You may have a point re: the accessibility of the art, although I don't see why everything you've said isn't equally applicable to Mondrian ("Why am I supposed to like this? it's just a bunch of lines and squares and colors..." "Because it is Important Art, Jimmy.") It's not like commercial culture hasn't latched on to Mondrian all throughout the 20th century; he's been a boon for the design industry. But how is the Church money behind all of Michelangelo not a "major marketing push"? How are millions and millions of dollars not being put into Michelangelo? ("Hey, we've sponsored this guy, Michelangelo. We think he's great, you should go see all his works! Which just so happen, by coincidence, to be conveniently theological! But we're all about merit here!") I also think you're vastly discounting 1) how many people like Warhol on his own merits, and 2) the fact that just like Michelangelo, Warhol had to make it big enough to be noticed before promotion could make him truly big.
Perhaps now there is that reinforcement mechanic, but back then? I don't know Mondrian's biography very well, but was he ever sponsored by a major company? Were there lots of art dealers trying to capitalize on him and some "movement" he was the figurehead of? Maybe there was. If so, enlighten me. Otherwise, my point stands. What was the nature of this supposed "marketing"? With Warhol, it's clear. You get him to work with popular underground bands. You put up posters. You get him on radio and talk shows. Get him in movies and television. Have art dealers sing his praises and show off his works. That I get. What marketing did the Church do for Michelangelo? As far as I know, they hired him to paint the Sistine Chapel, and that was it. He got a contract from them, that's all. Or did the Pope go around in a carriage all over Italy shouting about him in an early 16th century version of guerilla marketing? Sure. There are people that like anything on its own merits. That's not the point. Would he have become so big on the strength of just his paintings, without a uniquely late 20th century mass-media blitz and self-promotion? Without his corporate sponsorship and desperate American art dealers? I think not. Oh? I've only read that he was a fairly minor artist before the Absolut sponsorship. Is that incorrect?
Almost every major work Michelangelo did was prominent displayed in major churches. Obviously this promotion is different than modern marketing, because marketing as we know it didn't really exist back then. But it's probably the best conceivable marketing one could get in 1450. I'm not suggesting that this dismisses the merits of Michelangelo in any way. My point is merely that absent him winning Church favor and therefore spotlight for more crass motives of theological promotion, it's entirely plausible that we would have no idea who he is. The means by which an artist is promoted do not negate his work. Yes, abjectly incorrect. Absolut was a minor regional Scandanavian brand prior to 1979, by which time Warhol (featured prominently in the MoMa in 1962, participated in the creation of the Velvet Underground in 1966, so on and so forth). He was already a big enough deal prior to Absolut that he was meeting with presidents:
Okay, I stand corrected on that point. Absolut vodka wasn't as big of an influence as I thought. Still, don't you agree that even with the examples you brought up above, Warhol used mass media marketing to create hype over his paintings in a way that you simply couldn't in previous times? (I notice you didn't answer my question about how Michelangelo was "marketed")
Yeah, I got a little trigger happy with the Sumbit button. I think that is indisputable, I just don't find anything offensive about this fact. As more tools are available, artists are going to use them.
Again, I don't find this the least bit "offensive", either. Nothing about Warhol, Pollock, Rodrique, or Duchamp offends me in any way. I just dislike their lousy art, and with a few of them, strongly question whether they would have made it big without new and unprecedented means of marketing themselves.
Yeah, I'd say that that's pretty damn pretentious. I suppose if you were the kind of person who derived your taste from others', you might give a damn about the whims of those "within the art community".
So nobody's ever recommended you, say, a piece of music, or made you hear it in a way that you hadn't before which improved the experience immeasurably? Your taste has been cultivated completely in a vacuum? One of the most satisfying things for me when I read books or listen to music is when something that I've been struggling to understand suddenly clicks. Has this happened to you? Where someone tells you an album is incredible, but it takes time to understand, and to give it a few listens to let it sink in? So you give it a few tries, and it just doesn't really do anything for you, but you keep coming back for some reason, either because you feel like it deserves another once-over or because you just have this weird urge to hear it again that you can't really explain, and then all of a sudden, one time it just pops into place like a joint out of socket, and the music has undergone this sea change from cold and mysterious to immediate, and visceral, and beautiful. That kind of thing can't happen unless you at least entertain the idea that someone might see something else, something more in art than you do. Maybe all of that is pretentious. But it's really fucking fun.