while i agree with this, i think there's an angle missing here: the average person has no way of understanding the artistic significance of this art, which is, just a blue square
as someone who is into music, i think of it like jazz - a person who is into jazz understands that it's a long tradition with complex roles and norms, but to someone who isn't familiar with that tradition, listening to some very abstract avant-garde jazz might be equivalent to listening to people play random notes on an instrument. in this scenario, when they say "i could play that" they don't mean "i have the technical ability to replicate this perfectly", they mean "i don't see this as art".
in this sense, "you wouldn't think to make this" is not the gotcha that you think it is - saying "you would never have had this idea" means nothing to someone who doesn't perceive any idea in this piece in the first place.
now, this isn't to say that abstract art is worthless, or that the worth of art is inherently tied to the worth other people assign to it. but, you do have to consider that, while visually simple, conceptually this is quite complex art, and so the uninitiated may not be able to wrap their heads around it, because, in the case of the particular piece shown above for example, up until this point they never had to consider technique as a part of the idea behind a piece and not just a means to an end.
you have to realize that a lot of people see abstract art as a circlejerk - "hey look at this canvas i painted blue, am i not a genius?" "hey i taped a banana to a wall, wanna buy it for six million dollars?" and so on. and the fact that this art, that most people can't understand how anyone would ever derive artistic value from, its presented in huge, fancy buildings and is positioned as "high art" that is the kind of art /true intellectuals/ enjoy and is worth amazing sums of money just makes it seem like the modern emperor's new clothes
returning to the music analogy, imagine you buy tickets to a really expensive concert at a very high-brow concert hall, and you get there and everyone is dressed fancy. so you go to sit down and the show starts and four people come on stage and start playing the most brutal goregrind anyone has ever heard. unless you're really into goregrind, you wouldn't sit there thinking "wow, they are pioneers of a new wave of goregrind", you would think "they are just making this wall of noise". you wouldn't be appreciating the practice it takes to play at such a high tempo, or the expert vocal technique it takes to pigsqueal.
i guess my point is that not all people should have to enjoy any one kind of art, but as long as we keep selling people complex are that they don't understand as a status symbol of sophistication we will keep getting called out on it.
prguitarman
stormborns
yousharknotpass
blakekathryn
dailybridgerton
