I've noticed that 2D artists/non-sculptors who engage in strange mediums or techniques generally only make realistic closeup portraits of people. I saw the headline, thought "neat, but I bet he just makes normal expressionless faces." Opened the page and it seems like that's the vast majority of his work. As an artist myself, I'm always like ehhhhh when I see this. Feels a bit like the kind of stuff you see for sale in tourist areas.
Once you stretch boundaries thin enough, you could argue that all art is about inducing pareidolia. After all, it’s all just cracks on glass/smears of paint on canvas and so on. It matters little whether there was artistic intent or not, if the result looks like a face, it looks like a face. ;-)
agree and I'd venture we tend to see more uninspired art because most success in the art world is more about business acumen than experimentation and uniqueness.
If it's shallow and uninspired, why not make a better version? The medium is freer than Free Software. A sharpened hammer, a pane of laminated glass, and some time.
"Normal expressionless faces" to quote OP have been a big part of the foundation of "art" for ages. Hammered in marble, paint brushed on canvas, made with tiny mosaic pieces, and any other possible medium. What makes "hammered in glass" shallow and uninspired compared to any of those?
The exhibitions section [0] has examples of abstract pieces of art too.
It’s like there are 2 axes: - cool technique and - cool picture. The second is way more important than the first, which is way painters are still on top of the 2D art world.
Some people can do both though. And i’d say even in these cases the art world tend to dismiss the weird technique as gimmicky.
And the reason 'cool picture' is way more important than 'cool technique' is because the technique is essentially no longer part of the art / picture at completion.
You've just got the sausage, and there's (not necessarily) any indication of how it was made inherent to the sausage - even if the way the sausage is made is cooler than the sausage itself.
I don't understand this at all in respect to the actual topic at hand. The "cool technique" in this case is creating 2D art by means of cracking glass. It's quite obvious at completion, just by seeing the art, what the general technique was. It's not like people are mistaking this for a watercolor.
Another way to see this is that most obsessed artists live within constraints they created years ago, and their art stands out as it is something never seen before: the best someone has ever done within the constraints they took decades to explore and master.
I'm not sure it's so fitting. You can see hoe this technique was done and how it's different from painting. Or like, a portrait made of pennies, or string and nails, etc, etc.
Art is only interesting if it elicits an emotional response in the viewer. Otherwise it is illustration.
And the wonder of it is that we can all have different responses to the same thing. (The Mona Lisa is a waste of canvas and oil - a hill I will die on).
I think I read here on hackernews that the Mona Lisa doesn't look at all like it did when it was freshly made. If I look at the restored copy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mona_Lisa_(Prado)#, I at least find the silk very nice.
In Exhibition section Lasting Moment is showing 4 glass sheets standing parallel to each other.
It looks like the cracks are same on all 4 sheets. That is amazing. Their are only 4 pictures though. I want to see them more closely.
Edit: while looking for more photos found more work here. The 3D effect by layering sheets is so cool. https://aurum.gallery/simon-berger/ I like the sphere more than the skull.
I cannot tell if this is /s or real. there is an entire genre of art that specifically about functionality - functional art. Chairs, tables, buildings, vases, textile, and so on can be beautiful art yet functional.
I’ve seen a lot of his work IRL, he was one of the artists at the now (sadly) defunct Aurum Gallery where I was a regular visitor.
For better or worse, he’s mostly know in the “street/urban art” world (which is much bigger than graffiti). And one of the features of a lot of the art in that scene is high technical mastery paired with “low” / populist motifs and composition.
Seen up close these works are really quite amazing, and I respect the artist choosing to make the things that can make him a living. Even Brice Marden, at some point, just kept making those trademark squiggles and cashing those checks.
While interesting, it doesnt feel like it belongs here. Maybe it is the volume these days but more and more the articles are turning into reddit posts.
This is Hacker News. I can't think of a better way of someone "hacking" something (i.e. using cracked glass in a novel way) to create something new, unexpected, and incredible.
I think this is probably the best idiomatic example of the type of story that I think belongs on HN that I've seen in quite some time.
As an artist, this isn't incredible. Arranging lights/darks to copy a photo is high-school tier. Money for food + shelter + materials and I could do this in a month, as with anyone who can copy a black and white photo.
I'm serious. The world is rife with things the "don't seem like a big deal" only in retrospect, when people downplay innovations as "no big deal/anyone can do that" when something comes on the scene that a lot of people connect with.
