My cat could do that, too.
Art professor and author Denis Dutton asks, Has Conceptual Art Jumped the Shark Tank? Is a medicine cabinet or a shark preserved in a tank of formalin a sound investment, or are the prices attached to these works by Damien Hirst more impressive than the artworks themselves? Does craftsmanship still matter?
We ought, then, to stop kidding ourselves that painstakingly developed artistic technique is passé, a value left over from our grandparents’ culture. Evidence is all around us. Even when we have lost contact with the social or religious ideas behind the arts of bygone civilizations, we are still able, as with the great bronzes or temples of Greece or ancient China, to respond directly to craftsmanship. The direct response to skill is what makes it possible to find beauty in many tribal arts even though we often know nothing about the beliefs of the people who created them. There is no place on earth where superlative technique in music and dance is not regarded as beautiful.
* * * * *
A couple of months ago Raymond dragged me to an exhibit at Mo’s in BoGlo (what we call Bonifacio Global City). It was called There Is Something Left To Be Desired, and the show consisted of mauve bamboo sticks placed all over the furniture store and arranged on the gallery floor.
My reaction was, “Can we go for coffee now?”
On our way out we saw this stunning installation.
“Magnificent,” I said.
“Provocative,” Raymond concurred.
“It denounces the tyranny of criticism, reducing art into its most practical form,” I cried.
“If I had a house I would sell it this minute and buy that,” Raymond declared.
Actually it was a rag in a plastic container. The janitor had left it.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
October 21st, 2009 at 08:47
Some people pretending to be artists are just plain highfalutin farts.
October 21st, 2009 at 23:11
I love this post. Btw, is that blue thing a Selecta or an Arce Dairy? I am sure the rag is Good Morning!
October 22nd, 2009 at 01:26
Now, now, don’t be hasty. In 1962 Andy Warhol made as many canvases as there were variants of Campbell’s soups, and do you know where they are now? In one of the great halls of MOMA in NYC! But then again:
No matter how much I digest this, I just can’t stomach the fact that this is considered modern art. That it is in the hallowed halls with the Monets, Van Goghs and Piccasos makes it even more unpalatable. It is nothing but a glorified advertisement for a can of soup, and an enduring testament to materialist and capitalist America: you know, the more the merrier, the cheaper the better. Either that or during an overdose of coke (the drink, silly) – of which he also made an advertisement – Andy made this, and proclaimed: THERE! IT’S ART!
MOMA, Sept 14th, 2007
Source: Fingering Warhol