Summary
SOME YEARS ago Spy magazine punctured the pretensions of the art world with a simple prank. It took a bunch of paintings by preschoolers and hung them in a Soho gallery, then recorded the remarks of art aficionados who showed up and said the gassy sort of things people generally say about modern art. The episode offered some vindication for anyone who ever looked at a modern painting or sculpture and scoffed, "My kid could do that."
But last week the art world enjoyed a few minutes of vindication itself, thanks to a study by two psychologists at Boston College. Angelina Hawley-Dolan and Ellen Winner paired genuine works of art by famous abstract impressionists with drawings made by children, chimpanzees and elephants. Sometimes they labeled the paintings correctly, and sometimes they switched the labels around or omitted labels. Then they asked study participants which works they preferred and why.See the full content of this document
Extract
'Better Than a Chimp' Is Not High Praise
Regardless of how the paintings were labeled, the study participants preferred the works by the famous artists 60 percent to 70 percent of the time. What's more, the sub...
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