sometimes all you need to brighten your day is to read the news

[dehro]

like so. (http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/cleaner-damages-11m-artwork-by-martin-kippenberger-called-when-it-starts-dripping-from-the-ceiling/story-e6freuy9-1226188047609)

because not everything is art.

[Feytalist]

"... valued at $1.1 million."

Obscene indeed.

[Form]

I hope they're not going to try to claim compensation from the cleaner for damaging the 'art'. It was an honest accident, I doubt she'd be able to pay up and if one's art gets mistaken for trash/garbage to clean up then perhaps one should reconsider whether it was art in the first place.

[LaZodiac]

I love that the artwork was there to re evaluate the money it was worth. That'll be an easy job now :smalltongue:

[Maxios]

Wow. All it takes is a stain to make something worth a million dollars? That's it, I'm going to sell a shirt I have that has several stains to an art gallery for five million :smalltongue:.

[Keld Denar]

Man, I could make a killing off my high school football practice pants.

And I call this one: Goose turds auf spandex.

Soon...I shall be RICH BEYOND MY WILDEST DREAMS!

[Nix Nihila]

Wait.. What? I thought Martin Kippenberger died years ago.

@Maxios, that usually only works if you're already well known. :smalltongue:

EDIT: oh, oops, misread the article and thought that Kippenberger was the one who owned it.

[Maxios]

Wait.. What? I thought Martin Kippenberger died years ago.

@Maxios, that usually only works if you're already well known. :smalltongue:

Well, I was in the local newspaper once for a 100 page story I wrote. I was the headliner :smallamused:.

[Lord Raziere]

this is the problem with modern art:

it is indistinguishable from junk, therefore its not really art. its junk. if it looks like junk, talks like junk and walks like junk, its junk….

edit: new joke!

The janitor of an art museum sees a piece of garbage on the floor.
he picks up the piece of garbage and throws it into the trash, doing his janitorial duty.
later an artist walks by and says
"Wheres my sculpture? Anyone seen my sculpture? I named it "A Piece of Garbage."

[Nix Nihila]

this is the problem with modern art:

it is indistinguishable from junk, therefore its not really art. its junk. if it looks like junk, talks like junk and walks like junk, its junk….

I would disagree. First, because "modern art" encompasses a lot more than this sort of thing. And second, because the whole point of art like this is to make a point, not to be pretty (or sometimes to make the point that it is pretty). Also, Van Gogh's paintings were considered junk by a lot of people, although I suppose you might say that his paintings are clearly intended to be art, whereas things like this are not.

I'm not exactly a fan of this sort of thing, but I don't think it isn't art.

[Liffguard]

I would never want to get into an argument about what is or isn't "art." As far as I'm concerned, I'm willing to consider anything claimed to be art to indeed be art.

That certainly doesn't make it good art. Whether or not this installation was "art" or not, it was still crap.

[THAC0]

On a similar note, in grade school we were supposed to come up with inventions. Mine involved a trashcan. It got thrown out by the janitors the day before it was supposed to be graded.

[dehro]

meh... I always laugh when I think back about one of those "reality shows" kind of things involving modern art. Saatchi was sponsoring a competition involving ...a number I can't remember.. of young artists. they'd have to come up with an artistic installation and he'd select a winner, who would then have a premium exhibition spot at an exhibition Saatchi would host at some museum at St.Petersburg. there were several interesting installations, and a fair ammount of absolute crap..there were a couple of art critics who would comment on one or the other. saatchi himself, being a paranoid agoraphobic was never on camera and only went to see the place on his own.

in the end, what won it was an installation put together in 2 days by a desperate artist who had binned her previous ideas. she'd come upon a large chunk of wood (basically what was left of a tree that had fallen and been impaled on a blue fence) she'd cut out a piece of the fence including the wood trunk, had it placed in the room with a half decent lighting and called it art.
hilarious in so many ways I'm still smiling about it now, a year and some later.
it turns out mother nature is better at modern art than modern artists.
of course everybody involved waxed lyrical about the installation, the insight of the artists and ...well.. you get the picture.


anyway, I didn't mean the thread to be solely about modern art..
has anybody been uplifted recently by forum-friendly bits of news that possibly weren't meant to be uplifting?

[Arminius]

I don't see why people are worrying about the lost value. I am more concerned about the cleaning lady, who is clearly brimming with artistic integrity. She has made a bold statement about modern society with her interpretation of our attitudes towards cleanliness. She should be lauded for daring to provoke such a vital and necessary discussion within our civilization.:smalltongue:

On a more serious note, I think "art" is a pleasant term, but ultimately rather vague. People find beauty and meaning in various things. Some people like well written recursive functions, others classical sculpture. Beauty is ultimately in the eye of the beholder, and if you find beauty in stains, good for you. Just don't be surprised that the cleaners might not recognize it as something worth preserving.

