# Media & Art: Consumerism/Currency



## Abishai100

Is modern media (Internet, TV, radio, Netflix, etc., etc.) affecting how we evaluate accessibility in terms of the sanctity and rarity of valued art?

After all, the fact that countless people can post personal amateur-art on the World Wide Web makes art a very public exercise in the age of media and technology (something artists from the Renaissance period did not possess!).

This could be good or bad; it's good that people feel like they can 'dabble' in art or 'peruse' art simply by surfing on the Internet; it's bad that people feel that quality-evaluation and criticism is somewhat drowned by spam and over-blogging(!).

Will the Internet downgrade human intellect? I'd like to believe that is not the case (and I'm sure some of my USMB peers would definitely agree with me!).






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Of course two primary genres of 'modern art' are comics and manga, which present very rough and graphic muscular and primal images of incredible/fantastic characters doing unusual things. Perhaps this is a reflection of a modern interest in toys and traffic (e.g., _The Toxic Avenger_).

 

Anyone can find rather impressive works by emerging/aspiring modern artists who've decided to showcase their works on personalized/custom-made art-exhibition websites. Some of these websites are company-owned and feature a wide array of sampled works from emerging artists. These are now very accessible to anyone who has access to the Internet (which comes free with any public library membership!).

 

I met some pretty ambitious aspiring-artists while I was in college, and some of them went on to feature works in major galleries and/or present their collections/works on custom-made websites. These works, ranging from abstract to classical to cubist to even absurdist stick-figure art, represent a very modern approach to 'art criticism.'

 

You might find an art-dealer who markets the work of emerging artists simply through a website. The artists presented on these websites may already boast handsome exhibition contracts with major museums/galleries such as the Whitney.

 

The temptation is to say that since modern media is such a labyrinth of wires and emails and videos and smart-chats that we're naturally looking for aspiring-artists who are creating works that represent a very general approach to 'modern abstract tech-toy expressionism' (e.g., images of wires, tape, telephones, photo-negatives, etc.). If you're cynical about modern tech/toys, you might think that such art is by nature...pedestrian!

 

The thrilling 1980s NYC graffiti-work of amazing artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, featured in his biopic film _Basquiat_ (starring Jeffrey Wright and Gary Oldman), represents a modern reinvention of 'low-brow art,' 'convenience-themed narcissism,' 'line-based geometry,' and of course, 'pastelevision.' Many described Basquiat's work as 'postcards of IBM culture' (for their primal expressions of street-cadence and tech-claustrophobia).

 

It's a great temptation then to want to simply post your own homemade renditions of 'modernism-praise' oriented artworks. Perhaps you can generate a nifty stick-figure color-pencil drawing of a Marvel Comics super-villain such as Hobgoblin or perhaps you want to make a stick-figure doodle of a 'pedestrian daydream' (like the one I made and posted below of a chef-god serving two miniature-humans on Valentine's Day!). It's all 'low-brow' (and fun)...

 

The idea is to separate the intention to make art from the intention to make comedy/slang/vandalism. Basquiat's graffiti was considered high-art and not merely 'graffiti' since it clearly revealed an intention to present expressions about the joys and pains of modern civilization (not cynical slang about rage in the ghetto!). The challenge is to sift through all this 'modern madness' to appreciate what 'qualifies' as 'museum material' (and enlightening 'pedestrian prose'). That's really what is threatened by the accessibility-mentality of today's Facebook-culture (convenience-oriented consumerism).

 

Some art critics believe cinema will have a huge impact on how artists value the role of publicity and marketing, since movies present social images of shared-views regarding creativity and madness. After all movies offer us convenient images/ideas about shared spaces, shared toys, and shared comedy. So how will the Internet affect metropolis-metaphysics?

Anyone a fan of the modernism-relevant film _Toys_?

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