Charles Lewis Art - California

Why Is So Much Art So Boring?

It’s not that I get bored easily. It’s just that most art I see bores me. Does that mean it’s boring? To me it is. I go in a gallery. Fifteen seconds is all I need to know if its art is boring. It almost always is. I’m speaking mainly about painting, since that’s what I’m into. But not exclusively, since I look at all kinds of art.

Here are some possible reasons for this (being exclusively my opinion of what is boring, of course):

1. Art clients/buyers/customers like boring art, so that’s what they buy. Or they are afraid of interesting art.

2. Artists think their boring art is interesting – it is to them.

3. It’s easier for galleries to explain and sell boring art.

4. Art buyers lack confidence in their own taste and style: boring art requires no confidence or style.

5. There is a massive inventory of boring art in galleries’ storerooms that has to sell before they will take on more boring art.

6. Landscapes are boring. A lot of painted art is landscapes. It takes a lot of skill and talent to make an interesting landscape – see Turner or Bierstadt for examples of interesting ones. Monet’s landscapes really, totally bore me silly.  The Hudson River School (aka romantic realism) painters did interesting landscapes.

7. Installation or concept art is no more or less boring or interesting than any other kind. But most of what I see is still boring.

8. Almost all abstracts bore me. Pollock is the primary exception.

9. I’m a cynical art snob with limited tastes, so I rag on other people’s art - possible, but I don’t think so.

10. Being edgy and hip doesn’t mean it isn’t boring.

11. Street art is pretty boring, without being pretty.

12. MFA programs somehow promote boring art and churn out artists who make boring art.

13. Artmaking skill and making interesting art are completely different things. Not inversely proportional, but they might as well be.

14. Interesting art doesn’t sell.

15. Billy Shire knows interesting art.

16. Boring photography is just as boring as boring painting or boring installations.

17. Being big just makes boring bigger and harder to ignore.

18. Boring art generally works better with your living room color scheme.

19. The crew at Hi Fructose knows interesting.

20. Most impressionist painting is boring.

21. Most horse paintings are boring.

22. Most portraits are boring. Rembrandt’s and Lucien Freud’s aren’t.

23. San Francisco has so much really, amazingly boring art I can hardly stand it.