5/22/2013 Can ugly images be good art?

This coming Wednesday,  we are discussing art at the Ideas Cafe.

Does art have to be pleasing?


We generally think of admiring a beautiful painting, listening to enjoyable music, watch an entertaining play or movie as the art experience.

I suppose it comes down to the definition of art.  Ugliness is not art if we define art as a pleasant experience for us to indulge in.  But if art is meant to stimulate our thinking, then any stimulant, including ugliness is fair game.

But then what is ugliness?  It is a subjective judgement and if art is in the eye of the beholder, then the same piece of art can be considered ugly by some and refreshing by others.

If art is letting us see what the artist see, then ugliness can be part of what the artist sees.

But would anybody have an ugly piece of art as their centerpiece in their home?

Besides, if the definition of art is so broad that everything is a piece of art, than the term art becomes meaningless.

So maybe it is our individual subjective ideas about art that prevents us from displaying ugly art ourselves while curators with public money can display provocative ugly art just to get attention, to break the monotony of "standard pleasing images"?
 
Should the ability to shock be part of or excluded from art?

I thought that we should readjust our senses after all these images from googling "ugly art".

Here is what I found from googling "beautiful art"

 

Maybe ugly art is not so bad after all!