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Wasn't there a period (maybe around the 260s of Uncanny X-Men) where Colossus forgot he was Colossus and ended up making a huge name for himself in the "art world"? What did his stuff look like then? Still pin-ups?
I think what a lot of this comes down to is the simple fact that the art world, like any subculture or profession, has its own internal values and trends and lingo and so forth. If you don't keep abreast of that stuff and do the research, attempts to represent the subculture in fiction will inevitably come off as phoney to those in the know. So we're in kind of the same territory as when a physicist or somebody steps in to point out all the bad (or, more analogously, vague) science in comics. They may well be right, but ultimately one imagines that the creators of the book figure they can get away with vague, since for most of their readers, it doesn't have to be OTM to work as a plot point. I imagine it's more striking in this case because comics are themselves a visual medium - but as has been pointed out upthread, there's a huge world of difference between the cultures of graphic design, illustration, and contemporary "art."
Another problem, of course, is that even if you are tuned into art, if the plot calls for you to have Alicia Masters becoming famous as an artist, are you really up for the challenge of creating good art for her? If you were, wouldn't you be out there creating it yourself and getting gallery shows or whatever it is artists do? Safer to play to your strengths and render a very realistic horse sculpture.
Possibly more meta answer: in the superhero world, freaky conceptual shit has been devalued considerably by how freaky life itself has gotten. Many of the traditional themes to be explored by conceptual art (identity, life versus death, blah blah) have been rendered moot by time-travel, mind-control, and repeated resurrection. The people clamor for art that presents the world in clear, Platonic ideals - art that they can feel 65% confident won't turn into a monster while they're looking at it on the wall.
― Doctor Casino (Doctor Casino), Wednesday, 16 August 2006 00:46 (seventeen years ago) link
eleven years pass...
it's a good question & definitely one that applies to movies as well. it goes for writing too--in movies where the protagonist is a writer the book they always write at the end is the story of the amazing events that we have just seen unfold on the screen! (i guess that makes it "representative" writing)
― s1ocki (slutsky), Sunday, March 6, 2005 3:31 PM (thirteen years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
slocki's post really foreshadows the ridiculous narrative device on the tv show Riverdale. presumably the Jughead character's narrative is from articles he's writing or a journal he's keeping, but it's nonsensical drivel that barely makes sense even when read over montages
― mh, Tuesday, 15 May 2018 18:56 (five years ago) link