Heck, I feel like your response is the art equivalent of this top comment on the original Dropbox Show HN submission by Drew Houston:
> For a Linux user, you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem. From Windows or Mac, this FTP account could be accessed through built-in software.
Obligatory reminder that the Dropbox thread ends with "I only hope that I was able to give you a sneak preview of some of the potential criticisms you may receive. Best of luck to you!" The comment didn't dunk on Dropbox as an idea, but pointed out that they would need to highlight their moat wrt copycat competitors in order to convince sceptical investors.
The artist in question is presumably not raising VC money, so concerns about long-term viability of the niche if other artists start imitating the style probably don't apply. (Maybe it's even the reverse situation, where increased production of cracked-glass art raises the profile of the trailblazer and increases the demand for "originals.")
Calling observational realism high school tier while working in 3D (as per your profile) is hilarious given your medium automates the very thing you are belittling and is literally taught these days at elementary school!
Any serious artist would respect technical competency. I guess that says a lot about your credentials “as an artist”.
There is an interesting AI point here: the US Copyright Office recently tried to argue that images generated by a model could not be copyrighted, no matter how detailed the prompt nor how curated, because the artist did not envision the exact output and thus it is merely the output of an uncreative mechanical process. Clearly OP does not envision the exact way in which glass will shatter or frost or crack, and has to repeatedly update and revise based on what happens; are his glass portraits mere mechanical outputs and uncopyrightable?
Idk if that is a quote or a rule? but it is dismissive in a weird way.
It is fair to say dont post “this is turning into xyz” as it doesnt contribute to the discussion. And that is fair. i could have explained why rather than dismiss the post.
I make no good hacker claims but i didnt find this interesting. I am in the minority it seems.
Yeesh struck a nerve for some folks. I agree too much AI slop and am also tired of it.
I didnt like this because the title looks clickbaity and the actual website content is not compelling. The landing page as far asi can tell doesnt show any glass painting. Maybe i didnt dig deep enough.
I disagree quite a bit. For me the medium, the technique, the process is all part of the art. Yet I still think the end result is also critical. But coming up with create ways to produce art matters.
And I am confused about the “doing it any other way”? I don’t really see other ways to achieve the same result. Say painting and photography will both produce end results that are quite different. The skills are very different. The end material is also quite different. The same way stained glass is quite different from painting
I might agree with you as a knee jerk, but I believe "the medium is the message"[1] and I don't think there's anything particularly meaningful or evocative about shattered glass as opposed to any other planar medium.
There is no meaning in converting a conventionally destructive, random, chaotic act into a directed, aesthetic, meaningful one?
The fact he has a portrait of Kamala Harris called “glass ceiling breaker” and one of the victims of the Beirut explosion called #weareunbreakable suggests that you don’t need to dig particularly deep to find meaningful subtext in the choice of material and technique.
This is what I was driving at. I should have been more specific to say not particularly meaningful or evocative to me. From the previews I've seen it's all based around shattering and breaking. Where I will give credit, there's one: "Transformation" where natural light is reflected at the shattered glass to portray a face which I find to be fascinating. The rest feel kitschy, it's not quite to my tastes.
I love that HN has a diverse set of topics, I didn't mean that. I mean: here usually the artistic and literature stuff appearing are more interesting. This looks like the average Facebook art content with many upvotes.
Without judging the artistic merit of these pieces, I submitted the OP only because the idea and process of "painting" on glass with a hammer struck me as cool and interesting (pun intended). In any case, artistic merit is always in the eye of the beholder.
Same here. As much as I enjoy a lot of the technical stuff, I never click on 80% if it because it is often “thing that already exist but in lisp/rust/etc, new tool similar to X to free/one extra feature/lightweight”. So unless it is a strong interest of mine, my area of expertise, or something that makes me curious it is a skip.
The technique is cool though.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia
Cheap 4K dash cams are awesome at creating the wackiest noise in suboptimal lighting conditions.
If it's shallow and uninspired, why not make a better version? The medium is freer than Free Software. A sharpened hammer, a pane of laminated glass, and some time.
How hard can it be?
$$$$$ for supplies, you could probably take up oil painting for cheaper.
Bigger panes of laminated glass is expensive, but you can start small, no? I'd go to the local glass shops and ask for their scraps, for example.
However, the point is not the cost of the supplies, but supporting the argument by putting out something better than the thing being criticized.
The exhibitions section [0] has examples of abstract pieces of art too.
