Answer I
Sure. I'm willing to say that there is such a thing as bad art. In fact, there's a fair amount of it. And much more art that is just average or mediocre. That's the price we pay for declaring that some works of art are great.
The counterargument here is that the interpretation of any work of art is an entirely subjective affair. And there's some traction to that argument. After all, we all like different things, and often for different reasons. And my judgment about what is bad art may not be consistent with yours, and so I'm not going to claim that my opinions are objective.
What makes art great, good, not so great, or bad? When we interpret a painting, or a photograph, or a sculpture, or a novel, or a movie etc., we ask different questions based on what we perceive.
I think that some of the questions below are key to thinking about aesthetic quality. By their nature, these are very general:
How creative is the work of art? How innovative is it? Is it just a copy of something that's been done before?
Say you're listening to a song. Does it sound like everything else on the radio? Or do the musicians demonstrate a mastery of their instruments and have a new, unique sound? Do they expand the possibilities of that type of music in terms of arrangement, tone, lyrics and feeling?
How skillfully does the artist use the characteristics and conventions of his or her medium?
If an artist is trying to create a representational painting, how real does it look? Does it use perspective convincingly? Are its details and rendering of objects and figures consistent? Or if it is an abstract painting, did the artist use color, scale, material handling, and composition in a way that's interesting?
What does the artist communicate? Is that communication clear? Is it interesting?
Does a novel change our perceptions of human nature? Make us suspend our disbelief and encourage us to imaginatively enter a complex, well-developed world - or expose us to another's consciousness? Make us rethink an issue in our society? Or show us new ways to use words?
I consider art that does all of these things well on some level potentially good or great. Art that fails to do so I usually see as bad. Now, my opinion about what achieves this may very well be different than yours, and I'm not going to categorically declare that your opinion is wrong. But if you disagree with me, I'm interested to know why, and I'm likely to judge your opinion according to the criteria I value.
Answer II
I think there's bad art, yes. The fact that artistic appreciation is subjective is a separate consideration. You can like or not like bad things, of course.
Consider that opinions are also subjective, right? Now ask yourself, is supporting the belief in "racial inferiority" and segregation a bad opinion? Is holding & expressing misogynistic beliefs a bad opinion? If someone says, "Gay people should be put to death," is that a bad opinion? Unless you'd argue that opinions favoring racial segregation, treating women as property, and killing homosexuals are all valid subjective viewpoints that can't be labeled "bad," then you recognize that subjectivity doesn't necessarily always mean we're incapable of assessing the quality and desirability of those subjective things.
Art is the application of creative skill and technique to express imagination, ideas, and emotions, and/or reflect something in/about the world and human nature. Skill and technique can be measured -- regardless of how important they are to a given piece of art, regardless of how high or low the skill and technique are, regardless of whether one aspect of the skill is higher than another, etc. Creativity and imagination differs, too, and it would be pointless to pretend that all people have the save levels of creativity and/or imagination.
Now, can people increase their skill, can people learn to become more creative and to feed their imagination in order to grow it? Yes, of course. But the extent to which it's possible to increase those things varies from one person to another, varies over time for each person, and will be reflected in the art they produce at any given time.
Sometimes lack of skill is compensated for by technique. Sometimes skill is there, but there's no imagination or creativity. Sometimes the creativity and the outpouring of imagination override the lack of skill and technique. So of course it depends on a lot of things, and there are many ways a work of art might be good or great without having perfect skill or perfect technique or great imagination etc. But the lack of all of those things, the creation of art that isn't inspired by any skill or technique or imagination at all, is likely going to be bad.
Can art be bad if everyone likes it and enjoys it? Yes, I think so. Because otherwise, if art is good or bad dependent entirely on how people react to it, then that means the creativity and imagination and skill don't even matter at all, because it would mean the art has no intrinsic state of being and is defined purely by being experienced. I don't think that's true. If humans die off completely, does all art in the world stop being beautiful or good etc? It's like the question about a tree falling in the forest -- if no living thing is around to experience the sound, that doesn't mean the falling of the tree fails to produce sound waves and vibrations and reflect light. The nature of it doesn't change, merely the nature of our experience (or lack thereof) has changed.
So it is with art, I believe. It's true that a work of art can be appreciated to varying degrees at different periods of time, but the fact a work of art wasn't appreciated 100 years ago doesn't mean it wasn't worth appreciating until suddenly people changed their minds. If we say only the subjective whims and changes of social perspective can define quality in subjective things, doesn't that mean slavery and oppression weren't bad or wrong until enough people decided to think of them as wrong? Does that mean if tomorrow the people who support white supremacy killed off the folks who oppose it, that suddenly white supremacy would be acceptable and good because most of the people alive would claim it's desirable?
I understand it's a tough situation to try and accept that something as subjective as art can be "bad," and I realize a lot of people will argue with this idea even to the extent of saying that my moral examples about racism and slavery etc are still subjective whether we like it or not, and that it's impossible to make an objective statement about subjective things.
However, I have an (admittedly smart aleck) answer for that -- if you are of the opinion that it's all subjective and we cannot say that another opinion about something subjective is "wrong," then when I say my opinion is that there IS a standard for determining "bad" art and "bad" morality, you would have to admit that by your own standards you can't say I'm "wrong" either. If you feel there is no objective truth about art and morality, then you can't say my assertions about it are false or wrong, you have to admit that my assertion is just as valid as any other, right?
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