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What Modern Art can teach us about Creativity
… to Warhol
From Picasso
By Podium Wisdom
At an auction in May 2013, this painting, “Onement VI” by Barnett Newman, sold for quite a pretty sum…
$43.8MillionUS Dollars
“WTF!?”
“WTF!?”(Was That Fo’real?)
I mean… it looks
like something
even I could do!
And this revived
a suspicion I’ve
long had about
modern art:
Is Modern Art…Complete… and total…
B.S.?
Is Modern Art…Complete… and total…
And this was hardly an isolated case…
$230,000My Bed (1998) by Tracey Emin
$230,000My Bed (1998) by Tracey Emin
$230,000My Bed (1998) by Tracey Emin
$MillionsBlack Square (1915) by K. Malevich
I mean…Seriously!!??
Find a picture of a museum with a queue around the block, and add the caption: “Are we being duped?”
Maybe we’re all…
Find a picture of a museum with a queue around the block, and add the caption: “Are we being duped?”
DUPED?Maybe we’re all… getting
Fortunately… I don’t think we’re getting duped.
On the contrary…
Such artworks can be incredibly
Valuable
Such artworks can be incredibly
Valuable(Ok… maybe not
$44 million…
but valuable!)
And I would go even further…
WE SHOULD ALL CARE ABOUT MODERN ART
WE SHOULD ALL CARE ABOUT MODERN ART And here is why…
Modern Art can teach & inspire us enormously about a most precious quality in the 21st century economy…
Creativity
Homie!
“Creativity
my love!”
“La CréativitéGamins!”
CréativitéGamins!OH, JEFF… I LOVE… CREATIVITY!
A 2010 IBM survey of 1,500 CEOs named creativity the most crucial factor for future success.��� (“Creativity is the New Black”, Forbes, July 16, 2010)
“Creativity is as important now… as literacy.”Sir Ken Robinson
Now, you might be thinking…
“Well DOHHH… everyone knows creativity is important.”
“and everyone knows Monet and Van Gogh are creative…
BUT…
How does that
HELP ME become more creative!!??
How does that
HELP ME become more creative!!??
Well, here’s how:
We know that to be truly creative, we must be willing to turn away from the old…
that creating the truly innovative is impossible without challenging rules,
that creating the truly innovative is impossible without challenging rules, breaking tradition,
that creating the truly innovative is impossible without challenging rules, breaking tradition, & poking the system
“Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.”
– Pablo Picasso
“To be an exception, a painter… had to contest the norms of the art that had formed him.”
—John BergerRenowned art critic
“There’s a feeling of rebellion in any act of creativity.”
—Philippe PetitThe “Man On Wire”
And this is where the heroes of modern art can help you.
Let their storiesinspire you and lead you…
Let their storiesinspire you and lead you…
To Break boundaries
Let their storiesinspire you and lead you…
To Break boundaries
Let their storiesinspire you and lead you…
To Break boundaries
and Rip Up the canvas if you fancy…
To illustrate the point, allow me to paint a picturefor you…
There used to be rigid rules on what art could be about.
Mostly, subjects of art were…
Divine
Titian (1542)
DivineRich or
Royal
Dieu (1697)
DivineRich or
Royal Naked ladies
Titian (1538)
In other words…
If you weren’t god, rich, royal or a sexy naked lady, you were not good enough to be art.
In other words…
If you weren’t god, rich, royal or a naked lady, you were not good enough to be art.
Eventually, artists decided:“To hell with that!”
In other words…
If you weren’t god, rich, royal or a naked lady, you were not good enough to be art.
Eventually, artists decided:“To hell with that!”*
*Except for “naked ladies”. They still loved naked ladies
In the mid-1800s, artists started to feature subjects such as…
The Poor
Manet (1859)
The PoorThe Crazy
Munch(1893)
Picasso (1912)
The PoorThe CrazyEveryday
Stuff
Duchamp (1917)
The PoorThe CrazyEveryday
StuffUrinal
Pollock (1948)
The PoorThe CrazyEveryday
StuffUrinal
????
