How does one be original today ? Is it possible not to be a post-modernist, since I feel like everything has been done and originality+quality is almost impossible.
>le everything has already been done meme
assert yourself
Nothing is original everything is based on something
just remember there's a difference between being inspired by something or copying it
Find something that you like or invokes a feeling of inspiration or excitement (read books ,watch movies and shows,read comics and manga etc.) and originality will just follow
>>2595151
Draw what you are interested in, be inspired by art that resonates with your taste and forget about consciously trying to do shit that's never been done before.
That's how you create honest art with a clear artistic voice, which is your closest shot at ever creating something others will perceive as original.
>>2595151
>wanting to be original for the sake of being original
>>2595151
>since I feel like everything has been done
>originality+quality is almost impossible.
filthy beginner
>>2595151
Thomas Browne was lamenting that "everything had been done by the Romans already" many centuries ago. Postmodern thought has contributed literally almost nothing good to art other than Robert Smithson and a few pieces of literature. Ignore it. It won't even be taken seriously in a few decades. Most artists who say "everything is already done!!!" And do collages of swimming models and Micky Mouse porn pictures are just untalented and therefore eat the postmodern thought up.
>>2595151
That painting's subject is imitating an Ancient Roman god adopted from even older practices originally from Greece. How the fuck is that particular painting original? There's so much you can do, you just don't have the motivation to think outside of that block of "everything has been done".
For me, originality is not so important anymore as being aware of what you are doing. What you draw, tells what you are willing to spend time on, what ideology you want to stand behind. Who are those people who draw only cute girls, only pokemon fanart, only gritty old men? You can keep repeating a motive, copy someone, but I think you should be conscious of what drives you to do so. But most of the unoriginal stuff I see online is pretty blind about itself.
>>2595187
Postmodernism is such a wide term, it's very bold of you to simplify it so trivially and suggest to ignore it.
paint what you like instead of what you think other people will like
>>2595151
focusing on "originality" means your art has no purpose, so perhaps you should find one
most "great" artworks had some purpose in mind, to be a statue on the steps of a municipal building, a painting commissioned by some aristocrat, an astrological tool
if your art will just sit around unseen in a garage while you remain a poor faggot you're basically wasting your time on the art meme. instead maybe you should find a practical use for your art. this pretentious disdain of utility is why most people who pay to study art never get paid to produce art.
Look at new visual things that have came of out the culture in the last decade or two since the internet. Basically just put the art history books away and look at stuff that hasn't existed before and there's originality.
Only those who are not good enough to be good care to be thematically original.
>>2595723
Art history would disagree with you
>>2595725
Sure! But I am talking about this moment in time, not of how we got here.
>>2595728
>What is this moment in time? Seems like we lost the narrative. I guess the zombie formalists are big right now? Maybe that's the point of postmodernism though, there isn't supposed to be a unified timeline/movement anymore.
>>2595636
you knew exactly what I meant though. don't be an ass, I know it's an oversimplification, I read tons of philosophy and have read tons of 1940's-on essay and criticism books about conceptual and otherwise art. But I don't need to write an essay about the nuances and breadth of the term because everyone knows what I mean already.
>>2595151
>How does one be original today ?
By having an extensive knowledge of your chosen subject matter and attempting to create what you have yet to see / want to see in it / from it. That is, you must have knowledge about what you want to create, you must have the skill to create it. and imagination to avoid making simple copies or derivatives, and you also need good taste, so your creation isn't a shame to what it will be compared to.
Many masters died died at at a young age and were showing no sign of tiring in their invention. Imagine if a master had lived until old age, he would have made yet more original paintings. That contradicts the notion that all things have been done, because there were potential developments that were and are still incomplete.
>>2595151
If you make a piece of art, you'll probably be acutely aware of all the influences that made it. Hence you will never see your own work as original.
"Originality" can therefore only refer to how other people see it; in which case you can either:
A) find underappreciated influences
B) find a naive audience
C) stop caring
