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The most succinct-and-properly-complicated response to this question I've seen is in this short video in PBS's The Art Assignment series. I show it to students regularly—a set of observations and arguments from history that build and compound as the minutes tick by. Lots of ideas packed in here!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67EKAIY43kg

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Jan 24, 2023·edited Jan 24, 2023

Cy Twombly's success shows how charitability in an artist's work is confined to a particular class and privilege. The general prima facie reaction to Twombley's work is not a wrong one. It makes one wonder why some artists can find major success with childish expression, often projected as having a deeper embodied meaning which gives substances to a substance-less work. Yet the same charity is rarely applied to other marginalized group of artists. The last statement isn't a criticism of you Kieran, just a general observation.

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Just remembered this lovely bit by Hari Kondabolu on/against abstract art (and Cy Twombly in particular): https://youtu.be/TKeFvHBRlKQ

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Another review, this one by Jackson Arn at The New Yorker: “His sheepish Europhilia announces itself and then cracks a joke to lighten the mood. Crudeness wraps itself in erudition like two kids in a trenchcoat.”

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-art-world/cy-twombly-the-content-painter

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