my three year old draws as well as artist N, who sells his daub for several thousand dollars.

So who is right? How to understand why this or that creativity is called art and why it costs such fabulous money?

A book with a simple title can help with this: incomprehensible art".

Will Gompertz is not only an art lover, but also the arts editor for the BBC. Prior to that, he worked for more than 7 years at the Tate Gallery. By the way, the most visited and influential museum of modern art.

This book will be your guide to the world of contemporary art. I wanted to study art for a long time, but I couldn’t understand how to start studying art and how to understand what such a direction as modernism means and how it differs from postmodernism.

For a long time I was looking for a book that could explain all this to me in an accessible language. And so she was found.

The cover of the book gives us a reference to Andy Warhol's Campbell tomato soup.

Back in the 19th century, the art world was relatively calm. Artists painted chubby angels and verified each stroke of the brush. And then the Impressionists came and ruined everything for them.

Modern art has made such a big breakthrough in its development that for most people the words " modern Art"is associated with something very complex and not for everyone.

Looking into the gallery of modern art, a person involuntarily thinks: isn’t he a fool, if he doesn’t understand what is depicted in the picture, or maybe the art industry is just fooling people and extorting multi-million sums from simpletons?

When Claude Monet (Impressionist) created the painting "Impression" in 1872, the critic of the magazine "Le Charivari" Louis Leroy said:

Wallpapers, and those would look more finished than this "Impression"

It was Leroy who called impressionism a new trend.

Exactly 100 years later, the Tate Gallery buys the Equivalent VIII sculpture for over £2,000. The sculpture is made of ordinary bricks that any bricklayer could lay down.

After 30 years, the Tate again shocks people and buys a human queue (a piece of paper on which the idea of a Slovak artist was presented).

And is this art? Yes. If you want to know why, take a look at the book "Incomprehensible Art".

The book is written in understandable language. Clear and logical.

You'll find out why you can't replicate Malevich's black square, and how it came to be that an ordinary urinal is considered the greatest masterpiece of the 20th century.

The book tells about art from the middle of the 19th century to the present day.

The book contains illustrations.

In the book you will not get a complete story about the artists and trends. Here are collected only the most famous artists, architects, sculptors, who were the founders of the directions.

I can call this book a primer of modern art. After it, you can go on a further journey through art.

Can you tell Monet from Manet? Why Duchamp's "Fountain" is important for contemporary art. Distinguish synthetic cubism from analytical cubism. Understand the difference between modernism and postmodernism.

The book is ideal for beginners. A sophisticated person of art is unlikely to find anything interesting for himself. But it will be useful for beginners.

Will Gompertz

Incomprehensible art. From Monet to Banksy

To my wife Kate and children Arthur, Ned, Mary and George

WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT?

150 Years of Modern Art in the Blink of an Eye

First published in Great Britain in the English language by Penguin Books Ltd. This edition published by arrangement with Penguin Books Ltd. and Andrew Numberg Literary Agency

Translation from English by Irina Litvinova

Foreword

There are many amazing works of art history, ranging from Ernst Gombrich's classic "History of Art" to Robert Hughes' snooty and insightful "Novelty Shock" (Hughes only covered modern art, while Gombrich swung at everything at once, although by about 1970 he fizzled out ). I'm not going to compete with such authorities - where am I! - but I want to offer something different: my own informative, fun and easy-to-read book, covering the chronological history of modern art (from the Impressionists to the present day), but presented from the point of view of today. In order, say, to explain why such a trend as constructivism, which arose back in 1915, is still relevant, as a combination of artistic, political, technological and philosophical circumstances that gave rise to it, determined the future of art and our society - and at the same time time to look with fresh eyes at what preceded this trend.

My knowledge, with which I took on this task, clearly lacks academicism, and the practical side is not so hot: a four-year-old child draws better than me. All hope is on my abilities as a journalist and radio host. As the great late David Foster Wallace said of his essays, popularization is a service industry where a person who is not devoid of intelligence is given time and space to delve into various things for the benefit of other people who have better things to do. In addition, my advantage is experience, not in vain I have worked for so many years in the strange and bewitching world of contemporary art.

During the seven years that I was director of the Tate Gallery, I was able to visit both greatest museums the world, as well as lesser-known collections that lie off the beaten tourist path. I visited artists at home, carefully studied the rich private collections and watched the multi-million dollar auctions of contemporary art. I plunged headfirst into it. When I started, I didn't know anything; now I know something. Of course, there is still a lot to learn, but I hope that the little that I managed to absorb (and keep in myself) at least a little will help you appreciate and understand contemporary art. And this, as I have seen, is one of the greatest pleasures in life.

