The Democratization of Art-Bad?

Today while surfing the web for some interesting art news, I came across a New York Times article about photography (I was unable to find that article again, otherwise I would link it). The author argued that with the invention/popularity of camera phones, one of two things would happen to photography:

1) the field of photography would become more sophisticated and people would have an even better eye and appreciation for it

2) there would be such an ocean of photography, that the good and the bad would all get jumbled together and there would be no real way to tell what was good (the real down fall of this is that the profession as a whole becomes obsolete)

The author's further argument was that how do you decipher if something is good when a few thousand of your Facebook friends "like" every picture you post for one reason or another (the face you are making, the outfit you're wearing, because it's black and white, etc).

I think this is true not just in photography but in digital art as a whole. Perhaps the question is not "how do you know if something is good" but "how do you find what is good."

I enjoy looking at digital art but my dilemma is that I continually come across mediocre artworks posted by artists themselves on forums. Because there is no standard system or ranking of how good the artwork is I get to look through everything. EVERYTHING. FOR HOURS.

I think digital art (photography could be counted amongst this) is at a crossroads: either there needs to be some body/group curating, managing the mountain of art this is created or, to paraphrase a Disney movie, when everything's good, nothing is.

There are so many amazing artists out there, it is a shame that more people cannot find and view their works.


To find out more abut the artist below, link to original artwork here

Jeanne D'arc by Sheng Yuan