Modern Art?

[Attalus]

This is Dave Barry's take on the state of art today. I really got a laugh out of this. Hope some of our more artistically-minded members canexplain this to me.

Today we have an important art news update from England, or Great Britain, or the United Kingdom, or whatever they're calling it these days.

As you may recall, the last time we checked in on the British art community, it had awarded a major art prize, plus 20,000 pounds (about $30,000) to an artist named Martin Creed, for a work titled The Lights Going On and Off. It consisted of a vacant room in which the lights went on and off.

Yes. He got thirty grand for that. Why? Because The Lights Going On and Off possesses the quality that your sophisticated art snot looks for above all else in a work of art, namely: No normal human would ever mistake it for art. Normal humans, confronted with a room containing only blinking lights, would say: ``Where's the art? And what's wrong with these lights?''

The public prefers the old-fashioned style of art, where you have some clue as to what the art is supposed to represent. This is why the Sistine Chapel frescoes painted by the great Italian artist Mike L. Angelo are so popular. The public is impressed because (1) the people in the frescoes actually look like people, and (2) Mike painted them on the ceiling. The public has painted its share of ceilings, and it always winds up with most of the paint in its hair. So the public considers the Sistine Chapel to be a major artistic achievement, and will spend several minutes gazing at it in awe and wonder (''Do you think he used a roller?'') before moving on to the next thing on the tour, which ideally will be lunch.

The public has, over the years, learned to tolerate modern art, but only to the degree that it has nice colors that would go with the public's home decor. When examining a modern painting, the public invariably pictures it hanging over the public's living-room sofa. As far as the public is concerned, museums should put sofas in front of all the paintings, to make it easier to judge them.

This kind of thing drives your professional art snots CRAZY. They cannot stand the thought that they would like the same art as the stupid old moron public. And so, as the public has become more accepting of modern art, the art snots have made it their business to like only those works of ''art'' that are so spectacularly inartistic that the public could not possibly like them, such as The Lights Going On and Off.

Which leads us to the latest development in the British art world. You are going to think I made this development up. Even I sometimes wonder if I made it up, although I know for a fact that I did not, because I am looking at a story about it from The London Telegraph. Here is the key sentence:

``The Tate Gallery has paid 22,300 pounds of public money for a work that is, quite literally, a load of excrement.''

Yes. The Tate Gallery, which is a prestigious British art museum, spent 22,300 pounds -- or roughly $35,000 -- of British taxpayers' money to purchase a can containing approximately one ounce of an artist's very own personal . . . OK, let's call it his artistic vision. The artist is an Italian named Piero Manzoni, who died in 1963, but not before filling 90 cans with his vision. According to the Telegraph, ``The cans were sealed according to industrial standards and then circulated to museums around the world.''

Now if somebody were to send YOU a can of vision, even sealed according to industrial standards, your response would be to report that person to the police. This is why you are a normal human, as opposed to an art professional. The art museums BOUGHT it. The Telegraph states that, in addition to the Tate, both the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Pompidou Museum in Paris have paid actual money for cans of Mr. Manzoni's vision. (Notice that I am tastefully refraining from making a joke involving ``Pompidou.'')

Anyway, here's what I'm picturing. I'm picturing a British citizen, a regular working guy who's struggling to get by on what money he has left after taxes. He wakes up one morning, grabs his newspaper and goes into the bathroom. While he's in there, he reads about how art snots have spent tax money -- more money than he makes in a year -- on this ''art.'' The guy becomes angry, VERY angry. He's about to hurl the paper down in fury, but then, suddenly, while sitting there . . .

. . . he has a vision. And as he does, it dawns on him that he has a golden opportunity here, a chance to make, at last, some serious money.

I'm talking, of course, about art forgery.

[DJG]

Modern art! I have heard all sorts of stories about Modern Art! Here is one off my Dad!

A Modern Gallery bought a bed from an Artist. It was a work of art from this artist. All it was, was the bed the artist had got out of every morning for a while. An open bed, apparantly sold for a load of money!

