Objectively Good Looking

Upon listening to the recent presentation by Tara Sabharwal, while I enjoyed some of her talk and personal story, I couldn’t get myself away from a fundamental truth, specifically that if the art is bad, then all of this stuff doesn’t matter. Now of course, every human who knows anything about art can tell you that it is subjective, that you may see something good in a piece of work that someone else sees something bad in. Perhaps. However, I find that judging one of the most traditional forms of art, paintings, can only lead to pretentiousness if you truly take this approach. Honestly, and I believe this to be a fact, I can objectively say any of the cliche “post-modern” “abstract” “minimalist” pieces of work in the MoMa or similar exhibits are just awful, I mean the ones that display things like a giant blue square or a red line. The artist can trick you with some vivid description about consumerism or colonialism but let’s be real here, it really sucks to look at a blue square for a long time.

With that being said, I turn to Tara Sabharwal’s work, with the same methodology. No accounting for story or background, the criteria is basically “If I hung it in my house, would people see it and be drawn into it?” The answer, I believe, is yes. Her pieces are extremely detailed and often times awash in different colors. They are abstract, but not in a way where I’m left thinking “Damn this painter really just scammed some billionaire auteurs out of ten grand.” They’re abstract in a fun and expressive way, and they’re something I could look at for more than one minute. Simply put, her work is objectively good looking.