S. J. Hodge

I've not actually read this but I've flicked through it a few times. it purports to be a defence of modern art by showing how seemingly simple art pieces could not have been produced by a child but it utterly fails at this. every piece of art has a section answering the question "could a child have done this" and for like half she's like "yeah of course they could but it wouldn't be with the same intentions as the artist" which is hilarious to me in how unconvincing it is. for the other half its clearly technically sophisticated so it's a pointless question anyway. this doesn't mean I think the art is bad! just if you're writing a book with a very particular framing it's pretty embarrassing to fail to make a good argument on your terms. "any child could slash a knife across the canvas but they wouldn't do it for the same reasons as the artist" mentioning what the artist "aimed to explore" and saying what an artwork "conveys" based on nothing about the artwork itself... it's just a stupendous failure to understand why people feel alienated by this kind of art. I dunno. just needed to say something about it… (meer)