Introduction

incomprehensible art

In 1972 London gallery Tate purchased Equivalent VIII sculpture by American minimalist Carl Andre. Created in 1966, it consists of 120 refractory bricks that, if the artist's instructions are followed, can be stacked into eight different shapes of the same volume (hence the name Equivalent VIII). Exhibited in the gallery in the mid-1970s, the composition was a parallelogram two bricks deep.

There was nothing special about these bricks - anyone could buy exactly the same ones for a few pence apiece. But the Tate Gallery laid out more than two thousand pounds for them. The English press has gone wild. “The national finances are being wasted on a pile of bricks!” yelled the papers. Even a highly intellectual art history magazine The Burlington Magazine wondered, "Has Tate lost her mind?" Everyone wanted to know why Tate was spending public money so recklessly on what "any bricklayer could do."

"Baby, don't say 'derivative' is not a good word!"

Another three decades passed, and Tate again spent the money of British taxpayers on an unusual work of art. This time she decided to buy a human queue. However, not quite so. Not the people themselves—it's against the law these days—but just the queue. Or, more precisely, a piece of paper on which the Slovak artist Roman Ondak outlined his idea. His plan was to hire several actors and line them up in front of a locked door. After the arrangement, or, in the language of gallery owners and artists, "installation", the actors had to turn their eyes to the door and freeze in a pose of humble expectation. This was supposed to intrigue passers-by, who would either join the queue (as a rule, it happens) or pass by, wrinkling their foreheads in bewilderment and trying to figure out which artistic sense missed by them.

The idea is funny, but is it art? If a bricklayer can create an analogue of Carl Andre's Equivalent VIII, then Ondak's fake queue could well be considered an eccentric trick in the spirit of stupid jokes. In theory, the press should have fallen into complete hysterics in this case.

But the matter was limited to dissatisfied grumbling: no criticism, no indignation, not even ambiguous headlines from the most witty members of the tabloid community - absolutely nothing! The only response to the deal was a couple of approving lines in a respectable magazine, under the heading of events in the art world. So what happened in those thirty years? What has changed? Why did advanced contemporary art, which at first seemed like a stupid joke, began to be perceived not only with respect, but with reverence?

Money played an important role here. Over the past decades, a huge amount of despicable metal has been invested in the art world. State funds were spent generously on the "ennoblement" of old museums and the creation of new ones. The collapse of communism and the rejection of state intervention in the market economy (and, as a result, globalization) led to an increase in the population of multimillionaires for whom the acquisition of contemporary art has become a very profitable investment. While the stock markets fell and the banks burst, the value of iconic works of contemporary art continued to grow, as did the number of participants in this market. A few years ago international auction house Sotheby's counted on buyers from three countries. Now there are already more than two dozen such countries, and you will not surprise anyone with the presence of new wealthy collectors from China, India and South America. The major market economies have entered into a supply-demand game, with the former vastly outpacing the latter. The cost of the works of dead artists (who therefore will no longer create new works) - Picasso, Warhol, Pollock, Giacometti and others - continues to grow rapidly.

“It’s just more convenient for us to work with dead artists!”

It is growing thanks to new wealthy bankers and shadow oligarchs, as well as aspiring provincial towns and tourism-oriented countries that want to “create their own Bilbao” - in other words, change their image and increase attractiveness through impressive art gallery. Everyone has long understood: it’s not enough to buy a giant mansion or architectural monument. Filled with scandalous works of art, it will become much more interesting for visitors. And there are not so many such works.

If it is not possible to get "classics" of contemporary art, "contemporaries" help out. These are the works of living artists who continue the tradition of modern art (the beginning of which we agree to consider the work of the Impressionists of the seventies of the XIX century). But even in this segment, prices have skyrocketed: the cost of works by eminent artists, such as the American master of pop art Jeff Koons, is prohibitive today.

Koons is famous for his huge, flower-decorated "Puppy" (1992), as well as numerous caricature sculptures made of aluminum, imitating figures made from balloons. In the mid-1990s, Koons' work could be purchased for several thousand dollars. By 2010, his compositions, bright as candy, were already sold for millions. His name has become a brand, and his works are instantly recognizable, like a logo. Nike. On the wave of today's collection boom, he became fabulously rich - along with many other artists today.

