What will art books say in a hundred years time?

Amusing question, Pentacle.

No, I don't agree with the quote, but back later on that.

Books? What are these "books" you speak of ? Do you have a link ?

Art books won't say anything--books don't talk.

I think it is very difficult, and rather foolish, to speculate on what opinions people will hold of events which occurred a century earlier. For example, i rate Marc Chagall much higher as an artist than Jackson Pollock, with whom i very much unimpressed--yet Chagall was not in the list. Picasso probably will endure in the perception of a great artist. A thoroughly despicable man in the way that he treated his acquaintance and his family, he nevertheless produced works of art which will likely be highly regarded for centuries to come. There are few people in any century who come to be regarded as classic geniuses, but Picasso may be one.

All of that is, of course, just my opinion. But it is important to understand that many artists are not hailed as genius in their own lifetimes--surrealism, pointillism and cubism were all derided by the contemporary critics. This can be seen in other realms, as well. When Igor Stravinsky's Rite of Spring was first performed in Paris, just less than a century ago, the public sentiment was so strong, for and against his music, that fist fights broke out in the audience. Most music critics now regard Stravinsky as a genius. Jane Austen's novels continue to sell well, and continue to be produced as motion pictures. About the only people who now read the Brontë sisters are students in university who are required to do so, and Wilkie Collins is in the process of being forgotten--yet they were highly regarded and successful authors in their day.

Prognostication is always a dodgy business.

I wasn't going to interject, but what has Chagall got over Pollock?
He wasn't nearly as groundbreaking. Or did you just mean you like him more.

I do prefer Chagall . . . but i really question what "ground" Pollock is alleged to have broken. Abstract expressionism has not enjoyed that long of a run as an art form, and for all that the critics touted it in the day, it has had little lasting effect on the plastic arts.

Any furture art reference which doesn't include the work of Maya Lin will be woefully incomplete.

Agree with you, Boomer, on Maya, my opinion of course, and that work is presently threatened by new construction.

I wonder if there will even be such a thing as a "book" in a hundred
years time.

Good point, Shepaints. However, "book" is itself an evolving concept. There are many "books" which are in the public domain which can now be read online.

...to digress elibraries? Will these buildings exist or be obsolete in 100 years?

I think they would probably still exist. In the first place, you can't put the text of a book online unless it is already in the public domain. So people will still want to have a place to find books which are still copyright protected. Additionally, libraries (at least in the United States, and i suspect this is true elsewhere) also provide music cds, dvds of motion pictures or multi-media presentations on certain topics, books on tape--some even provide reproductions of art works which you can check out for a month and hang on your walls. Additionally, they provide media services for the blind/visually impaired, and do reading groups for small children. Libraries have become much more than just book warehouses.

Abstraction has lasted throughout most of the 20th century beginning with Kandinsky Miro and Matisse (even though he's thrown into the surealist movement) and abstract expressionism with artists like Hans Hoffman who was born in 1880 and died in 1960 at the height of the genre. There's a revival of the popularity of the abstract genre in an article in
Art News
but it never really went away. Gerard Richter was one artist who kept it alive.

Since artist Damien Hirst was closely linked with the gallery owner Charles Saatchi (who also funded and promoted Hirst's work for many years) I'll take Saatchi's alleged comments with a grain of salt.