The Bad, the Worse, and the Ugly: How "bad" art is making a splash in a world of refined tastes

Published in The New York Times, on September 2, 2010, Erik Piepenburg sheds some light on a few subjects that people may have preferred stay in the dark.  I'm speaking of the quirky, but well-respected realm of art referred to as "bad art".  Noted for not appearing to follow any rules of aesthetic beauty or balance, these worked of art are typically praised for just how horribly they were executed.  The man in the photo above, Judah Friedlander, is featured with his own work that depicts a Bigfoot holding onto a topless mermaid.  Friedlander says, "If a painting, whether it's at the Met or it's something that somebody threw away, gets a reaction out of me, gets me thinking, and gets me mentally and emotionally, I like it."  I think Piepenburg does a good job of presenting the material in this article without his own bias, although the people quoted in the article obviously approve of this so-called "bad" art.  I would define his thesis as stating that although we acknowledge that art has some understood rules of design that are typically involved in it, art can be just as impressive when those rules are broken as when they are followed.  He proves his thesis by using examples of art by Salvador Dali that many people find off-putting but also agree to be impressive art that has withstood the test of time.  This article related to what we have studied in class this week by basically considering an artist's conscious and unconscious decisions, and seeing what would happen if all the decisions were "unconscious" so to speak.  This appears to be the case in many examples of this "bad" art.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/03/arts/design/03badart.html?_r=1&ref=designIf a painting," said Mr. Friedlander, "whether it’s at the Met or it’s something somebody threw away, gets a reaction out of me and gets me thinking, and gets me mentally and emotionally, I like it.”