Connect:The 1913 Armory Show and The Ism that isn't

The assigned readings "The 1913 Armory Show: America's First Art War" and "the Ism that Isn't​" focus on the introduction of new forms of art to the art world. In the article pertaining to the Armory Show it discusses the introduction of new European art and its reception by the American people, while "the Ism that Isn't" ​centers around the creation of Neurotic Realism in the Saatchi Gallery. They both discuss what makes art groundbreaking and how this changes the public's perception of it. Another idea that stood out in both of the articles is the hypocrisy of the Association of American Painters and Sculptures, in the Armory Show, and that of Charles Saatchi. 

Two questions that may seem at odds with each other are: what makes art groundbreaking? and what makes art welcomed by the public? In "the Ism that Isn't" it is argued that the shock value associated with the term "ism" is often used as a way to show how much the new form of art shatters reality. Discussing the difference between isms and other movements the author wrote, "To call an art movement an ism is to imply that instead of depicting the world in a commonsense way, the artists make an argument, propose a theory. Medieval and Renaissance art never wanted to defy the past, but to be faithful to it"(2). This is an important opinion because it shows the difference between ground breaking and a movement and that a movement can be ground breaking but that this is not always true.

This leaves the question: what makes art welcomed by the public? A study done by Carlos Silva Pereira, which focusses on what makes art popular, says that familiarity makes art widely accepted and popular, not that this makes it necessarily good or successful. The poor reception at the Armory Show was caused by the fact that people were not familiar with this new art and in turn did not approve of it. However, the Armory Show did help to begin this familiarization, which was fathered by the CIA during the Cold War, to make this new art more widely accepted. In the article it states that "Nude angered people because they understood it too well, but also not enough" (5). As the understanding of what the artists that utilize Cubism grew, the art form gains popularity. In general people do not like the unknown and will always be drawn to the familiar, and one way to do this is to, instead of recreating existing art, is to make groundbreaking work that will become familiarized by how outrageous it is. 

A criticism of the articles is the hypocrisy with in them. The main source in the article "The 1913 Armory Show: America's First Art War," was the Association of American Painters and Sculptures' (AAPS) claim to want to hold up American artists. The AAPS was anti-academic art which was the popular belief of those in Europe at the time, but in America academic art still reigned supreme. To further their beliefs they created the Armory Show which did contain thought provoking art, however it was primarily European. It appears that their purpose was not to support American art, but their own agendas. 

​In "the Ism that Isn't," Saatchi makes the point that "many are questioning whether all these isms, these movements and manifestos, actually illuminate works of art, or artists just like talking big"(1). He criticizes this and claims to have created Nuerotic Realism in order to shine a light on the art world and the overuse of isms to make them less meaningful. However, he appears to be doing the same thing. He is using the title of ism in order to gain publicity for his exhibit like, in his own words, "an ad campaign." While both the AAPS and Saatchi have honest criticism and feed back that they can bring to the art world, their messages are blurred with their personal interests.

Study on Art Popularity