Rogue's Gallery and Bad Art and Non-Art

I couldn't put a page full of good art on the net without contrasting it with the bulk of what "artists" have produced in the 20th century. At best it's ugly, revolting, superficial, and spiteful. At worst it is an intellectual vacuum wearing a mask of public acclaim (a public composed of a few "art experts" whose first principles are that art is anything, everything, and nothing, that beauty is passe' and that subjects and meaning are obsolete and a naive concern). With their help, the "artists" of today fill our museums with expensive garbage designed to obliterate the very meaning and purpose of art. In discussing these issues, I sometimes lack a common concrete set of works to which I can refer when I talk about various kinds of bad art and non-art, so I have included some typical examples of some of various kinds here. Needless to say, inclusion in this list doesn't mean I like or respect the artists or their works. The exact opposite is the case.

If you would like to read an more in depth exposition on my reasons for concluding that these are bad art or not art at all, there are several concise arguments available on the Frequently Asked Questions page.

Jackson Pollock (1912-1956)

Convergence (1952) (62K)

Blue Poles (1952) (119K)

Here's how he "painted" these things (24K)

Piet Mondrian (1872-1944)

Composition with Red, Yellow, and Blue (1928) (11K)

Composition in Blue B (1917) (13K)

Mark Rothko

Orange and Yellow (1956) (9K)

Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)

Les Damoiselles d'Avignon (1907) (89K)

Read Amazing Revelations by Picasso: In His Own Words!

Willem de Kooning (1904-)

Composition (1955) (56K)

Woman I (1950-52) (88K)

Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944)

Picture With An Archer (1909) (66K)

Unlike the rest of these painters, I actually have one good thing to say about Kandinsky. As an artist I think he's as much a failure as the rest here are since he doesn't give any attention to any particular subjects or meaning, but as a decorative artist, some of his paintings have patterns and uses of color that can be rather pleasing to the eye and perhaps might be something attractive to turn into a fabric design, end-papers on a book, or something like that. This distinction between fine art and decoration is an important one, and Kandinsky is one of the few painters who actually succeed at one while ignoring the other (usually, as in the other examples here, the work is neither pleasing to the eye nor art) so he is a good example for comparison.

Paul Klee (1879-1940)

Park Near L(ucerne) (1938) (30K)

Christo

Surrounded Islands (1980-1983) (16K)

Marcel Duchamp

Fountain (12K)

This "work" is just what it looks like, an ordinary urinal which Duchamp dubbed a work of art.

Gina Pane (French) (1939-)

Action Psyche (1974) (18K)

This is not a painting or a photograph, but a bit of "performance art" where the "artist" attacks her stomach in such a way as to raise welts and cause bleeding. What more can I say?

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