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Originally Posted by demonrail666
And a lot of that is down to the enormous shadow cast by Picasso over the medium, surely.
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In a sense, yes. You've probably heard about how Warhol seemed preoccupied with knowing whether or not Picasso had heard of him and what he thought of his art. Unlike Dali, Picasso never showed up at the Factory or happenings.
Later, Rauschenberg maintained a large studio and assistants as well, but he seemed to be (well, mostly anyway) always evolving. And he had his worldwide art foundation and so forth.
To consider further along this tack is that the artist-as-outsider goes back to (mostly) Van Gogh, but I think the "bad art" to which Rob is perhaps primarily referring is produced by postmodern conceptual artists and the like whose essential validity delineates from Duchamp and Warhol. Aesthetically, most of it is wretched. And then there are the more painterly ones too, to be fair. But those invariably exhibit tendencies to become strictly singular "style" painters who essentially concentrate on creating an art product. As Rob opined, personal image is part of the product these days. A lot of it goes back to the sheer outrageousness of Duchamp, yes, but much of the artist-as-persona owes to the peculiar affectations in the personalities of two of art's major 20th c. players, Warhol and Dali. And they are two of art's more tireless self-promoters and the two that kinda first made modern art-as-business, you know, the model. Well, with Dali a lot of it was Gala, and with Andy a lot of it was the people around him as well. Dali had his "living tableaux" of hangers-on (although Gala was always in control or so it is said) and Warhol his investors and also the Factory people. As some may know, Ultra Violet had her time in both camps. Perhaps it's also worth noting that both artists have major museums devoted to their art and that works have even been lent out by each for special posthumous co-exhibitions.
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From what I saw of his current art in an Iconoclasts episode on Sundance I viewed a few weeks ago, Jeff Koons doesn't know what good work is anymore (he always has been iffy to an extent owing to his sales background). Perhaps he's just too mega-rich now. On the program he betrays contrivances, instead considering them homages. Hey,
in words and conceptually and in general it may be an homage, but visually and aesthetically, it's contrivance. There's a world of difference. Every single work doesn't have to be genius, far from it, since modern art
is about process, but I don't think it's too much to expect for at least
some of them to be considerably good. You know, since, like I already mentioned, Koons has become obscenely wealthy during his tenure of playing the art game. But still, there's no denying his status now as important; his work is exemplary enough to warrant the big bucks in the art market at least. The trickster maker of the sterling silver Rabbit out of a mold from an inflatible children's toy truly is, in many ways, an artist for our fucked-up world detached from meaning and our largely corporatized, and thus homogenized, computer age.