I will gladly share other titles for your appreciation. 📽️🍿
Discussion
I’m always open to suggestions. I do have quite a long list of titles to get through at the moment.
Do you have a favorite documentary or docuseries?
Here is one that make for a great conversation topic! 📽️🍿
Why Beauty Matters, with Roger Scruton
I started watching the first bit. I really dislike the voice of god narration style in documentaries and think it should be avoided whenever possible. Also I’m a fan of Duchamp. The beginning of this just comes off as I’m a stodgy old man who hates modern art and everything used to be better. There is a wealth of variety in modern art. I’ll have to try finishing it tonight or later.
I can understand your first impression.
The thing is, something is broken. Modern art praises the broken for hate and jealousy of what has been broken.
I hope you have the patience to go all the way through and then we can talk about it.
I don’t think modern art is broken.
It praises that what is broken, though.
There are many facets of modern art, to treat everything from Duchamp onward as a monolith is wrong. There are ancient writings saying the world is broken and new generations are destroying it. It is a common issue repeated generation after generation to over romanticize the past.
It's getting bad.
So we agree there is something wrong with the world.
Now, the thing regarding art was it tried to reinforce the best to the world.
Now it highlights the worst of it.
However, it is fair enough that one specific characteristic, be it technique or goal, can not define what art is. That would mean to say anything with the same characteristics would be art. And that is not true.
The thesis statement throughout the documentary is: something was not just lost, it was purposefully broken. And artists are not trying to express a renewal with the same good principles, but to say "bad and ugly are now good and beautiful".
A lot of classic art depicted the brokenness of the world. Saturn Devouring his Son, anything titled “The Rape of the…” etc. Art isn’t just about good thoughts and emotions, it’s about communicating any part of the human experience.
I do sometimes think it could be useful to categorize art into what kind of way it’s trying to communicate. Putting a urinal in a gallery space is very different from Jackson Pollock is very different from Michelangelo. But I actually get calling them all art even if some art I don’t like as much.
I suggest you to watch the documentary because you have just not understood the thesis.