Once pauper, the artists are now multi-millionaires with all the trappings of a glamorous star: celebrity friends, private jets, and the attention of a sensation-hungry press following their every move. Incredibly expanded at the end of the 20th century, the segment of glossy magazines enthusiastically helps a new generation of creators in creating a public image - in exchange for the right to publish photos from their private parties. Photos of artists on the background own works in dazzling designer interiors where the rich and famous congregate, it's akin to looking through a keyhole, and gloss readers greedily swallow such information (even the Tate has hired a publisher Vogue to publish his own magazine called Tate Members).

I have always had a passion for contemporary art. I never understood contemporary art. In an attempt to somehow figure it out, in ancient times I studied Ekaterina Andreeva’s book “Postmodernism” from the series “ New story arts." The book is very voluminous, well designed and terribly clever. So I, with my pathetic intellect, regularly choked on paragraphs in the spirit: “ The 1970s systematically criticized the visual basis of modernist art, namely the ability to possess, due to the optical nature, knowledge about the world, thanks to the control of the field of view. They are focused on dismantling the center of power, leaving the field of supervision. Escapism is the preferred way out of modernism. After all, as Boodthaers demonstrates following Warhol, the spectator can be alien to the spectacle, and if there are no spectators, then there is no one to dominate».

Therefore, when I saw the work of Will Gompertz on the counter (this is such an English Jew, they say - very brainy, so he was employed at the BBC, and before that they took him to Contemporary Gallery Tate "director of media technology" - whatever that means), I decided to take a look. Moreover, the book covers a wider period than Andreeva's work, it begins with impressionism, and I swim in it too. In general, there were some optimistic expectations: they say that a smart foreigner will simply tell about the complex, will amiably explain the meaning and meaning of contemporary art - not like all sorts of scoops with degrees who cannot say words in simplicity ...

Expectations turned out to be unjustified. As I understand it, Gompertz was paid to explain to the city and the world why the Tate was spending millions of the people's money on a bunch of bricks, creepy pictures or cracks in the floor, passing it off as contemporary art. It seems that he was paid in vain: he cannot really explain anything in this book. This is not surprising - the Jew does not even have a higher education, in the 90s he was engaged in some kind of yellow journalism and got his place through pull. Therefore, each chapter in this essay is built approximately according to this principle: at the beginning, he poisons some kind of “messy” tale from the life of futurists or surrealists (Salvador Dali wrote with a mustache!), Then he briefly outlines the historical context, then very succinctly lists the names of specific artists, describes their iconic works and tells what, in his opinion, the painters put into them the meaning (in the spirit of the Soviet literary school: ...that's what Pushkin wanted to tell us in his immortal poem!). Frankly, it's all very superficial. Perhaps even mine (for pennies spent) MHC lessons more intelligent and informative than a book written (for tens of thousands of pounds) by the director of the Tate Gallery.

The text varies greatly. It is felt: the more fictitious the direction of art, the more Gomperz jokes, pours water, beats around the bush, but he can’t say anything about the case. This is especially felt in the final chapters: dedicated to the Young British Artists and all sorts of other shit-eaters like Koons, Ai Weiwei and others like them. There is no longer a drop of persuasiveness and evidence: a continuous five-fold prayer “Alla-bismillah-rahmat, we are a munafik golovu atrezhu!” - or whatever the Arabs of the Jewish confession are supposed to yell ... And if we are talking about a relatively sensible trend, for example, about pop art, the Bauhaus or the work of Cezanne (for some reason placed in a special section), Gomperz formulates more or less sensibly. But in general, it is clear that this is just a blockhead, a swindler who has about the same idea about art as about quantum physics: nothing. The situation is aggravated by the fact that the vile and greedy bastards from the Sinbad publishing house waited to supply the book with the proper number of illustrations, even if they were in black and white. So the next ranting of a Jew about pictures has to be taken abstractly.

By the way, even the most good-natured readers complained about this. In general, it is not clear what the rotten devils Alexander Genrikhovich Andryushchenko and Irina Perkosrakovna Buslaeva are guided by, printing a book about art, which mentions hundreds of works - including 30 color reproductions and about the same number of black and white ones, and even the price tag charging a gypsy: me a book I got it for 700 rubles, and on the Internet they sell it for a mower and more. At the same time, Andreeva's book Postmodernism, named at the beginning, cost 400 rubles 10 years ago (Putin's "prosperity" depreciated them to about the current thousand), and there were many more pictures in it.

