Art I hate

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Brigham Young University *

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101

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Arts Humanities

Date

Oct 30, 2023

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pdf

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Uploaded by ChiefCrown12273

Art I Hate Description This piece is “Work No. 1105” by Martin Creed. This piece is acrylic paint on canvas. This composition’s story could likely be described by the artist squeezing a tube of red paint out and using a brush to quickly put large swipes of color across a plain canvas and call it a day. This piece is not on display, it is currently in storage related to the National Galleries of Scotland. This image is five maroonish-red rectangle shapes stacked on top of each other to make some sort of a pyramid shape. This painting uses shape to make the image of a pyramid staircase and color is used to create a sense of monotony and stoicism. This painting is a series of repeating shapes and some shapes are smaller than others. The only shape that slightly stands out is the shape on the top which appears to be much smaller than the other shapes that make up the pyramid which creates the illusion of the stairs that the artist was trying to replicate. Interpretation An expressive quality the artist used is the expression of the five total brush strokes used in the composition. When one sees this, they likely think of how easily they could replicate it with accuracy. This composition is simply 5 brush strokes with 5 different brush sizes and the exact same paint in each stroke. The artist likely made the choice to change brush sizes to draw attention to the fact that the shapes are changing length and height. They also probably chose to leave the strokes in the piece for some poetic reason of human touch however it is reading as laziness and simplicity. I cannot relate to this piece because I cannot imagine putting such little effort into a piece and still feel good about someone portraying it in museums and paying thousands for it. I also don’t know how a person would relate to this piece as it is red blocks

stacked on top of each other. Maybe it reminds them of their childhood and simpler times due to the childlike nature and simplicity of this piece and how a child could easily replicate it or how it replicates stackable blocks from childhood. This work relates to rising modern art trends of abstract art and how anything can mean anything if you think about it. This reminds me of the side of modern art that I do not appreciate because it just doesn’t feel right to call something like this art and also to look at Hellenistic Greek reliefs and call them by the same name. Evaluate I think this work is setting out to be “different” and “abstract” which it is accomplishing but it is some of the laziest abstract art that I have personally ever seen. This piece is also part of a series the artist did of many different shades of red squares in varying tower heights of stacked blocks. The artist was supposedly trying to replicate staircases and stacking to reveal patterns in everyday life and “ideas of growth and progress,” however, this is a thinly veiled way to make something out of nothing. This piece is a low-effort attempt at something meaningful. My problem with this piece is that it required such little effort to pull it off; five paintbrushes, one bottle of paint, and five minutes at the most. The artist could fix this problem by putting more thought into the piece he made. I think if this piece had more thoughtfully played with negative and positive space and had more emotion and meaning to the lines in it, I would appreciate the piece more. After critiquing this piece and looking more into the artist who created it, my hatred for its composition has grown beyond what I thought it could be. I think that this artist is a wonderful example of nepotism and/or pretentious rich people doing pretentious rich people things. My first impression of this piece was that it was a little lazy and very plain and boring. After looking into it a bit more, I find it infuriating that big wigs in the art world reward this kind

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of creation with avid praise and force a real meaning into it. One review I saw said that he cleverly played with negative space in this piece but I do not see how he did anything monumental or different. Martin Creed has never created something that hadn’t been created before. Two questions I would like to ask this artist would be “What gave you the inspiration for this piece,” and “Why are there 1,104+ other paintings?” I would like to know the motivation behind the creation of these pieces because I doubt there is any reason he could come up with that would warrant the amount of praise he has gotten in the world of art. For my second question, I kind of already know the answer because if art was as easy as he makes it for himself, I could easily bust out 1,104 other pieces of simple lines and brush strokes in a very short amount of time.