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Don't hate me cause I'm ugly
MEADONE
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Um, probably not a good idea to post this here since it isn't exactly a "pretty" image. But it is art, more specifically it's a collage of found images (from the net) composited in photoshop. I may be asking the wrong people to crit the work since many of you are more apparently focused on the aesthetic and not as much the meaning, but I'ma post it here anyway cause I'm a big time lurker, and feel like I have something to contribute finally.
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I hope you don't take this as criticism, because I do like this. It's a lot of fun. You should post more collages.
Ha Thanks!
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LOL. No, that would be a funny take on this if the picture was supposed to be an image of visible reality.
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Go to a thrift store and buy all the old magazines you can get and grab your scissors. The physicallity of collages is a great aesthetic. Digital collages are difficult if you're ability to alter digital media is less than perfect in anyway. Granted I don't seek out digital collages, but I rarely see any digital collages that don't look tacky.
Also, if there is a meaning behind it, share it. If we are unable to grasp what you're saying, tell us. That way we can help you alter it to better express your intentions.
*always exceptions
Looks to me that he thinks people judge him unfairly because of his red hair, and that red hair is usually reserved for comedy or side characters in television and movies. It's rare to find a redhead in men's magazines because it's not en vogue, so he wants to cut off the hair to remove the connection to those things.
Formally, I wouldn't stretch images to make them fit the space. It looks really tacky and really early 90s digital art. Also, why not use scans of real hair for the clippings? It would be less chunky. I'm also not digging the sharp edges and gradient background.
Overall, I'd say keep working at it if this is the kind of stuff you want to make. It doesn't have to be such a total collage. Look at the works of the early Dadaists, specifically Hannah Höch, George Grosz, and certain Man Ray photomontages. Their work really shows the importance of strong composition and striking use of color (or for Man Ray, values).
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Cool, thanks for the advice. I would have loved to make it less ugly and go slower, unfortunately this is due as my final in a visual anthropology class in a day on top of my other finals coming up. Combine that with the fact that I've never done a serious collage before, and you got yourself something that is kinda crude looking, but I'm glad you are picking up a good deal of what it is saying, because that was the most important thing to me (and my grade).
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Yeah I kinda need to fill that negative space in, but that was my stopping point for the night, and I wanted something that I could turn in if screwed, so I cappd it off with a cheap fill.
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Well besides my thoughts on media portrayals of red headed men, there is this theme of construction vs. destruction, and that in this piece they are really the same thing. The haircut is both a constructive act in that it brings life to a new hairstyle, but to do so it destroys what was previously there. That is set against the TV execs building this limited media image of red headed men which is (I think) a destructive act. It creates an identity crisis for myself, my true image being buried in the media representation. There also a comment in there that red hair comes to define a person with red hair, they are known by their red hair, and they simply just become "red." As my hair clippings fall they lose their details and become more saturated with red until it's just a mass of red that people see when they see me, something like that red haired monster trying to grab Bugs.
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ed: P.S. Re: Bacon. Red hair is for NERDS.
!!!
THAT'S IT, YOU'RE ON THE LIST.
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even if this piece had a completely integral meaning, it still wouldn't get any notice because noone wants to look at it. Meaning+Aesthetic=goodness, even the ugliest of abstractions have redeeming aesthetic qualities.
Fixed.
I'm sure that whatever it is, Father Karras wouldn't approve.
Will it not get notice? You noticed it, and for my purposes it will get notice by my professor who has to grade it. And what authority do you have to make claims such as "Meaning+Aesthetic=goodness," or for that matter what is good and what is not? And I wasn't even arguing that the sensual appeal isn't important, I was just stating the obvious that many of you arn't into theory. I don't ever see critiques on works here based in theroy. I see them based in aesthic appeal, which is not all there is to a work of art.
Personally this peice says exactly what I want it to say. Unfortuantely because of my lack of experienceand training, the piece isnt saying anything about the medium of collage it is just using it as a language. So in that sense it fails to do anything for the visual medium, and you can critque that if you want, but I don't think you deny a piece just because of that.
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if the dubious quality of a piece is meant to contribute to its' meaning or presentation than fine. but you can't get away with playing the 'well i put heart into this so who are you to judge the aesthetics.' because art in itself is an aesthetic. making something look poorly put together can be a choice but, if that choice does not reflect a purpose and is instead a side-effect of you being inexperinced than yes, the appearance can be critiqued. i'd say the best advice has already been given here -- at this skill level photoshop cheapens what you are trying to do, at the very least using physical materials for this piece would not make it as campy.
I already said you could critique the appearance if you wanted, but if you obsess over it, then you miss the message of the piece. If the "ugliness" of my collage says anything, it says that I'm not experienced in photoshop or collage, I don't see how that corrupts the message of my piece though. It's a marginal detail. Yes, I like things that are pretty too, but not everything is beautiful. Art isn't just about pretty things. Get over it.
