Posted on 01/12/2013 11:17:28 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Years ago I read an amusing piece in the London Telegraph about an exhibition of Damien Hirst’s, er, art work at some glitzy Cork Street gallery. The man with the formaldehyde sharks had lots of exciting new bijoux to offer his public. One immortal opus consisted of a tray full of dirty coffee cups, overflowing ash trays, and the like. After the opening party, a diligent janitor, who I hope has gone on to a post as an art critic, tidied up the tray.
Yep, out went the master’s work, all those carefully arranged cigarette butts and lipstick-smeared napkins, valued, reported a melancholy gallery director, at more than £100,000.
He cheered up, however, when informed that the wok could be “recreated.” What a boon for posterity.
£100,000 for Damien Hirst’s detritus. It’s not quite as risible, perhaps, as “Artist’s Shit,” the 90 tin cans of human excrement that Piero Manzoni produced (though not, I think, in a single sitting) in 1961. As I recall, the Tate Gallery paid £65,000 for a can or two, though it’s not clear that they are still part of the collection since they had an unpleasant tendency to burst.
I thought of these and similar episodes when my friend Michael Lewis, a professor of art history at Williams College, sent me the following memo which had been circulated by a diligent colleague:
Dear Studio Faculty,
Security came to my office this morning and said that they found a bucket with what appears to be medical waste in it in Driscoll Dining Hall. They thought it might an art project. It has been turned over to Health Services for testing to see if it’s real.
Does anyone know of any such art project?
When you stop chuckling, think about this: Michael’s colleague was being perfectly rational in sending around that memo. In the age of charlatans like Damien Hirst, Jenny Holzer, the Chapman Brothers, and, oh many more practitioners of mind-numbing psycho-pathology, who can say whether a bucket of medical waste is or is not an art project? If Tracey Emin can win the Turner Prize for “My Bed [1]”— “her own bed, in all its embarrassing glory. Empty booze bottles, fag butts, stained sheets, worn panties: the bloody aftermath of a nervous breakdown”—why could a bucket of medical waste not be an art project at the “art” department of an over-priced private college in Massachusetts? (Tuition, room & board at Williams this year $56,770: what a steal!)
No, the art world, like so much of academia, is beyond satire, though not, I think, beyond ridicule. They’re both gaseous, over-inflated bubbles [2], straining, straining, and just about to burst. Laugh now while you still can.
This is an example of the method of thought which relies on disintegration, nihilism, and negation of values rather than integration and development of objective values. This type of thought was inspired by Kant an its practitioners produce non-objective cultural products such as postmodernism, pragmatism, progressiveism, and egalitarianism.
Check out http://artrenewal.com/ and be prepred to be blown away.
Communist goal number 22: Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to “eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms.
Communist goal number 23: Control art critics and directors of art museums. “Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art.”
“her own bed, in all its embarrassing glory. Empty booze bottles, fag butts, stained sheets, worn panties: the bloody aftermath of a nervous breakdown”—
or a memorable week end.
Thank you for that.
I love beautiful art. I was at the MET in NYC last year and was blown away by the beautiful art there. I want to go back so bad I can’t stand it!
The following is alive and well in colleges of art and in all forms of tax supported art. Don’t you just love paying for this? /s
Communist Goals:
22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to “eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms.”
23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. “Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art.”
24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them “censorship” and a violation of free speech and free press.
25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.
26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as “normal, natural, healthy.”
Dump university art colleges. They are a waste of time and money, and afterward,( if the student is truly serious about art), they will need to attend an art atelier to learn what they should have taught in college.
Then there is the rest of the **real** art world that is actually making a living producing and selling art.
“Check out http://artrenewal.com/ and be prepred to be blown away.”
Thank you from the bottom of my heart. It blew me away and I joined immediately. Wow!!!!!!!!!!!!
Is it legal to be a member of both the NRA and Art Renewal Center?
There is little in the culture of the West that is more vapid and vacuuous than modern art.
It just stinks. Literally and figuratively.
You say I don’t understand it? I do, in fact, understand it fully.
That angry young man sh!t is one hundred years old. It is old hat. Go on to something else, you are boring the heck out of us art fans.
The shock art is simply stupid and requires its fans to not only to be gullible (This is art! And it is worth $500,000!) but also requires that they have no appreciation for the role vision, artistic talent and knowledge of their tools and materials play in the creation of a piece of art that will continue to be enjoyable and which will continue to provide insight over the years.
The shock art is also quite old and it has become boring, yesterday’s tomatoes. Get on with something new or get out of the business.
Our art world is being driven by art galleries and collectors who are artistic illiterati.
“Then there is the rest of the **real** art world that is actually making a living producing and selling art.”
Yup. I just couldn’t resist the temptation to hammer the elite of the art world.
I have a number of friends who make very good livings with realistic art and at one point I had to make the decision to go into that industry or go down another path. I chose the other path.
Your’re both very welcome :)
“. . . found a bucket with what appears to be medical waste in it in Driscoll Dining Hall. They thought it might an art project.”
When essentially no one can tell the difference between a collection of garbage and a work of art, that says more about the state of the arts in contemporary Western civilization than does every scholarly article in all the art journals in the world.
Is it legal to be a member of both the NRA and Art Renewal Center?
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Very cute! :-)
By the way,....Freepers the Art Renew Center’s website is well worth the time to visit!
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