Warhol (1962)
The PoorThe CrazyEveryday
StuffUrinal
????Soup can
Oldenburg (1992)
The PoorThe CrazyEveryday
StuffUrinal
????Soup can
Trash
Sure, they were heavily criticized for such brazen violations.
And yet…
They brushed it off, painted on andchipped away.
… and so, stroke by stroke, chisel by chisel, they completely reshaped what the world perceived as artistic & beautiful
such that today, our creativity can literally…
Take on any
subject
Murakami (2011)
be about any
-body
and…
Sherman (1978)
be made from anymaterial
Hirst (2012)
We look out into a wide open world, with nothing to limit us but the limits of our own imagination.
So the next time some schmuck tells you: “That’s not an appropriate topic!”
Just remember what Monet or Picasso would say:
Just remember what Monet or Picasso would say:
That’s how they took down another old commandment of the art world…
Thou shalt paint in the approved way, and only this way:
Precise, detailed,
alive & real as a photo
Van Eyck(1434)
With brush strokes so
fine they’re barely even
visible
Van Eyck(1434)
and yetidealized &
romanticized
Botticelli (1490)
heroic & glorified
David(1805)
If you didn’t paint in this way, your art was never admitted into the salons…
Thus, all was smooth and orderly in theart world…
Thus, all was smooth and orderly in theart world…
Until somebrash hooligansmucked it all up.Again.
by painting but the
roughest of impressions
Monet (1872)
twisting the world into dreams &
feelings
Van Gogh (1889)
reducing the world
to a bunch of shapes, to
reveal its true nature
Cézanne (1887)
and then reducing
people to shapes also
Picasso (1889)
in order to reveal THEIR
true nature
Picasso (1925)
But the rebels didn’t stop there…
They took the “shape” thing above and beyond
Delaunay(1924)
‘til all became abstract
Mondrian(1930)
and simple in its
elegance
Judd (1972)
sometimes to the very
extreme
Malevich (1915)
By constantly flouting the rules, these rebels created a world in which…
Newman(1952)
This…
Rembrandt(1632)
can be every bit
as beautiful as this
Miro(1950)
And this…
Titian(1520)
can be every bit
as magical as this
The fact that most people I know would prefer their bedrooms to look like…
this
rather than this
Tells you just how profoundly modern art has changed the way we think aboutart and beauty
In the process, modern art foreveraltered the face of this world
And continues to challengeour assumptions & perceptions(“Execution” by Yue Minjun, 1995)
“But wait!” you might be thinking…
“Artists can do what they want, they’re artists! I work in [insert serious field], I can’t do that!.”
Well, let’s ask some “serious folks”…
“In field after field, past experience has taught us that the ones to pay attention to are the ones who understand the rules so well that they also understand the urgency to break them.”
— Yongme Moon, Professor, Harvard Business School
“The most important thing for young scientists is to dare to be different.”
— Yuan Tseh Lee Nobel Chemist
The audacity to challenge the status quo has changed our world in ways far beyond the artistic…
In how we see the rights and dignity of all people, whatever thecolor of their skin
… in how we learn about EVERYTHING
… in how we think and talk ���about Privacy
… and much, much more
Cave Painting, Banksy (2008)
You may or may not be the next Picasso or Warhol
But you can still let their stories inspire you
To shred up dictums,upend structures, and
sow creative chaos wherever you are
A Sudden Gust of Wind, Jeff Wall (1993)
Because… who knows…
From the debris of
that chaos
A new world may yet emerge
Gyre, Chris Jordan (2009) created from trash from the ocean
What Modern Art can teach us about Creativity
… to Warhol
From Picasso
By Podium Wisdom
90% of what I’ve learned about modern art came from the BBC Arts Editor Will Gompertz and his book, What Are You Looking At?
Podium Wisdom
