jaker

"Monochrome Bleu"
Yves Klein, 1960

I posted this on the General Discussion because I am interested in everyone's opinion, including the people don't really have a passion for art, and not just the art fanatics.

Recently I visited the Modern Tate Gallery in London, England. Great show. But I stumbled across this piece. It defied everything I knew and learned about art. How is this art I asked myself? The man next to me grunted, "Best work here, enjoy it while it lasts." If this man, I thought, thinks this piece of blue canvas is the best work in the show, than I'm really missing something. Is this art to you? What is art to you? I enjoy Rothko's work, "absolute" art I guess you can call it, because the colors lead me to self-examination, like a poem, but this BLUE canvas really leaves me blank. Keep in mind when responding, the texture of the piece was, so, awww, flawless, and the blue, aww, so vibrant.

lordjeebus

It seems that this was the most thought-provoking piece there -- and while I don't think that art needs to be thought-provoking, the capacity for generating thoughts is certainly a sign of art.

Perhaps Yves Klein hoped that you would stop and think about the nature of art itself. If so, the artist succeeded.

I think one of the greatest pieces of art was when Picasso took bicycle handlebars and seat, put them together, and called it a bull's head.

I think that whether or not something is art is subjective -- but I personally consider anything art if its creator intended for it to be such. (This is sufficient but not necessary for something to be "art" to me)

Devilchild

I think its the oposite, it dont matter what the creator wanted it to be, its what others think of it as, if people think its art, then it is, is an artist does somthing like a blank sheet and nobody sees it as "art" then it isnt, surely.

i think he might of just wanted to do somthing different, personally i dont see it as art.

Clewd

In general I do not consider anything that I can make on a random whim to be art. So to me "Monochrome Bleu" is not art because, in my mind, the word "art" bestows upon a creation a certain amount of dignity that acknowledges either its grandeur and/or the the skill and vision of its creator or the non-triviality of its message. "Art" should be reserved for these creations because, although the utility they provide to people is intangible, it's still definite.

Example:
I'm pretty certain that everyone who sees Michaelangelo's work in the sistine chapel for the first time will be impressed to some degree and will stop to analyze it bit, whereas "Monochrome Bleu" might evoke absolutely no response from a good number of viewers who simply see a blue square inside a white square. Almost no one would consider the former trivial because even if they don't like it they will at least acknowledge that it is a work of great skill and effort and represents many generations' view of their religion; some people would feel that "Monochrome Bleu" is wasting valuable museum space.

Final analysis: If there is a good chance that it is trivial to the point that it bestows no benefit --- artistic, philosophical, moral or otherwise --- to a large amount of viewers, it's not art.

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lordjeebus

I think that art can be personal or directed towards an audience.

I personally think that if anyone (creator or viewer) considers it as "art," I will also consider it "art" on the basis that it generated some sort of artistic experience. People are certainly allowed to personally view it as "not art," and I'm sure there are people that feel that way about every piece of art out there. I am just less stingy about applying the term -- if I someone is thinking "art," that's art to me.

Peetster

I think it's art. Bad art.

It's art because it is an expression of the individual in an established medium. "Established medium" is not essential here, it just removes the largest argument against some media being art, like a jar of urine with an object inside. I think it's bad art because it took no skill. It caters to the "art for art's sake" crowd that are impressed with themselves for being evolved enough to see "the beauty of simplicity".

If this is art, then the artist is the viewer, not the person that painted flat blue on a canvas.

lordjeebus

I would use the terms "good art" and "great art" to express this sentiment -- that's our main difference.

Nevertheless, I consider "Monochrome Bleu" to be a fine work of art. Why? Because:

1. I think it takes balls to be the first guy to make a blue square and call it art. The artist, I feel, wasn't acting on random whim but carefully thought out the effect that creating this work would have on its audience.

2. It raises some great self-referential questions about what we consider art. It seems that some people have very averse reactions to this type of thing existing, as if it is an afront to other forms of art. Some artists stir up thought and emotion through masterful technique or universal themes. Others do so by making a big blue square and confusing people.

