the way this displayed in the Reina Sofia is fantastic. it’s set in its own room that you approach from the side so you get this experience of turning a corner and boom there’s Guernica. Gave me chills.
When we visited that room in 2012 or so the walls on the other 3 sides had Picasso's studies for the final painting.
The combination of those in proper size context to the astounding thing on that wall was... I dunno, very hard to bear? Chills and goosebumps. Just being in the presence of such genius. [Edited to add: I forgot! Many of the studies are clearly over complicated and colorful. And then you turn to see what was the final result. IMHO It's the same with genius software, in a different medium. Prose too, but maybe that's more contentious.]
There is no digital screen representation that can remotely approximate the psychic impact physical proximity to genius creates. I've felt this with many other greats as well.
I've sat alone in 3 different Rothko rooms. Damn. It's all I can say. You have to do it yourself. Tip: pan your eyes slowly while sitting in different corners.
It’s also perfectly contextualized. In the same wing, there’s a lot of contemporary art and ephemera from all sides of revolutionary Spain, including a model of the building in which Guernica was displayed at the World’s Fair in Paris. It’s almost poetic how it was essentially confined to a basement, as if the republicans were admitting they were on the verge of defeat by Franco.
It’s really one of those things that you have to see in person and walk up and down along to understand. The scale of it alone is a huge part of what makes it so memorable.
I have been thinking about this painting a lot more in recent years because it always comes to mind when someone mentions AI art. It's arguably the most important piece by arguably the most important artist of the 20th Century (the "arguablies" are intentional, I'm not going to have that argument because that isn't the point of my comment, but including "arguably" makes them both statements of fact) and it's bleak, upsetting, and just flat out ugly, but that is all intentional and what makes it fascinating to look at. The goal of art isn't merely beauty. It's primarily communication. And this piece very clearly communicates the horrors of war. Sure, AI can make pretty pictures, but it can't make art because it has nothing to communicate.
Well, is Pixar’s Toy Story a work of art? Or what about Julia set renderings, where people make choices about the colors? ;)
Tongue-in-cheek aside, I do think I agree with you in that (1) art, as perceived by us human meatbags, is art because of the human element of it (if not in creation, then in perception), and that (2) AI absent explicit steering trends towards a rather bland medium.
But there’s art in everything from the blurry, out of focus, disposable film cameras, to a 5-year-old’s crayon scribble scrabbles, to the neon glitter themes we used to copy-paste over our geocities and xanga pages, and as frustrating as it is to our own sensibilities, an AI prompt “draw a pink elephant” isn’t all that different.
The element of creation is central to art. A painting or a photo of a sunset can be art, but the sunset itself is not art.
In addition, the communication doesn't need to be explicit or intentional. It can be communicating something antithetical to the artist's original intent like a blurry and out of focus photo. Or it can even be antithetical to the piece itself like a lot of modern art (Fountain[1] comes to mind). I'm also sure that the 5-year-old will happily tell you a story about why they scribbled what they did. I'm not diminishing any of those. But if all the person contributes is a prompt, the text of that prompt is the extent of their art.
The combination of those in proper size context to the astounding thing on that wall was... I dunno, very hard to bear? Chills and goosebumps. Just being in the presence of such genius. [Edited to add: I forgot! Many of the studies are clearly over complicated and colorful. And then you turn to see what was the final result. IMHO It's the same with genius software, in a different medium. Prose too, but maybe that's more contentious.]
There is no digital screen representation that can remotely approximate the psychic impact physical proximity to genius creates. I've felt this with many other greats as well.
I've sat alone in 3 different Rothko rooms. Damn. It's all I can say. You have to do it yourself. Tip: pan your eyes slowly while sitting in different corners.
Tongue-in-cheek aside, I do think I agree with you in that (1) art, as perceived by us human meatbags, is art because of the human element of it (if not in creation, then in perception), and that (2) AI absent explicit steering trends towards a rather bland medium.
But there’s art in everything from the blurry, out of focus, disposable film cameras, to a 5-year-old’s crayon scribble scrabbles, to the neon glitter themes we used to copy-paste over our geocities and xanga pages, and as frustrating as it is to our own sensibilities, an AI prompt “draw a pink elephant” isn’t all that different.
In addition, the communication doesn't need to be explicit or intentional. It can be communicating something antithetical to the artist's original intent like a blurry and out of focus photo. Or it can even be antithetical to the piece itself like a lot of modern art (Fountain[1] comes to mind). I'm also sure that the 5-year-old will happily tell you a story about why they scribbled what they did. I'm not diminishing any of those. But if all the person contributes is a prompt, the text of that prompt is the extent of their art.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fountain_(Duchamp)
When Picasso was interrogated by an SS officer about his painting Guernica, “Did you do that?” Picasso replied, “No, you did.”