You intimated that those who thought that 'piles of junk' as artwork were holding an illegitimate and pretentious viewpoint.

Clintisiceman then proceeded to point out that while they might come across as pretentious, you come across as willfully ignorant (different than ignorant), as you expressed a lack of interest in even attempting to understand the ideas the artist might be attempting to convey.

Personally, there is some modern art I like, and there is some contemporary art I like. On the other hand, there is some that I don't at all.

I think clintisiceman is suggesting that your dismissal of modern art (or maybe you mean contemporary art?) as a whole, and all mediums associated with it, is indeed willfully ignorant.

Whether or not you're a douchebag is debatable, and would largely be based on the civility of your responses to contradictions in your own beliefs. If you react with immediate anger and dismissal at view points opposing your own, then yes, you are likely a douchebag. On the other hand, if you genuinely consider the ideas of others (even without accepting them), then to describe you as a douchebag would be unfair.

That said, I think the douchebag part was more directed at spacemantis, who took your original statement to a further level. Moreover, it appears spacemantis is unaware of Pop Art, particularly the work of Andy Warhol, who was undeniably and completely an artist troll.

So yeah. Artists, particularly contemporary ones, are trolls of a sort-- in the truest sense. They express controversial ideas using controversial methods in the hope of causing discourse. This same principle held true for, say, the Impressionists.

Whether or not you regard a medium as a valid medium doesn't change that there are people out there who regard it as such. clintisiceman perhaps felt judged by your categorization of all such art so dismissively.

No matter what the issue, come from wherever you please; all this fighting gets you nothing (but hoof and mouth disease.) Arguing's not the way. Hey, come out and play! It's a shiny, new day; so, what do you say? You gotta share, you gotta care. It's the right thing to do. You gotta share, you gotta care... and there'll always be a way through.