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.
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.
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.
When Picasso was interrogated by an SS officer about his painting Guernica, “Did you do that?” Picasso replied, “No, you did.”