EDIT: I do wonder if he is the first to make a monochromatic rectangle and call it art. Chances are it had been done before. In which case, I would still call it art, but not "good art."

lordjeebus

I hate to dominate this thread so, but I have a question for you. Would you extend the above statement to a prehistoric cave painting of stick-figure type men? If not, why not?

Neato

This would mean that a peice of work with a heap of creativity and little skill invovled would be "bad art" in your opinion?
I had this question typed up way better before and I don't know what happend to that window...

jwoody

In my opinion it is not art. That it is displayed in art gallery doesn't change this. It is a blank canvas waiting for some art to be applied to it.

The only art involved was the 'art of keeping a straight face whilst bullshitting about your latest artwork' which Mr Yves Klein is obviously a grand master at.

Even it is a 'vibrant' blue, it could just as easily have in dull blue, pale blue or a different colour altogether. The end result would have been the same.

Whoever paid money for it has been conned.

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thejoker130

I don't really consider something like this to be art. It may have taken thought from the artist but it took no work to create it. There is no difficulty in expressing a plain blue canvas.

I kind of lost my faith in modern day artists when a guy hung a urinal on a canvas and sold the thing off for some insane amount of cash. Then there was the guy who just turned in a blank canvas, much like this one (except this one just happens to be blue)

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lordjeebus

I think that the problem with this sort of art is not that it doesn't require much effort to create, but that it's overdone.

If we were living in a time when all artists were classically trained and following set non-abstract schools of art, and something did something like this, the impact would be explosive. It would be highly original and controversial.

Today, many artists recognize that this is an easy way to make some money and overproduce the same kind of thing over and over. Hence, there's lots of what I would consider "bad art" out there. But if some people like it I won't hold it against them. And I still consider this "art."

jwoody

I can, sort of, see your point but I disagree. If you presented a work like this as art 200-400 years ago you would probably get stabbed in the eye with a red hot poker.

Peetster

You're not dominating the thread, your asking thoughtful questions. :-)

Art evolves. Prehistoric cave drawings were the pinnacle of man's artistic ability at the time. Now we can do better. Frankly, my daughter at 3 could do better. Her 3 year old scribbles have as little artistic merit as does this flat blue canvas, and neither belong on exhibition.

A good artist making good art will provoke thought and emotion. Not the pretend awe of a pretentious Soho art crowd, but real thought and real emotion. "Blue" fails here.

Cynthetiq

art is whatever you decide art is...

it's like beauty... what you find beautiful someone else finds ugly.

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Liquor Dealer

But! goin' through the paint chips down at Ace Hardware should not be considered as visiting an art gallery - this would apparently be more at home with the paint chips. To me art has to evoke some emotion - its has to sorta' grab reach out and grab you - not just lay there, dead and emotionless. While a mixture of black and white can definitely be art - a dead skunk in the middle of the road is not.

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Halx

My own definition of art lies with skill and cleverness. This work took no skill and no thought. Thus, it is hardly a *work* of art.

This concept isn't even original. People do this half-assed 'art' all the time, and always have. It's as common as a stick figure drawing.

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OFKU0

I think it's art. If you look at it long enough you will see a very large penis entering a pre-pubescent girl.

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water_boy1999

Art is in the eye of the beholder. I don't consider this art because it doesn't stimulate my visual senses....doesn't make me look at it as anything else but a blue canvas. Perhaps I have no imagination.

To someone else, this particular color might strike up a fond memory, vision or other sense they have felt before. To them, this might be considered the best piece in the show.

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Bloodslick

Were it a superintelligent shade of the color blue, I would consider it art. Creating life from paint is an immeasurable achievement.

