You're trying to convince me to be less confident in my assertions by confidently telling me what I do or don't understand, and what I need to understand in order to reach conclusions.
>What you're doing is like watching a boxing match and saying "it's very lazy that these people aren't using their legs" or "I don't understand why that person won, they didn't even knock the other person out!". There's a thing that's happening here that you've not bothered to learn enough about to understand whether or not the participant is accomplishing their goals
But, you see, art is not a game. There are no rules. If you paint me a portrait of myself with your feet and you make me look like my mother, I'm not going to be impressed that you managed to paint my mother with your feet. I'm to ask you why you didn't use your hands, you dolt! If you handicap yourself to the point you make something bad, then it's only fair the results are judged on their own merits, isn't it? If you wanted to use your feet to entertain yourself then any criticism you receive for it shouldn't matter, because the activity fulfilled its purpose to you, the same way boxers don't care about the criticism they receive from people who think they should also use their legs.
I don't care about their goals. Their goals are for themselves. I don't need to know them to judge the quality of the result.
>"I don't understand this" (although I'm getting the sense I'm unlikely to hear _that_ from you)
I'm honest enough to say I don't get the point of the soup can. That doesn't stop me from saying it's low-effort. I see better art on Twitter every day, even though most of it probably has less of a message.
You're constantly missing the point. Artistic merit has nothing to do with your feelings about a particular work or how it was made. That is your personal preference or opinion, whatever. People decide on artistic merit organically as a collective.
They seem to not get that they are judging other people, not the work itself, when the say something has no artistic merit.
At the same time they say that:
- They would look down on an art history PhD who tries to tell them there's more to it
- They think that people who think that work isn't "shit" are idiots
- They are glad others are frustrated with their attitude, because other people seeing something in what they think is "shit" frustrates hem
This is way beyond missing the point. They are taking offense at others having opinions on an artwork, and take a difference of opinion as a personal attack that they are glad to retaliate to with a bona-fide, actual personal attack.
They also feel entitled to an explanation, which they demand, and when people point them in the direction of what they could learn, they say that "oh, you want to get something out of me" (as if learning gives to anyone else).
Their basis is: "If I see it a certain way, then everyone else should see it that way, unless they are incredibly stupid or are talking in bad faith". So when other people don't provide a justification for seeing things differently, they are dismissed as stupid, or perceived as hostile.
Let's say, this pattern of behavior is well-studied, and has a name.
>What you're doing is like watching a boxing match and saying "it's very lazy that these people aren't using their legs" or "I don't understand why that person won, they didn't even knock the other person out!". There's a thing that's happening here that you've not bothered to learn enough about to understand whether or not the participant is accomplishing their goals
But, you see, art is not a game. There are no rules. If you paint me a portrait of myself with your feet and you make me look like my mother, I'm not going to be impressed that you managed to paint my mother with your feet. I'm to ask you why you didn't use your hands, you dolt! If you handicap yourself to the point you make something bad, then it's only fair the results are judged on their own merits, isn't it? If you wanted to use your feet to entertain yourself then any criticism you receive for it shouldn't matter, because the activity fulfilled its purpose to you, the same way boxers don't care about the criticism they receive from people who think they should also use their legs.
I don't care about their goals. Their goals are for themselves. I don't need to know them to judge the quality of the result.
>"I don't understand this" (although I'm getting the sense I'm unlikely to hear _that_ from you)
I'm honest enough to say I don't get the point of the soup can. That doesn't stop me from saying it's low-effort. I see better art on Twitter every day, even though most of it probably has less of a message.