Ugly art isn’t an art form or concept that has fizzled out. There are many designers and artists like myself, writing essays like this, creating aesthetically questionable work, still puzzling over ugly art and its importance. Take Laura Owens, the artist responsible for “Untitled”, seen above. It was made in 2016, and Owens has made a career in art just like this. When she was interviewed back in 2013, she remarked that she didn’t have any intentions of making “good” art that fulfills a “fussy criteria of taste or beauty.” She feels that doing the opposite is, for her, always more successful. On the heels of a retrospective at the Whitney Museum in NYC back in 2017, an article called “The Beauty of Ugly Painting” by Charlie Fox describes her brand of ugly art as transgressive and daring. The best statement he made in this article articulated ugly art in an amazing way: “What unifies ugly painting is its defiance of the obviously attractive, familiar or ‘‘lifelike.’’ It serves as a reminder that art isn’t a branch of mortuary science, providing faithful replication of lost beauties. It’s a mind-altering drug: It exists to cause trouble, knock things head over heels and show that there are other ways to see.” This statement is, to me, incredibly important. Ugly painting can be ugly, but it’s intentions are beautiful. How can you fault a work of art for opening our eyes to something other than what we always see? How can we overlook the beauty in what is different and challenging? This is a thread that can be connected back to “ugly” design. What about the beauty of something different? All of these inquiries, they are inherently human. “Ugly” design is flawed human design. It is us. People like Owens are embracing this part of design because in the age of technology, our human touch can get lost. We can rely on machines and let them churn out perfected designs. But they could never create how Owens creates. It is all her own, and that in itself, this distinction from machine, this is more important than ever. Is it ugly, or is it human?
Ugly art isn’t an art form or concept that has fizzled out. There are many designers and artists like myself, writing essays like this, creating aesthetically questionable work, still puzzling over ugly art and its importance. Take Laura Owens, the artist responsible for “Untitled”, seen above. It was made in 2016, and Owens has made a career in art just like this. When she was interviewed back in 2013, she remarked that she didn’t have any intentions of making “good” art that fulfills a “fussy criteria of taste or beauty.” She feels that doing the opposite is, for her, always more successful. On the heels of a retrospective at the Whitney Museum in NYC back in 2017, an article called “The Beauty of Ugly Painting” by Charlie Fox describes her brand of ugly art as transgressive and daring. The best statement he made in this article articulated ugly art in an amazing way: “What unifies ugly painting is its defiance of the obviously attractive, familiar or ‘‘lifelike.’’ It serves as a reminder that art isn’t a branch of mortuary science, providing faithful replication of lost beauties. It’s a mind-altering drug: It exists to cause trouble, knock things head over heels and show that there are other ways to see.” This statement is, to me, incredibly important. Ugly painting can be ugly, but it’s intentions are beautiful. How can you fault a work of art for opening our eyes to something other than what we always see? How can we overlook the beauty in what is different and challenging? This is a thread that can be connected back to “ugly” design. What about the beauty of something different? All of these inquiries, they are inherently human. “Ugly” design is flawed human design. It is us. People like Owens are embracing this part of design because in the age of technology, our human touch can get lost. We can rely on machines and let them churn out perfected designs. But they could never create how Owens creates. It is all her own, and that in itself, this distinction from machine, this is more important than ever. Is it ugly, or is it human?
Laura Owens, Untitled, 2016
Ugly art isn’t an art form or concept that has fizzled out. There are many designers and artists like myself, writing essays like this, creating aesthetically questionable work, still puzzling over ugly art and its importance. Take Laura Owens, the artist responsible for “Untitled”, seen above. It was made in 2016, and Owens has made a career in art just like this. When she was interviewed back in 2013, she remarked that she didn’t have any intentions of making “good” art that fulfills a “fussy criteria of taste or beauty.” She feels that doing the opposite is, for her, always more successful. On the heels of a retrospective at the Whitney Museum in NYC back in 2017, an article called “The Beauty of Ugly Painting” by Charlie Fox describes her brand of ugly art as transgressive and daring. The best statement he made in this article articulated ugly art in an amazing way: “What unifies ugly painting is its defiance of the obviously attractive, familiar or ‘‘lifelike.’’ It serves as a reminder that art isn’t a branch of mortuary science, providing faithful replication of lost beauties. It’s a mind-altering drug: It exists to cause trouble, knock things head over heels and show that there are other ways to see.” This statement is, to me, incredibly important. Ugly painting can be ugly, but it’s intentions are beautiful. How can you fault a work of art for opening our eyes to something other than what we always see? How can we overlook the beauty in what is different and challenging? This is a thread that can be connected back to “ugly” design. What about the beauty of something different? All of these inquiries, they are inherently human. “Ugly” design is flawed human design. It is us. People like Owens are embracing this part of design because in the age of technology, our human touch can get lost. We can rely on machines and let them churn out perfected designs. But they could never create how Owens creates. It is all her own, and that in itself, this distinction from machine, this is more important than ever. Is it ugly, or is it human?