[Icewalker]

I'd say, a lot of what is called art and given absurdly high price tags isn't so much good in terms of artistic merit but instead philosophical merit. It's not an impressive work of art: it's a statement about art. Which is fine. But it's not a million dollar art piece. It's a million dollar philosophical statement, which does not necessarily carry artistic value.

In a related but separate viewpoint, I don't believe philosophical statements are worth that much money.

[Yora]

That stuff happens all the time. That's what you get when you produce art that looks like some vandal spilled something on it.

There's also the story about the artist who killed herself at night in a galery and the next day nobody notices that the corpse was not some sculpture or performance art.
Not sure if that one actually happened.

This is once again the time where I want to mention my huge appreciation for amateur art. Creating art for money is only for the small world of professional artists, critics, and collectors, who want to make themself believe they are important.

Art is not something you should do as a living, but something to pursue during your free time for your own enjoyment and that of other people.

In other news, there is currently a really weird crime story in germany that is just too strange to make up. Seems like what police would find after a Bourne Movie.
Not sure about what details are okay to discuss here, but it seems its connected to another story from a few years back, where police was searching for a female criminal mastermind who was on a crime spree all throughout the country doing about every crime imaginable, until someone noticed there had been a DNA contamination at the french lab that created the DNA sample gathering supplies.

[averagejoe]

this is the problem with modern art:

it is indistinguishable from junk, therefore its not really art. its junk. if it looks like junk, talks like junk and walks like junk, its junk….

You're thinking of postmodernism. Modern art is still generally recognizable to most people as part of the old artistic tradition, just with the traditional conceits thrown out in favor of experimentation. /pedant


I don't see why people are worrying about the lost value. I am more concerned about the cleaning lady, who is clearly brimming with artistic integrity. She has made a bold statement about modern society with her interpretation of our attitudes towards cleanliness. She should be lauded for daring to provoke such a vital and necessary discussion within our civilization.:smalltongue:

I actually think this is the way to go if they want to recoup their losses. Call it a piece of public-participatory performance art. The inevitable cleaning is all part of it!

Also: because I have a webcomic for literally ever occasion. (http://picturesforsadchildren.com/index.php?comicID=67)

[Eldan]

I don't see why people are worrying about the lost value. I am more concerned about the cleaning lady, who is clearly brimming with artistic integrity. She has made a bold statement about modern society with her interpretation of our attitudes towards cleanliness. She should be lauded for daring to provoke such a vital and necessary discussion within our civilization.:smalltongue:
.

I'd think it is a bold statement on her part on the dichotomy between the ephemeral and the eternal in modern art, and, of course, censorship towards artists in our society.

[Yora]

Also a statement that says "Your art is indistinguishable from dirt".

[Maroon]

I hope they're not going to try to claim compensation from the cleaner for damaging the 'art'. It was an honest accident, I doubt she'd be able to pay up and if one's art gets mistaken for trash/garbage to clean up then perhaps one should reconsider whether it was art in the first place.Yeah, but is it really the janitor's job to scrub the sculptures? "That's a nasty stain on that fresco there, let's splash on some detergent"? "Who left these pottery shards here on the table, people should pick up after themselves"? Really? When you're told to "stay at least 8 inches away from the art at all times (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/arts-post/post/11-million-sculpture-damaged-by-cleaning-woman-in-german-museum/2011/11/07/gIQAMkmFvM_blog.html)"? It's a great big wooden thing in a modern art museum. What else could it have been? Who thinks, "there's a dirty bucket under that priceless work of art there where I'm not allowed to go, I have clean it and put it back under the priceless work of art where I'm not allowed to go, I'm sure it's not part of the priceless work of art but at the same time it's imperative that the bucket stays there"? That's a weird kind of OCD to have.

[dehro]

Yeah, but is it really the janitor's job to scrub the sculptures? "That's a nasty stain on that fresco there, let's splash on some detergent"? "Who left these pottery shards here on the table, people should pick up after themselves"? Really? When you're told to "stay at least 8 inches away from the art at all times (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/arts-post/post/11-million-sculpture-damaged-by-cleaning-woman-in-german-museum/2011/11/07/gIQAMkmFvM_blog.html)"? It's a great big wooden thing in a modern art museum. What else could it have been? Who thinks, "there's a dirty bucket under that priceless work of art there where I'm not allowed to go, I have clean it and put it back under the priceless work of art where I'm not allowed to go, I'm sure it's not part of the priceless work of art but at the same time it's imperative that the bucket stays there"? That's a weird kind of OCD to have.
whilst I'm sure there are very intelligent people with half a dozen degrees who do cleaning jobs because they can't find a better job, I have the feeling not all of the cleaning ladies are chosen for their artistic insights or indeed for their skills in the brain department. if an artist uses a stained bucket of dirt in his installation he should not get annoyed if the cleaning lady recognizes it for what it is and mistakes it for something that's been left out of place by someone else.

