Cultural Figures You Are Expected to Like, but Don't

[korzo]

Late to the party but this thread truly is a gem

A little assortment of cultural figures I do not like at all no matter how propagated they are:

- Marina Abramovic - well, it isn't really her that I do not like particularly but the image she is presented every time. Many believe that she is the face of performance art, a pioneer in art or something while all she does is 'gentrifying' the performance art that was for a voluntary reason always out of the mainstream, She distills what the Viennese actionists did or the French performance artists.

- Jean-Paul Sartre - he is anything but a relevant philosopher in my eyes. Bear in mind that I had to read his oeuvres both in my mother tongue and French as well, so I think I have a pretty fine knowledge of what he wanted to say but it never really crossed my interest line. Plain, simple thoughts for plain and simple minds.

- Ayn Rand, JB Peterson, Zizek - I am not willing to comment on this one.

- Kehinde Wiley - same with Abramovic. He is obviously gifted when it comes to art but he is as overhyped as it gets.

- Pink Floyd - never ever understood why so so many people love them. Their music is as simple as a ringtone, the lyrics are kitschy and full of clichés.

- Piet Mondrian - I understand that he was a revolutionary figure of the early Belgian-Dutch avant-garde and yes, I read his stuff on his ars poetica but God damn his artworks are ugly and boring. If you read what he wanted to represent with his art you could understand my feelings. He had such a great view on art and its liaison with life I wonder why he had the urge to paint when he could have been one of the finest art historians/philosophers of all time.

- Thom Browne - I might be a close-minded European who doesn't understand the 'Great challenges of the American business suit' but his stuff is boring and very much out of my taste. However, his shows are wonderful and I have to admit that he is one of the most creative runway show-maker in recent fashion history. Watched a short video of him designing (basically, he can't draw anything, cannot do sketches at all so he draws circles and lines like Moholy-Nagy or El Lissitky and hands it to his design staff who actually make the sketches and clothes happen) and I was wondering how bad must it be to work under his hands.

- Pablo Picasso - In my opinion, he was the Virgil Abloh of modern art. Plain drawings, simple messages (Guernica = war = bad = suffering), and literally borrowed the styles and forms of earlier lesser-known artists. I always liked Braque more.

- Banksy - does he even count as a cultural figure?

Just a quick rundown, I usually get that I detest everyone from my friends. I am starting to believe they are right. I agree with you all on Ai Weiwei, Basquiat, and Warhol whom I find extremely detrimental to contemporary art.

[DannyDagger]

Good thread to revive.

Adrian Joffe - So he's involved in the business aspect of CDG and its branches, but I don't see why people are enamoured with him. Probably uncalled for and I may be totally wrong, but I feel like the only reason people interview him is because of Rei. Also this interview... http://vestoj.com/whats-wrong-with-t...hion-industry/ "Long live the one percent; they are the ones that change things."

John Oliver, Jimmy Fallon, etc. - I don't really find them funny and I feel like they worsen social and political conversation, contrary to what many think. Often complicated issues reduced to quips and one-liners - no thank you. I count them as cultural figures because people look up to them as such.

Billie Eilish - Her music is uninteresting and just another way for basic girls to feel edgy and rebellious without having to do anything. And now she's integrated into the fashion industry, so it won't stop any time soon. I will say however that she had a good point about how people viewed her body, she's quite sincere in that respect and I feel bad for her.

Elon Musk - He's great at his projects but I wish he would stop talking so damn much... Avoid his Twitter at all costs.

LeBron James - Not sure how many people follow the NBA but he irritates me a little bit. He's had many commendable philanthropic projects and seems like a great person especially considering his background, but sometimes his social and political comments are totally off the mark. I mention him here because he's worshipped as a God with anyone I talk to, who can do no wrong on or off the basketball court.

[darkpyramid]

- Marina Abramovic

Marina is a good proof for fake art
Always wear the Dark Artist dress while actually she never meet the dark art ever in her life
Dark art is not rolling in black with skulls and bloody satanic stars

Dark art means your deep thoughts in life and not to look in details but to look in the details of the details !!!!

Just she have to come here and we could teach her what the two words of dark art means

[Faust]

Sadly, I tend to agree about Marina. Camus over Sartre any day.

Bansky is a more complicated figure. So, I used to think the same way as you, korzo. But, lately here is what I am thinking - he has actually made a valiant effort to show that rebellion against late capitalism is futile - that you will inevitably be absorbed. I don't think he is rebelling against it, but highlighting it. I started feeling that way after the Sotheby's auction. There, Banksy showed that you can literally destroy your work - the last frontier of rebellion - and it will still be absorbed into the art market. So, I get what you are saying - I had a big discussion about Bansky with my wife just two days ago about that - but I'm more ambivalent.

But, brother, I could never agree with you about Pink Floyd :-)

Danny, I'll take Billie Eilish over most of pop music today. Granted it's a low bar but beggars can't be choosers. She ain't no Lorde, though. Lorde is the only true talent contemporary pop music has produced.

Got a new one - John Updike. Was so excited to get into his writing and was bored to tears.

[Faust]

Oh, I remembered after reading another article on him. Alexander Calder. His art says absolutely nothing.

[korzo]

Oh man, Calder. Never understood him, nor have I rated what he has done. I guess the guy went to a Miro exhibition and was like 'yo this is the one - but make it a lamp'.

Talking about Joan Miro, his art never really catered to my taste. Tells a lot about the history of art education that Miro is the first every book tends to talk about when disserting about European experimental art. Miro's art is incomparably inferior to Giacometti's and Raoul Ubac's to name a few.

To draw another bad fashion liaison, Calder and Miro are the Jacquemus of art. Unsurprisingly, the same audience likes both of them, merely consisting of 20-ish, artsy liberal arts students who are collecting that ugly Taschen book collection on artists.

If you all aren't familiar with Raoul Ubac I think you would find him rather amazing I link a few of his oeuvres down here:

[Udra]

I love different cultural figures and especially active writers who write essays.
But if I had to write an essay on my own, I probably wouldn't be able to cope with this task. Maybe if I chose on the site https://papersbattle.com/best-thesis-writing-services/ from the reviews of services some good and accurate service from the list of reviews best thesis writing services. I think it's still more convenient than writing it all yourself if you can't do it. In general, of the writers, I really like contemporaries who write easily and transparently. I am ready to read such works constantly.