For instance, my own personal favorite art experience is in one of these mega-bookstores with coffee and cushiony chairs--where I pull down not books of art history--but instructional books. I am amazed and delighted at what can be found in technique books. Unfortunately, the illustrations are undersized (but are still far "bigger" than what you'd see in galleries.)
There are marvelous experiences, sadly brief, in many television commercials. One makes a spoof of pretentious art by featuring kitchen faucets..."design a house around this"...but what they come up with is still pretty cool.
The other place art will find you is in children's video. I stood behind a child playing this stunning Japanese game where the object was "stickiness" and the protagonist would roll around the world, sticking to stuff and gathering it up--first thumbtacks and pencils, finally clouds and continents. Very Escher.
The other place where artistry has surprised me is television, via Netflix. For years, I just never bothered with network television. I detest sitcoms. Then I experimented with TV series that I rented, mostly fantasy adventrue series, and discovered that not only is television far better than movies, it is better than most modern literature offerings.
I believe its out there, but is utterly invisible to the magisters and martinets...
We are most definitely in a decadent stage.
True words, you two! It's depressing and I'm thankful for the local museums where art from other times, free of dogma and decadence (at least in art), can be seen.
There's another kind of contemporary artist. They're the art world counterparts of the doctor Tom Lehrer wrote a song about who specialized in the "diseases of the rich." Salvador Dali may have had enormous talent but he quickly learned how to make a buck.
I met him briefly years ago at Harkness House in New York. Rebekah Harkness had commissioned him to sculpt and cast three gem-studded trees in gold. They stood about a foot high each and were heavily encrusted with high quality sapphires, rubies and emeralds. They must have cost dear Rebekah what even other rich people would consider a bloody fortune. But Rebekah was VERY rich. They served as mere hall ornaments and were totally mundane in concept and execution. Salvador swished around in his dramatic cape and seemed very pleased with himself.