system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: Modern art lacks true talent and is possibly, even, harmful to the medium as a whole

I feel that modern art lacks talent, as I said. I especially am referring to minimalism and the vein of modern art that revolves around everyday items (eg Duchamp's "Fountain", although even more mundane most of the time). Also, to a degree, I am referring to art which is meant to be streaks and splatters on the canvas, and also art that gains its momentum not particularly through quality but rather through quantity (eg the art piece made of a bunch of painted rectangular tiles at the 9/11 museum in NYC). Basically, a lot of modern art. Not all of it, cubism is okay, photography and even collages have some sort of artistic vision.

Basically, to begin explaining: I am not saying that these pieces are necessarily "worse" than classic paintings or things like that. My point - and this is especially true for Minimalism - is that, in comparison to traditional masters of drawing, painting, sculpting, where many of hours of work might go into a piece, modern art lacks the same investment and craftsmanship.

Now, one might say that that's the goal. Modern art's foundations, again returning to Duchamp's dadaism and even earlier deviations from the usual formula, lie in this idea of art being a tool of personal expression, and being something accessible by all, liberating an incredibly broad medium of expression from the standards of high society and the upper class. Art isn't what you say it is, art is anything. There's art in everything, something doesn't have to live up to your standards or compare to the works of the Renaissance to be considered "art". I understand this way of thinking.

However, isn't that, then, a celebration of inferiority? That an "artist" can take a ready-made product, like Duchamp's urinal, and present it as art? I understand the thinking and ideology behind it, but there is still no talent in the ability to buy an item and mount it on a pedestal. By celebrating the avant-garde, the shocking, the unexpected, the standardless... Is that not diluting art as a whole, and encouraging the decrease of true artistic talent?

I am not asking for someone to tell me the purpose and ideas behind modern art, but rather show me the talent. Show me that it takes effort, that it's not just a peculiar object and an emotional metaphor thought up in all of five minutes.
gpt
A guy's car runs into engine trouble. He stops at a mechanic on the side of the road. The mechanic says he'll fix it. He takes one look at the engine, twists one screw, and says "that'll be $100." The guy looks back at him and says "How can that be? All you did was twist one screw!" The mechanic says "Right. It's $1 to twist the screw, and $99 to know which screw to twist."

Many people can copy a painting, or make a work that is derivative of someone else's. It takes a lot of effort to develop the manual dexterity needed to copy another work, but it doesn't require any intellectual talent or creativity. There are ten's of thousands of artists alive today who can make an exact copy of Van Gogh's The Starry Night.

The real talent in art isn't in painting or sculpting an object for rich people and museums to display. It's in looking at the world from a unique perspective, and finding a way to share that perspective at the world. It requires a deep understanding of what the art world and society at large is thinking at a given place and time, and then strategically creating a work that enlightens and change's people's perspective.

So when most artists were focused on paintings of rich people, conservative landscapes, and religious figures, Duchamp came out and said even a urinal is real art. He found the right screw to twist at the right time, and he blew everyone's mind. In order to do it at the right time, he had to have incredible knowledge about the art world and society at the time.

Buying and selling stocks is as easy as pushing a button. But it takes a lot of talent and knowledge to buy stocks low and sell high. Giving someone a pill is pretty easy. But it takes a lot of talent and knowledge to give the right pill at the right time. Landing punches in boxing, bluffing in poker, and a hundred other human endeavors work the same way.

Good art works because it makes people think. It's not just a pretty picture that you look at once and forget about two minutes later. It sticks with you. The Mona Lisa's smile, the little mirror in the back of the Arnolfini portrait, the audience's actions in Rhythm 0. These are the things that stick with people. Modern art is just as good at making people think as traditional art, if not better.