I thought this artsy thread might benefit from some scholarly work on abstract art, Nobel-Prize level:
http://www.salon.com/2016/12/18/this-is-your-brain-on-art-a-neuroscientists-lessons-on-why-abstract-art-makes-our-brains-hurt-so-good/
Nope, I don't like this sort of stuff any more than I do the standard hype from curators and similar committted (and thus compromised) people writing on the art of photography.
The simple truth is that anyone with a minimum of writing ability can produce this sort of material. One can state any position one desires, elaborate and convince the willing about anything; it's done in politics every day, and in advertising, every second.
From my point of view, all the different types of art represent are people striving to make themselves distinct from their peers, combined with the natural, inborn inclinations towards form and presentation that lurk within them, the very things that oblige them to take to art in the first place.
References to olden times are faux: in those years art was ever commissioned, it was executed/created for the greater glory of religion and banks and the glorification of ancestry of popes and other dignitaries. Art for art's sake didn't exist. It was a commercial venture, pure and simple. Without patronage it (art and artist) could not exist.
Modern painters also have to make enough money to keep 'em alive, but once a commercial market exists within which to strive and try one's luck, the ever-present problem of standing out is instantly appreciated on both sides of the financial exchange, and so people experiment until they find a niche that pays off. That's the business of art, just as it is of photography. Those who photograph and/or paint without that commericial imperative are seldom household names, and so what they do or do not do is of relative importance to themselves alone; they do not form 'movements' nor do they create schools of visual thought and style.
For myself, I think that I increasingly find abstract paintings appealing. Why? Simply because they allow one to see something different almost all the time: they don't bore one, as would looking at the Mona Lisa ten times a day. Of course, for that to hold, one must first find an abstract piece that has instant appeal to one: if not, hatred will grow just as rapidly as regret of purchase. And I think that also applies to me with photographs, which are perhaps even more limited and constricted by their very ability to record too damned much information too well, and thus deny my own imagination the freedom to roam and extrapolate upon what's there. That's part of the fun of art: bringing your own head to it. When there's too much evidence there's not enough room for self. So then, why bother owning the thing in the first place? Just investment? A bit of reflected glory if somebody coming to visit you recognizes the creator's name?