And another work of art, a single black brush stroke on a piece of canvas, was sold for a load of money!

Modern art, all it is is what we take for granted sold for a bundle of money!

[Ar-Cunin]

we got one of those 'cans of artistic vision' to Denmark a while back - and it started leeking in the middle of the exebition [img]graemlins/1puke.gif[/img] So not only did it have to be removed - the museum had to pay for it as it had been damaged while in their possesion [img]graemlins/awcrap.gif[/img] <-the aw-crap-smiley - I though it was appropriate here

In closing "Art is artificial" - hence the name

[/)eathKiller]

You know there is a certain beauty in simplicty... I mean... come on... how easy would my job be if all I had to do to make a sig was draw this:

If that is what makes you happy! HECK! that gives me time to spend on other things in my life! [img]tongue.gif[/img]

Just using that as an example...

[Epona]

Sorry to be a complete nitpick, but you are talking about contemporary art, not 'modern' art (which is a particular period of art covering most of the 20th century, including some impressionism, surrealism, dadaism, expressionism, fauvism, etc.)

I am a big fan of both modern and contemporary art, and get a bit fed up with people slagging it off. I admit to being a bit tired of the theme of artists questioning what makes art - ie. stick an unmade bed (Tracy Emins) in an art gallery taking it outside of its normal context and therefore it becomes art by definition - but when they do that they are in fact posing the question themselves 'what is art', in the full knowledge that that is what they are doing - in the same way as the article quoted does. The reason I'm a bit tired of that theme is because it is getting a bit old and was done very nicely by Marcel Duchamp many decades ago with his splendid piece 'The Fountain'. That was shocking and new when he did it, and really did explore the boundaries of what makes an item art, questioning our desires to place objects out of their normal position and inside a gallery, separating them from their function.

However I like many contemporary artists, such as Anish Kapoor, Rebecca Horn, Rachel Whiteread, Juan Munoz etc.

I do get a bit fed up with people just having a go at it because they don't understand or enjoy it!

Bear in mind that Monet got a similar reception when he first burst onto the art scene.

[ 10-06-2002, 05:46 PM: Message edited by: Epona ]

[Attalus]

Actually, Epona, that was exactly the kind of response that I was trying to elicit. I actually am a big fan of Picasso (two engravings in my entry hall, admittedly minor pieces, The Three Graces and Nestor Tells of the Trojan War, unsigned except on the block, alas) and I have read two excellent books on modern art, Good Old Modern, by Alistair Horne, and The Painted word, by Tom Wolfe. I, however wonder that the posing of questions about the nature of art cannot be overdne. Aren't there other questions to ask and answer? Is all representational art worthless? And, is art that is only aimed at a small, sophisticated audience relevant? Questions, questions.

[ 10-06-2002, 06:25 PM: Message edited by: Attalus ]

[Azred]

My ex was an artist; thus, I spent a lot of time around a lot of other artists. I saw two types: ones who had a sense of color, form, or rhythm and the ones who wrote lengthy explanations so that "normal" people could understand what the piece was trying to say. Needless to say, the first group created works that spoke for themselves; the second group would be likely to put a block of clay on a pedestal, squeeze it a couple of times, then write a thesis saying that this piece, called "Pressure", spoke about how the artist felt pressures from society to conform, the pressure to finish works of art on time, the pressure to sell out, etc. [img]graemlins/dontknowaboutyou.gif[/img]

There are fine artists, and then there are con artists. [img]graemlins/laugh3.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/petard.gif[/img]

[Attalus]

Originally posted by Azred: There are fine artists, and then there are con artists. [img]graemlins/laugh3.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/petard.gif[/img]

Good phrase. I admittedly am puzzled by much of the contemporary art scene, which seems divided by people doing pictures of dancing Indians and cowboys riding into oil towns, which are insipid, or goats with tires wrapped around them, which are not understandable by me. I wonder what Keats would say if confronted by one of these things. Probably not, "A thing of beauty is a joy forever."