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thats not what we're saying, we're not saying that it's bad because it's ugly, we're saying it's bad because it's poorly crafted. "even the ugliest of abstractions have redeeming aesthetic qualities." This in turn means that the message of your piece is affected because noone will look past the fact that it looks awful and therefore won't really care about what it belays beneath the surface. Like the saying never judge a book by it's cover is true, but everyone does. I'm also not trying to say that it has to be pretty little maidens dancing round a fire in heaven to be beautiful art, Look at Cornell, thats beautiful, the items he uses are beautiful. If your seriously considering entering this for any level of academia I'd suggest looking up cornell, and then maybe changing your mind about it. You could even make this piece in 3d and it wouldn't be hard, (asin real life objects, not digital 3d) go to www.freecycle.org, get some free TVs buy some fitness magazines, etc etc, ask clothes shops if they have any broken manequins. Theres a world of opportunity beyond a shoddily rendered photoshop piece that looks like you farted it out in about 15 minutes.
And I'm saying, "Why are you obsessed with the aesthetics?" I get that a lot of people can't look past it, (obviously you can't).Why are you trying to get me to submit to your ideas? Why should I sit back and promote that people only care about what something looks like? I'm not denying that it is a factor, but it's not the only factor, and my piece can't be bad simply because it doesn't appeal to your ideas about beauty. There are other ways to judge value, but you seem to be lacking them completely, or at least you are assuming that I am hostile towards you and that you should defend rather than question yourself. It would be a shame to miss something of substance just because of judgments on face value. I'm listening to you, but you arn't doing the same for me.
EDIT: I've stated my case so this thread can go on, but I'm not posting in it anymore.
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Don't take this personally, and this is just you know, personal opinion, and I'm saying this more because I am still pissed off at the art school I went to for fostering such an 'aesthetics lol whatever' kind of attitude amongst its staff and students (much to my own disadvantage), rather than being mad at you or this piece in particular.
An artist that eschews aesthetics entirely is like a novelist who eschews grammar and punctuation entirely.
Suretheresnoreasonyoucantjustmashalltehwordstogehterandpeoplemightlookatandbeabletofigureoutwhatitmeans eventually, but if so doing nothing adds novel or the art to, annoying be to viewer it will.
Now, certainly, if there were a point to that incoherence, sure, go for it. However aesthetic incoherence as a result of laziness or incompetence is not anything to be proud of, as all it does is to distract from what you are actually trying to convey. Is this piece supposed to be making a statement about poor photoshop work? Then what, exactly, does calling attention to poor photoshop work add to the proceedings?
Regardless of whether that is what you want people to look at, it is there to be seen, and as such will call attention to itself. If you post something on a wall somewhere, you won't be there to say, "hey, look at this, don't look at that." It has to stand on its own. If your work says something you don't intend, it is not the viewer's fault, but yours for neglecting to consider every part of the work important and worthy of consideration. If it says "bad photoshop work", why did you allow it to say that?
I am not here talking about any sort of ideal of "beauty", but that the visual presentation- that is, the aesthetic presentation- of an idea should not be given the short shrift or dismissed by anyone intending to create art. A great many budding "fine artists" seem to consider the point of art is to create visual riddles, a "magic eye" picture where the audience stares at the work until they find, rather than the 3d apple, the "meaning". I would argue that if this is all a work has to offer, it is no more or less a gimmick than a magic eye. The work should not, ideally, cease being interesting or engaging the moment it is "figured out".
:?
Anyway, that's my rant, and that's about as much effort I feel like expending on the subject of Art with a capital "A". I'm just annoyed when I see artwork that, when you look at what the actual point of it is, would be far better served by just writing an essay about the subject.
EDIT: Christ I am going to regret posting this, aren't I?
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Personally when I first saw it I was at a loss for words looking for how to describe the meaning of the image beyond having something to do with hair. The composition and seemingly careless photoshop work certainly doesn't convey your intended meaning in the most elegant way and it isn't interesting or visually appealing enough for me to want to study it until I figure it out. The piece is diminished by the fact that it seems much less thought was put into how to convey the message than the message itself. Ideally the message should be fairly self evident and the composition/visual appeal of the image should harmonize with it and both enhance each other.
(secretly it's because I'm not eloquent enough)
"you are assuming that I am hostile towards you and that you should defend rather than question yourself" <hypocritical?
You can't make a movie with the boom-mic and reflection of the camera man constantly in the shot. Then ask for people not to notice and watch for the meaning of the movie ... people will still say "You shot a crappy movie"
You can't draw a comic and only have headshots because you're not good at drawing bodies. People will say "learn to draw bodies, and then show me your comic" ... who cares if you had meaning.
Robert Rodriguez did not have a "reel missing" in Planet Terror because he "oops forgot a reel", it was part of his "meaning (ie: storytelling) ... for someone to simply "oops forget a reel" in the middle of Spider-Man, is a mistake and someone will point it out to correct it.
You post here to get a critique. That is what people do. Someone draws a picture and someone else tells them their arm is too long -- REGARDLESS OF THE MEANING. Someone posts a photo and someone else tells them it's a bit under exposed ... unless that underexposure is part of the art and more due to "not being good at something" , then it's a valid critique.
If I post a drawing of my house with a tree beside it but half the leaves are purple because I ran out of green, people will comment on it.
See: Gingerkids