As it stands, it's certainly a very pretty shade of blue, but isn't art.

txlovely

Keep in mind this was painted in 1960 when this style was really coming about. Here is some explanation I found that can help qualify the artistic value to some perhaps:

"The work of Yves Klein emanates from a new design of the function of the artist. This one is never to be strictly accurate the author of a work since, according to Klein, the beauty already exists, in an invisible state...The first monochromic ones of the beginning of the Fifties, which express the sensitivity at the pure state, with "paintings of fire" of the last year of its life where one of the four elements is expressed under the direction of the artist, in fact the cosmos becomes visible. The reduction of the colors to the blue patented by Klein makes play pictorial matter the role of the air, of the vacuum, of which, for Yves Klein, are born the force from the spirit and imagination. Lastly, the "technique of the alive brushes", or "anthropometry", amounts leaving with the human body the care to make the table, thus putting the artist in withdrawal.
It is understood that this artistic practice fully finds its direction only in reference to a singular design of the world that Klein starting from parallel experiments was forged: Japanese judo (: practical of art) founded on the forces and natural elements of cosmos (water, air, fire, ground), for the visualization and the assimilation of positive or contradictory energies, and the esoteric philosophy of the Rosicrucian brotherhood which seeks the spiritual forces controlling the Universe.

Far from being a formal artistic step, the activity of Yves Klein is thus controlled by a cosmology which turns into to world the principal actor of art. It is this idea of the world as works which Klein brings to the New Realism . But if all its work is directed by a spiritual need which led it to widen the field of the usual artistic techniques, all the following generation, which refuses the aesthetic object, nevertheless knew to inherit its innovations, beyond its party taken mystical."

Take it for what it is - much of what there is to appreciate is in the technique itself. This is not at all to say I would like it hanging in my home, just a little bit of knowledge to apply when observing the painting itself.

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jvwgtr

Actually, this is pretty good art.
I find Klein's work extremely interesting. If I'm not mistaken, a good portion of his work centers around this color of blue...it's a very special color that he tried to have patented as "Klein Blue" or something of that nature.
If you don't find the monochrome panel interesting, you might be able to appreciate some of his other works, where he covered naked women with this blue, and pressed their bodies onto the canvas.

World's King

Boring.

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Peetster

Far more interesting.

Liquor Dealer

But still not very...

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atsteve

no

GakFace

I was waiting for the picture to load.................

Yes, technically it could be considered art, but I can't believe people called it good. If I did it, I can be 100% positive that people would hate it, but you stick in some place artsy and all of th sudden people are trying to find the inner meaning of blue canvas.

Personally I would have taken it one step further and put a 24/7 camera to it, and put a TV beside it. From there the "picture" would change every minute... maybe I would show the weather....

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BuddyHawks

HAHAHA
I don't think it's art, but like it's been stated, the artist has probably accomplished his purpose of people discussing it.

mikepeca18

not art

water_boy1999

Thanks for your intriguing commentary on this piece.

chris2980

no its just a purple box

lordjeebus

"no" atsteve, 2003

Recently I visited the Tilted Forum Project. Great forum. But I stumbled across this post. It defied everything I knew and learned about posting. How is this a post I asked myself? The man next to me grunted, "Best work here, enjoy it while it lasts." If this man, I thought, thinks this single word is the best comment in the thread, than I'm really missing something. Is this a post to you? What is a post to you?

lordjeebus

I think you're missing its author's point, lordjeebus.
It's pretty obvious that he was making a statement about moral absolutism and its effect on philisophical discourse today. By pushing the boundaries of what we consider a post, he wished to make his audience simultaneously rethink the nature of their own posts -- what makes them so unique, in a harsh world when anyone can dismiss you with a simple "no."

dragon2fire

same here thought there was something worng with my internet for a second

Soggybagel

THis is not art. You don't have to be classically trained or be a great freehand drawer or anything to make art. But In my mind something like this does nothing as far as I'm concerned. I dislike this kind of "art" as well as any sort of "shock" art that abounds.

For example, how does one get famous by doing crazy ass things. I want to poop in a shoe box and call it art. The funny thing is if the right people acknowledge it as art, it thus becomes art and not just a stinky box.

Mephisto2

Of course it's art.

First of all (though not exclusively), art is that which makes you stop, think, debate. In this regard it has succeeded admirably.

Yves Klein also worked very hard to develop the colour blue that is used in this painting. IKB-79 I believe it's called.

If you think that this painting was not art, did you visit the rest of the gallery? What about the plain glass of water that the artist maintained was an oak tree? Not a representation of an oak tree, but a real oak tree.

