MakemineVanilla Posted November 13, 2013 Share Posted November 13, 2013 This year's Reith lectures by Grayson Perry were superb. Best bit of stand-up I've heard for a while. He starts off by quoting Alan Bennett - You haven't got to like everything! http://tinyurl.com/ozqnjca Still available on iPlayer 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LondonLax Posted November 13, 2013 Share Posted November 13, 2013 Most expensive work ever auctioned at $142.4m That money could get you Gareth Bale for a season. This story followed the Phillippines story on the news this morning where the government was discussing donating £10m to help. Seemed a bit wrong really. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted November 13, 2013 Moderator Share Posted November 13, 2013 This year's Reith lectures by Grayson Perry were superb. Best bit of stand-up I've heard for a while. He starts off by quoting Alan Bennett - You haven't got to like everything! http://tinyurl.com/ozqnjca Still available on iPlayerIndeed they were, I missed the third one but I'll presume it was as good as the three I heard. So good in fact that I sent a message of congratulations to the producer, mainly because he's an old mate from Uni but still I wouldn't have bothered had it been merely average. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xann Posted November 13, 2013 Share Posted November 13, 2013 Yes No Some sort of bad joke Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjmooney Posted November 13, 2013 VT Supporter Share Posted November 13, 2013 Agreed on the Grayson Perry lectures. He's a strange man, but well worth listening to. And whoever bought those Francis Bacons (if that's what they are), yes, they should hand them back and give the money to the Phillipines appeal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjmooney Posted November 13, 2013 VT Supporter Share Posted November 13, 2013 (edited) Scientific "proof" that abstract art is only 4% better than what a kid could do There's no quicker way to whip up a pointless debate than to discuss abstract art. Does it defy and profoundly challenge our preconceived notions of what art can be...or is it just some crap any second grader could during playtime? UCLA researcher Mikhail Simkin has been behind a ton of unusual papers, including one that compared the influence of congresspeople to sand avalanches and another that used Google to rank the 20th century's greatest physicists. But this one has to be the most gleefully, giddily controversial one yet, because it's attempting to quantify the relative merits of abstract arts, which is one of the most fundamentally subjective topics imaginable. Here's how he did it. Awhile back, Simkin created a site where people can guess whether the images in question are great pieces by famed abstract artists or just some random crap that he himself created. The average score on the quiz is 66% right. That's good new for proponents of abstract art, because it's much better than random chance, and it suggests people really can tell the difference between "real" abstract art and amateur imitations. Simkin also looked at another study that showed art students can tell the difference between professional abstract art and that done by children or animals at a 67% success rate. Again, that's much better than chance, but interestingly it's a very similar percentage to that of the general public. That might suggest we can distinguish real abstract art on some sort of fundamental level, and that specialized knowledge doesn't actually confer any additional insight into the form. But how does this compare with the human ability to distinguish things in other areas? Simkin looked at one fairly well-known experiments in which people are asked to pick up and compare different weights. As the weights get closer together, people have more difficulty determining which is heavier, and the subjects could only distinguish a 100 kg weight from a 96 kg weight 72% of the time. That 72% clip is, of course, better than any of the success rates for abstract art. Simkin points out that, if you were to translate the results from one study to another, you could say professional abstract art is the 100 kg weight, and stuff done by kids is the 96 kg weight. And that is the scientific proof that abstract art is 4% better than what a kid or an animal could do. Hey, I said this is study was gleefully controversial. Simkin's paper also offers another comparison point. Using that same 4% difference, he compares the difference between professional abstract art and children's random drawings to that between a chess novice and the next-lowest ranking, a D-class amateur. So yeah...if I can quickly and somewhat inaccurately summarize this paper, the world's greatest abstract artists are no better than the world's second-worst chess players. And, with that in mind...discuss! arXiv via Technology Review. Top image is cropped version of Fernand Léger's "Railway Crossing." Take the test. I got 75%, done rather quickly. I think that with a bit more thought I could have done better. Edited November 13, 2013 by mjmooney Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villaajax Posted November 13, 2013 Share Posted November 13, 2013 Some sort of bad joke Is that a Picasso? The guys in the GTA thread made fun of me for watching an art documentary instead of playing with them one night, philistines! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Risso Posted November 13, 2013 Share Posted November 13, 2013 That woman(?) has stolen a living. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coda Posted November 13, 2013 Share Posted November 13, 2013 No What about Rothko? Yours for $75m. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CarewsEyebrowDesigner Posted November 13, 2013 Share Posted November 13, 2013 Well, how much is it worth? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted November 13, 2013 Author Share Posted November 13, 2013 Tracy Emin? each to their own, I went to her White Cube show 3 or 4 years ago and thought it was fine, not life changing, not the best thing I'd seen, but not a waste of an hour either Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coda Posted November 13, 2013 Share Posted November 13, 2013 Well, how much is it worth? I think they're good investments. Hide it away for a decade then get a group of bored billionaires to fight over it. I present, dogs playing poker: 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xann Posted November 13, 2013 Share Posted November 13, 2013 What about Rothko? I don't hate Abstract Expressionism, but it's not mind blowing like Renaissance or other 20th century stuff. Art's not my bag though, Designer1 will probably be able to tell you why I'm wrong. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
8pints Posted November 14, 2013 Share Posted November 14, 2013 The guys in the GTA thread made fun of me for watching an art documentary instead of playing with them one night, philistines! I didn't. I love art and all that... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrackpotForeigner Posted November 14, 2013 Share Posted November 14, 2013 Whoever bought those Francis Bacons (if that's what they are), yes, they should hand them back and give the money to the Phillipines appeal. Or at the very least explain how they got their money, down to the last exploited worker, polluted landscape and broken law. 99.9% chance they'd go for the Philippines appeal. (The remaining 0.1% are probably awesome, worthy people with incredible intellect belied only by poor taste in works of art.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Risso Posted November 14, 2013 Share Posted November 14, 2013 I'm too much of a pleb to "get" modern art, I just like a nice, well-painted picture. My great uncle was in the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists between the war, and painted lots of watercolours of places in Brum and surrounding areas and I've got a few of them up around the house now, be something nice to pass on to my son when he's older. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjmooney Posted November 19, 2013 VT Supporter Share Posted November 19, 2013 Absolutely fascinating programme on BBC1 right now - "Imagine - Outsider Art". Well worth a watch when it's on the iPlayer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted November 19, 2013 Author Share Posted November 19, 2013 outsider art? is that somebody that works outside in the rain? I'm watching because I'm intellectual! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted November 19, 2013 Author Share Posted November 19, 2013 been shouting and screaming at the footy all evening, now watching artsy tv this is a wonderful country and I'm a lucky boy 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjmooney Posted November 19, 2013 VT Supporter Share Posted November 19, 2013 It's art made by amateurs, eccentrics, mavericks, autistic savants - people who are not part of the 'art establishment'; in many cases, patients in psychiatric institutions. Some of it is quite astonishing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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