Among other things, surprisingly loyal reader reviews for this stupid job. It is clear that these are mostly stupid chicks from a near-bohemian get-together, crumbling in cow enthusiasm, but sometimes a certain butt will flash between the women, perhaps even more stupid and “positive” - which makes it a little annoying. In general, the degeneration of the people is a fait accompli. This is evidenced by Putin's ratings, and the general closure of more or less intellectual media, and the situation in the film and book markets ... And I remembered an example from my own life. When I was a teenager, I was proud that I had not read a single book by Rowling and Tolkien. In my 14-year-old opinion, it was unambiguously low-grade shit, forever zaskvarivayuschie read, making him partly untermensch, giving me the right to snobbery and troll in every possible way illegible reader. But today's snobbish teenagers are proud that they READ "Harry Potter" and "Lord of the virgins", they scoff at those who have not mastered it. Formally, they have the right to do this, since peers who have not read are not able to overcome anything at all, read and retell in their own words even a thousand characters - for them a kind of torture. But according to the Hamburg account ... in general, it's understandable.

Yes, there is a decrease in the intellectual level. The nation is getting dumber and for the dumb-headed even a book written by a bald-headed Semite, who has 5 classes of heder and two gates behind his soul - almost a modern Bible, which all sorts of boring Andreevs and other Gombrichs are no match for. But in my opinion, if you choose between the show-off candidate of art criticism Andreeva and Gomperts - then let it be Andreeva, or nothing. For in the process of getting acquainted with the sabzh book, the words of the great Russian classic Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol: “ Seize a Jew, bind a Jew, take all the money from a Jew, put a Jew in jail! Because everything that is unkind, everything falls on the Jew; because everyone takes a Jew for a dog; because they think they are no longer a person, if a Jew”acquired an increasingly fair and topical sound.

Will Gompertz

Incomprehensible art. From Monet to Banksy

To my wife Kate and children Arthur, Ned, Mary and George

WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT?

150 Years of Modern Art in the Blink of an Eye

First published in Great Britain in the English language by Penguin Books Ltd. This edition published by arrangement with Penguin Books Ltd. and Andrew Numberg Literary Agency

Translation from English by Irina Litvinova

Foreword

There are many amazing works of art history, ranging from Ernst Gombrich's classic History of Art to Robert Hughes' snooty and educational Shock of Novelty (Hughes only covered modern art, while Gombrich swung at everything at once, although by about 1970 he fizzled out ). I'm not going to compete with such authorities - where am I! - but I want to offer something different: my own informative, fun and easy to understand book, covering the chronological history of modern art (from the Impressionists to the present day), but presented from the point of view of today. In order, say, to explain why such a trend as constructivism, which arose back in 1915, is still relevant, as a combination of artistic, political, technological and philosophical circumstances that gave rise to it, determined the future of art and our society - and at the same time time to look with fresh eyes at what preceded this trend.

In my seven years as director of the Tate, I have been able to visit both the world's greatest museums and lesser-known collections off the beaten tourist track. I visited artists at home, carefully studied the rich private collections and watched the multi-million dollar auctions of contemporary art. I plunged headfirst into it. When I started, I didn't know anything; now I know something. Of course, there is still a lot to learn, but I hope that the little that I managed to absorb (and keep in myself) at least a little will help you appreciate and understand contemporary art. And this, as I have seen, is one of the greatest pleasures in life.

Introduction

incomprehensible art

In 1972, the Tate Gallery in London purchased Equivalent VIII by the American minimalist Carl Andre. Created in 1966, it consists of 120 refractory bricks that, if the artist's instructions are followed, can be stacked into eight different shapes of the same volume (hence the name Equivalent VIII). Exhibited in the gallery in the mid-1970s, the composition was a parallelogram two bricks deep.

"Baby, don't say 'derivative' is not a good word!"

Another three decades passed, and Tate again spent the money of British taxpayers on an unusual work of art. This time she decided to buy a human queue. However, not quite so. Not the people themselves—it's against the law these days—but just the queue. Or, more precisely, a piece of paper on which the Slovak artist Roman Ondak outlined his idea. His plan was to hire several actors and line them up in front of a locked door. After the arrangement, or, in the language of gallery owners and artists, "installation", the actors had to turn their eyes to the door and freeze in a pose of humble expectation. This was supposed to intrigue passers-by, who would either join the queue (which usually happens) or pass by, wrinkling their foreheads in bewilderment and trying to figure out what artistic meaning they had missed.

Money played an important role here. Over the past decades, a huge amount of despicable metal has been invested in the art world. State funds were spent generously on the "ennoblement" of old museums and the creation of new ones. The collapse of communism and the rejection of state intervention in the market economy (and, as a result, globalization) led to an increase in the population of multimillionaires for whom the acquisition of contemporary art has become a very profitable investment. As stock markets fell and banks collapsed, the value of iconic works of contemporary art continued to rise, as did the number of participants in this market. A few years ago, the international auction house Sotheby's counted on buyers from three countries. Now there are more than two dozen such countries, and you will not surprise anyone with the presence of new wealthy collectors from China, India and South America. The major market economies have entered into a supply-demand game, with the former vastly outpacing the latter. The cost of the works of dead artists (who therefore will no longer create new works) - Picasso, Warhol, Pollock, Giacometti and others - continues to grow rapidly.

