JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

In line with our ongoing discussion on art, Chus alerted me to a new installation at the Guggenheim in New York, in which three baristas operating espresso machines hand out free cups of coffee. Why is this art? Are the good-looking espresso machines art? Are the baristas performance artists? If it’s in the Guggenheim, is it art?

Or maybe this is a comment on how everything these days is called “a work of art”, so “art” has ceased to mean anything.

Or maybe the fact that people keep asking the baristas how much is a statement on the commodification of art.

There’s also a hotel bed, which you can book for US$700 a night. You can walk around the museum, trailed by a security guard.

I suggest that three guys get dressed as a horse, approach the barista, and say, “Three coffees, please.” Then the barista can recite this verse:

One horse who wants three coffees.
I don’t know.
I just don’t know.
If he wants three coffees I’ll give him three coffees,
but I know there’s only one of him.

Yes, that’s from Sesame Street. It does not explain what a horse is doing in a coffee shop, or why three guys would get into a horse costume, but it sounds like many of the answers you get when you ask, But is it art?