[0] https://simonbergerart.com/exhibitions
It’s like there are 2 axes: - cool technique and - cool picture. The second is way more important than the first, which is way painters are still on top of the 2D art world.
Some people can do both though. And i’d say even in these cases the art world tend to dismiss the weird technique as gimmicky.
You've just got the sausage, and there's (not necessarily) any indication of how it was made inherent to the sausage - even if the way the sausage is made is cooler than the sausage itself.
(that analogy got tiresome quickly)
Yeah, art is only real if it is unpopular and elicits a “I don’t get it” /s
And the wonder of it is that we can all have different responses to the same thing. (The Mona Lisa is a waste of canvas and oil - a hill I will die on).
Seems like Mona Lisa elicits an emotional response in you as a viewer ;)
I get what you're saying though. I always "correct" people that claims some piece of music is "bad", there's no bad music, only music you don't like.
It looks like the cracks are same on all 4 sheets. That is amazing. Their are only 4 pictures though. I want to see them more closely.
Edit: while looking for more photos found more work here. The 3D effect by layering sheets is so cool. https://aurum.gallery/simon-berger/ I like the sphere more than the skull.
Edit: Found some more pictures of those sheets with same cracks in his Instagram https://www.instagram.com/p/C_34-G0K-Qm/?igsh=MWtzY2FydWQxa2...
https://museemagazine.com/features/2018/10/15/walead-beshty-...
For better or worse, he’s mostly know in the “street/urban art” world (which is much bigger than graffiti). And one of the features of a lot of the art in that scene is high technical mastery paired with “low” / populist motifs and composition.
Seen up close these works are really quite amazing, and I respect the artist choosing to make the things that can make him a living. Even Brice Marden, at some point, just kept making those trademark squiggles and cashing those checks.
I think this is probably the best idiomatic example of the type of story that I think belongs on HN that I've seen in quite some time.
I'm serious. The world is rife with things the "don't seem like a big deal" only in retrospect, when people downplay innovations as "no big deal/anyone can do that" when something comes on the scene that a lot of people connect with.
Heck, I feel like your response is the art equivalent of this top comment on the original Dropbox Show HN submission by Drew Houston:
> For a Linux user, you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem. From Windows or Mac, this FTP account could be accessed through built-in software.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224
The artist in question is presumably not raising VC money, so concerns about long-term viability of the niche if other artists start imitating the style probably don't apply. (Maybe it's even the reverse situation, where increased production of cracked-glass art raises the profile of the trailblazer and increases the demand for "originals.")
This is the first time I’ve seen the language of tier lists applied to art. Feels very weird/of a consumerist mindset.
Any serious artist would respect technical competency. I guess that says a lot about your credentials “as an artist”.
--https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
> While interesting […]
“On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting” --also hnguidelines
It is fair to say dont post “this is turning into xyz” as it doesnt contribute to the discussion. And that is fair. i could have explained why rather than dismiss the post.
I make no good hacker claims but i didnt find this interesting. I am in the minority it seems.
https://www.warhol.org/conservation/oxidation-paintings/
I wonder how much variation you could get by using several oxidising agents of different strength?
Interesting project!
I didnt like this because the title looks clickbaity and the actual website content is not compelling. The landing page as far asi can tell doesnt show any glass painting. Maybe i didnt dig deep enough.
Technique is undoubtedly interesting, but content....
My only motivation for submitting the OP was thinking that others here would find it cool and interesting too.
That falls within the HN guidelines, don't you think?
And I am confused about the “doing it any other way”? I don’t really see other ways to achieve the same result. Say painting and photography will both produce end results that are quite different. The skills are very different. The end material is also quite different. The same way stained glass is quite different from painting
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_medium_is_the_message
The fact he has a portrait of Kamala Harris called “glass ceiling breaker” and one of the victims of the Beirut explosion called #weareunbreakable suggests that you don’t need to dig particularly deep to find meaningful subtext in the choice of material and technique.
If anything it’s maybe a bit on-the-nose.
This is what I was driving at. I should have been more specific to say not particularly meaningful or evocative to me. From the previews I've seen it's all based around shattering and breaking. Where I will give credit, there's one: "Transformation" where natural light is reflected at the shattered glass to portray a face which I find to be fascinating. The rest feel kitschy, it's not quite to my tastes.
Without judging the artistic merit of these pieces, I submitted the OP only because the idea and process of "painting" on glass with a hammer struck me as cool and interesting (pun intended). In any case, artistic merit is always in the eye of the beholder.
Stuff like that though always makes me curious