This book is an answer to those who consider contemporary art to be either the absurdity of snobs or an outright deceit. What is the meaning of Malevich's "Black Square"? What did Andy Warhol mean by depicting countless cans of tomato soup? And what's with the urinal? In his gripping and sometimes shocking account of a century and a half of contemporary art, Will Gompertz does not set himself the task of evaluating this or that work. He gives readers short course"cultural hint codes that allow you to independently navigate in modern art space and figure out where the "dummy" and where the masterpiece.

Preface 1

Intro - Incomprehensible Art 1

Chapter 1 - Fountain, 1917 3

Chapter 2 - Pre-Impressionism: in pursuit of reality, 1820-1870 5

Chapter 3 - Impressionism: Poets modern life, 1870-1890 10

Chapter 4 - Post-Impressionism: A Fork in the Road, 1880-1906 14

Chapter 5 - Cezanne: "like a father to all of us", 1839-1906 19

Chapter 6 - Primitivism, 1880-1930 / Fauvism, 1905-1910: The Call of the Wild 22

Chapter 7 - Cubism: Another View, 1907-1914 27

Chapter 8 - Futurism: long live the future, 1909-1919 31

Chapter 9 - Kandinsky / Orphism / "The Blue Rider": Sounds of Music, 1910-1914 33

Chapter 10 - Suprematism / Constructivism: Russians, 1915-1925 36

Chapter 11 - Neoplasticism: behind bars, 1917-1931 40

Chapter 12 - Bauhaus: a meeting of classmates, 1919-1933 43

Chapter 13 - Dadaism: Anarchy Rules, 1916-1923 48

Chapter 14 - Surrealism: life is a dream, 1924-1945 51

Chapter 15 - Abstract Expressionism: A Grand Gesture, 1943-1970 56

Chapter 16 - Pop Art: Shopping Therapy, 1956-1970 61

Chapter 17 - Conceptualism / Fluxus / Arte Povera / Performance Art: Mind games, 1952 onwards 67

Chapter 18 - Minimalism: Untitled, 1960-1975 71

Chapter 19 - Postmodernism: Real and Imaginary, 1970-1989 74

Chapter 20 - Art Today: The Rich and Famous, 1988-2008 - Today 77

Thanks 84

List of illustrations 84

Works of art: where they are 84

Sources for cartoons, black and white illustrations and color reproductions 86

Illustrations 86

Notes 87

Will Gompertz
Incomprehensible art. From Monet to Banksy

To my wife Kate and children Arthur, Ned, Mary and George

WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT?

150 Years of Modern Art in the Blink of an Eye

First published in Great Britain in the English language by Penguin Books Ltd. This edition published by arrangement with Penguin Books Ltd. and Andrew Numberg Literary Agency

Translation from English by Irina Litvinova

Foreword

There are many amazing works of art history, ranging from Ernst Gombrich's classic "History of Art" to Robert Hughes' snooty and insightful "Novelty Shock" (Hughes only covered modern art, while Gombrich swung at everything at once, although by about 1970 he fizzled out ). I'm not going to compete with such authorities - where am I! - but I want to offer something different: my own informative, fun and easy to understand book, covering the chronological history of modern art (from the Impressionists to the present day), but presented from the point of view of today. In order, say, to explain why such a trend as constructivism, which arose back in 1915, is still relevant, as a combination of artistic, political, technological and philosophical circumstances that gave rise to it, determined the future of art and our society - and at the same time time to look with fresh eyes at what preceded this trend.

Introduction
incomprehensible art

There was nothing special about these bricks - anyone could buy exactly the same ones for a few pence apiece. But the Tate Gallery laid out more than two thousand pounds for them. The English press has gone wild. "The national finances are being wasted on a pile of bricks!" yelled the papers. Even a highly intellectual art history magazine The Burlington Magazine wondered, "Has Tate lost her mind?" Everyone wanted to know why Tate was spending public money so recklessly on what "any bricklayer could do."

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Will Gompertz Incomprehensible art. From Monet to Banksy

Foreword

Introduction incomprehensible art

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Will Gompertz
Incomprehensible art. From Monet to Banksy

Introduction
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