What about the video art? Did you watch the time-lapse of the fruit decaying? The looped video of a man in a mask boxing?


Let's broaden our consideration.

What about Piet Mondrian's pictures? They also are just coloured boxes. .

What about Andy Warhol's pictures? Are they art?

What about Jean-Michel Basquiat? Many would say his work is simply graffiti.

Then there's Kasimir Malevich, who also created works that look like simple coloured boxes.


Art can be defined many ways. I think the most appropriate is "If the artist says it's art, then it's art."

You don't have to like it. You don't have to "understand" it. You can even say you think it's nonesense.

However, you can't stand back and say "I think that's not art."

So, in summary, is Klein's work art? Of course it is. In fact, I love it.

I highly recommend the book This is Modern Art by Matthew Collins (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...glance&s=books). Or a more clinical assement would be the book Modern Art edited by David Britt. Finally there's the seminal work The Shock of the New by Robert Hughes (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...glance&s=books).

Art is there to be enjoyed. If you don't like, move on and spend some time looking at something else.

Mr Mephisto

RippedSock1

At most, I would say that this piece is simply, "clever". People look at it and question it. It's pretty general in that sense though. It's just a blue box! Thoughts and questions will arise just because it's too general.

I think that it did not take any skill whatsoever and I doubt the artist contemplated long on how to express his idea as a blue box. I believe that real art requires some skill and a little thought.

If anything, it's art only because the artist said it was.

itchy93

I can't consider this art. It's in the same vein as those "uber-chic" musicians that pluck one note and let it ring, and say that "it captures the beauty-- nay, the very essence-- of life and blah blah blah". There is no definition for art, but it should convey a particular thought or emotion.

Consider art as a language. If I were to open my mouth and go "gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa", you wouldn't say that I had just spoken English (or any language, to my knowledge). However, I state that this gutteral sound is representative of the collective sorrow of existence in this cold, cruel universe. Fine. But you still don't consider it a coherent communication.

Itchy93

"gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa"

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Mephisto2

So Milo is "just clever?" Mondrian is "just clever?" What about Matisse?

What about Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin (enfant terrible of the BritPop movement)?

How "clever" was it for Andy Warhol to take a photograph of an accident and sell it as art? Indeed, is photography art in your opinion at all? What about his famous Marilyn Monroe prints?

Your comment "It's just a blue box" is very interesting. What does it mean to you? The fact that you're talking about it means something.

I'm not trying to be nasty, but this simply shows ignorance of the facts in this particular case. Klein spent years developing his famous blue colours. In fact this colour, or IKB (International Klein Blue) as it became known, was so new that it was successfully patented. From 1949 onwards he concentrated on blue and from 1957 onwards he painted 194 paintings in IKB.

Klein was one of the "New Realists" and is considered by most of the art world to be a master.

In 1954 Klein said "I believe that in the future, people will start painting pictures in one single colour, and nothing else but colour." He was a visionary, in the same way that Jackson Pollack was a visionary. I recommend the book Bright Earth - Art and the Invention of Colour by Philip Ball for a fascinating look at how colour has evolved, and how certain artists have used it, over the centuries (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...glance&s=books).

I wonder if you consider Pollacks work to be simply "dribbles of paint?"

Untrue. Klein is a famous artist whose work is collected around the world.

I should imagine the "installation art" of Christo (he of the famous pink ribbons around famous buildings) would also not be to your liking?

Mr Mephisto

Mephisto2

Again, I say of course it's art. Klein is a very famous artist. He was extremely successful and influential. The fact that you simply do not like this particular painting (one of his most famous) does not mean it's not art.

I don't really see the analogy here. In fact what you've described above could (conceivably) be construed as an artistic action. You have used a medium (in this case sound) to express an emotion.

What "emotions" do Pollacks work represent? What are they trying to communicate? They are certainly not pictures. But they are undoubtedly art.

Sometimes art is just something that is pretty.

Remember the first Impressionists were also lampooned as producing works that were not considered "art". But don't tell me that you now consider Monet, Degas, Renior, Pisssaro etc as not being great artists?


Mr Mephisto