Opinion Confirmed

My long standing opinion that the majority of contemporary art is meaningless rubbish has been 100% confirmed.

First I'll explain why I've always believed this:

1. Great music is appreciated by non-musicians. Great feats of engineering are appreciated by non-engineers. Great sports accomplishments are appreciated by non-atheletes. Great software is appreciated by non-programmers. Great movies are appreciated by non-actors. Great art is appreciated by non-artists; otherwise it's not that great! The contemporary art culture should not presume to be above this simple law of perception.
2. Art must be representational. The creator of the work must be attempting to communicate through the media; therefore it cannot be random (unless randomness is the subject but that of course would be unoriginal, right?). This doesn't mean the artist does not intend for there to be multiple interpretations. In fact, I believe great art should do exactly that.
   
3. Good art's core meaning need not be bluntly obvious but it should be clear following a brief study. There are fine lines between clarity, hidden meaning, cryptic meaning, and no discernible meaning at all. An artist should feel free to create something that hardly anybody understands, but they shouldn't expect it to be appreciated.

A national art contest in New Zealand had a late entry. Someone called the facilities department and kindly asked them to collect the packing materials from the other entries and pile them up. That was some guy's submission in the contest, and he won.

Like I said...meaningless rubbish...


I'm not making this up:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/arts/news/article.cfm?c_id=544&objectid=10596167
http://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/newsdetail1.asp?storyID=162862
http://www.wanganuichronicle.co.nz/local/news/editorial-art-is-in-the-eye-of-the-cash-holder/3904001/