I am a musician, and while there's a lot of "new music" that I don't get (or enjoy), there's a lot of it that I do. Mostly in the area I know things about (i.e. jazz). As you get into more more abstract art, often it does become "specialist" because it requires catching references and constructs that are used elsewhere and hearing how a piece uses, extends or intentionally avoids those. A casual listener won't catch that stuff, and a lot of the music may not be immediately appealing on a raw aesthetic level. But that's not specific to high-art. Pretty much any sitcom contains cultural references that are only funny in context.
Mediterraneo10's comment about Ligetti though reminds me of something: I've introduced a lot of folks to "new music" (the snooty term folks mostly use for "classical" stuff that's come out since around the 1950s or so). I do that by taking them to the symphony. I almost always pick concerts that have at least some "new" pieces, and everyone I've taken has enjoyed them. There are some things that I'd find almost unlistenable on a CD at home that make sense even to the casual listener in that format. I think a lot of music is written for a particular type of space -- like trying to understand techno without ever setting foot in a dance club would be backasswards. I think it's the same with classical music, and a lot of jazz as well.
As a fan of certain avant-garde music, I've talked with a fair few fellow concertgoers about what their "origin story" is, how they got into this music that appeals only to a niche. It never had to do with discovering a community of fans and wanting to fit in with them – discovering like-minded people only happened later. Rather, the exposure to the avant-garde music was something random. Often it was seeing 2001: A Space Odyssey and being bowled over by the György Ligeti pieces in the score.
In my own case, I owe my discovery of this music to listening to one of the new-arrivals CDs in the classical-music section of my local record shop (remember CDs and listening booths?). What I heard made me hooked for life, and it was some years before I ever discovered any kind of group that I could even be in with.
The same is true of visual art. Vastly more people like Vasarely or Bacon because they stumbled upon one of those Taschen volumes in a bookshop, than hang out in art-gallery circles and actually talk to other art lovers.
So excuse me if I take offense at your post, which seems to dismiss music that authentically gives us pleasure (and initially a purely solitary pleasure) by tarring us fans as disingenous frauds or peacocks. There is almost always someone who posts the same thing as you in these kind of discussions, and it never ceases to disappoint me.
Also, very few are ever going to admit, even to themselves, that their motivation is impressing others. More likely they will, uhh, take offense at the suggestion. Hey, I remember my sister accusing teenage me of only liking the kind of music that I liked because it was cool to like it. And yeah, I was offended. Doesn't mean there isn't validity there.
I gave examples of whole social cultures that revolve around a musical genre. And I'm not saying there isn't some value in whatever music they like. But do you think it is just coincidental that tastes in music, art, sports, etc aligns so closely with cultures where people have a vested interest in fitting in?
I remember as a kid trying SO HARD to care about professional football, because it was cool to like a team, or at least to be able to talk about a game that happened on sunday. I gave up after a while. I have friends now that if I really want to fit in with, I need to like expensive scotch and enjoy talking about it (I'm sure I could get used to it, but my natural reflex is to spit it out), or maybe I should take up golf, and try to really care about what to me is a deadly dull sport.
south park has made great fun of this with their portrayal of goth kids complaining that everyone is conformist and then demanding that their friends be conform to be just like them, like the same music they like and wear black.
Christi's work required a ton of money, that had to come from somewhere. It clearly wasn't the mass appeal, since he didn't sell tickets or anything. It was rich people who wanted to impress one another with their sophisticated sense of art. (or maybe just with the fact that they had so much money burning holes in their pockets)
Forgive me but these comments always rankle me a bit. Most artists I know (and I am one) are craftsmen working hard at what they do. Even the famous ones and most well-known.
I recommend watching some artists documentaries and seeing that artists are not some high society snobs looking down on the viewer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cN_rRCfRdmQ&list=PLP7RSttJ7S...
I'm sure the artist himself was sincere enough. I guess he worked hard, but his paintings don't impress me that he had such amazing talent or was such a craftsman, only that he managed to find a particular niche.
I think you're seeing this from the wrong angle. Art is the process of moving people to this "in group" by showing them things that they didn't realize before. You need to use empathy to enjoy art.
His art is highly accessible though, you don't even have to go to a gallery to experience it because it's right there in the world. There's nothing to get, it's just beautiful, has a huge sense of scale and having so much bright color of the same shades entering your eyes is something you'll likely only experience that one moment if your life.
>The goal seems to be to get people to think about the question "what is art?"
Couldn't be further from the truth, I think you'd really benefit from visiting a gallery and seeing some work in person. You don't really experience art from the pictures and looking at is so cynically as to having a take of "admiring how they swindled money".
Really to me art is more like a theme park for adults but you're closer to it, it can be designed to give you good sensations as well as bad and the thing in front of you has no reason to exist outside of being a piece of art but I'll remember those experiences for the rest of my life.
Warning: cynicism ahead.
A lot of art seems about being in the "in group", so you can show your sophistication by appreciating things that others don't get. It's not so different from liking certain genres of music that strike the rest of us and just being borderline-offensive noise. ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2DsGleQsaU )
I'll give him this, I admire the fact that he was able to convince someone somewhere to give him the money to do these things. But I'm sure there are a huge number of artists that would do more interesting things with the kind of resources these things take. To me they are from the school of art that says that the more audacious and obnoxious something is, the better. The goal seems to be to get people to think about the question "what is art?", which to me is a rather boring semantic question that I don't want to waste a lot of time thinking about. Sorry.
Honestly, I'd have a lot more appreciation of this sort stuff if those who put it out there presented it with a bit of an evil grin, rather than with an air of smugness and pretension.