What is Bad Art?
“This is bad.”
One week ago, I found myself struggling to complete an assignment for a painting class in which the task was to create a self-portrait. I initially attempted to follow in the artistic tradition of classic portraiture; a stark image of me on the canvas in which there would be no question that it was a self-portrait. However, I quickly became rigid and frustrated and took these emotions out on the portrait. Looking down upon my canvas at the finish, now saturated with thick lines of blue and impulsive strokes of yellow, I felt the overfamiliar rush of shame and disappointment at my work. Immediately, I began to dread the inevitable presentation of this work at critique; how would my teachers and peers react to this? What if they think it’s bad?
It is no coincidence that in the following week, our instructor asked us to explore the concept of “bad” art. In fact, our homework assignment for that weekend was to create a “bad” piece of artwork. But as I prepared the assignment, I quickly realized that I had no idea what constituted “bad” artwork, how to consciously create it, or even where to begin. The assignment begged the overarching question of, “What makes bad artwork ‘bad’?”
Being a young artist in the era of contemporary art is akin to attempting to grasp water in your hands; the moment you believe that you understand its conventions, the moment they change form and you must begin the process of trying to understand them again. Contemporary art has transcended the traditional convention of art which stands to reason that the work should be understood in and of itself; the audience views an impressionist landscape of a cliff overlooking the sea and can decipher the image without needing much context. With contemporary art, knowing the context of the work is vital to understanding it: Who is the artist? What was their intention? What is their justification for this work, if any?
Because so much of the meaning of contemporary art is dependent on these layers of context, nearly anything can qualify as “good” art so long as the context is sufficient. But perhaps the terms “good” and “bad” are absolutist and an oversimplification of the reception of a piece of art. We now understand a piece of contemporary art to function in two spaces: physical and contextual. I, the audience, am viewing a piece of art which may visually stimulating (“visually stimulating” in itself being an oversimplification), but I am also understanding its context which influences my degree of understanding of the artwork. These two spaces are inseparable, as the physical work is the execution of the artists’ context and the context informs the physical work. In this way, a work has the capacity to be lacking in one or both of these spaces. It is when a piece of art is vacuous, lacking in physical prowess and contextual meaning, that it enters the space of so-called “bad” artwork.
“Bad” art occurs when the audience perceives the physical work, is aware of its context, and remains unaffected by its presence. The work is potentially aesthetically pleasing yet simultaneously devoid of any sort of emotional provocation toward one pole or the other. While art that is shocking, grotesque, or off-color may sometimes enter this space, landscapes and portraits are likewise conceivably banal. An unconventional or callow piece of art does not alone designate the work as “bad.” Rather, sterile and ordinary art which fails to interact with its audience is the only true “bad” artwork.
Sophie Feinstein, 17, is a rising senior at Lower Merion High School in Lower Merion, Pennsylvania. She has been involved in the arts since childhood and is currently a member of Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts Youth Council, a volunteer program in Philadelphia that aims to elevate teen voices in museum spaces. Working primarily in oil paint, her work often explores the base concept of femininity and the traditional portrayal of the feminine form in artwork through iconography. She can be reached on Instagram @sophiefeinstein and via email, feinsteinsr@gmail.com