[Anxe]

I wouldn't be surprised if the reevaluation is higher than the original. After all, it no longer has a stain on it.

[Giggling Ghast]

Why should this brighten my day? The cleaning lady likely lost her job and the museum is probably facing a lawsuit.

[dehro]

Why should this brighten my day? The cleaning lady likely lost her job and the museum is probably facing a lawsuit.

I don't know about your day, or tastes... to me it's rather funny that a so called piece of modern art gets the treatment it most likely deserved..I am a man of simple pleasures..and this is enough for me to have a more positive outlook on the day.
yes, the cleaning lady may face serious troubles because of this, and I do feel for her..but that wasn't the point of this thread, really.

[tensai_oni]

Just because a piece of art has no immediately apparent value, does not mean there is none. Have you even worked or spoke with modern artists? I have. And I learned that there is often some kind of trick or mindset you have to get into to appreciate it.

This thread does not brighten my day. It makes me sad and angry.


because not everything is art.

Indeed. But who are you to judge what is and what isn't? This thread is like saying this (http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_hUFqn8ZdAQ0/TLtFdMkcN9I/AAAAAAAAAHk/-BPh7AsNDGg/s1600/andy-warhol.jpg) is just cheap color-swapped fotocopying.

[Castaras]

Indeed. But who are you to judge what is and what isn't? This thread is like saying this (http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_hUFqn8ZdAQ0/TLtFdMkcN9I/AAAAAAAAAHk/-BPh7AsNDGg/s1600/andy-warhol.jpg) is just cheap color-swapped fotocopying.

Well, that's what I think of it as. And I know I'm not alone in that opinion. :smalltongue:

But other people like it. *shrugs* It's an amusing anecdote, I personally do feel very sorry for the cleaning lady. The artist as well, come to think of it. Losing a piece of art is always problematic.

[Eldan]

Yeah. It isn't art to me, really. I feel no emotion whatsoever looking at Warhol's pictures, except maybe mild curiosity as to why someone would spend his time on that.

[Nix Nihila]

Well, that's what I think of it as. And I know I'm not alone in that opinion. :smalltongue:

But other people like it. *shrugs* It's an amusing anecdote, I personally do feel very sorry for the cleaning lady. The artist as well, come to think of it. Losing a piece of art is always problematic.

I would feel sorry for the artist too, except he's dead.


Yeah. It isn't art to me, really. I feel no emotion whatsoever looking at Warhol's pictures, except maybe mild curiosity as to why someone would spend his time on that.

Even if it doesn't evoke any emotion, it can still be art. Art is one of those things that needs a very broad definition, like music.

Also, it's worth noting that there are entire movements of art based on making pieces with no emotional content (unfortunately, I can't remember the name of these movements, but I have a friend in Amsterdam who knows a lot about them, perhaps I'll contact her).

[Liffguard]

Indeed. But who are you to judge what is and what isn't? This thread is like saying this (http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_hUFqn8ZdAQ0/TLtFdMkcN9I/AAAAAAAAAHk/-BPh7AsNDGg/s1600/andy-warhol.jpg) is just cheap color-swapped fotocopying.

Not directed at me, but I want to respond anyway. There's this idea that anything that can be defined as "art" must be at least a little bit worthwhile. I reject this. Whether or not something qualifies as "art" is a meaningless distinction. Like I said further up, I'm willing to accept anything as art that anyone claims as art. I just won't necessarily find any merit in it.

FWIW, I don't personally find any merit in that link either, but hey, different strokes.

[dehro]

Indeed. But who are you to judge what is and what isn't?

I would say that each of us, sentient creatures with a modicum of education should have the right to define for themselves what they believe to have artistic merit and what does not. I do have a moral objection towards certain works of art being valued an ammount of money another forumite has quite rightly called obscene, and this sentiment is not relegated to modern art either, only stronger so.
long rant about modern art, spoilerized for brevity, to answer your doubts..

yes, I have met and talked to several artists whom, on account of doing art today and being still alive I would call modern artists, irrespective of the style they decide to express their art in.
I have an appreciation for Bansky and Cildo Meireles, whom I suppose would fall into this category as well.. I laugh and scoff at the works of Rothko (in fact I said more or less something to that effect when I went on a date with a girl and we went to see the london exhibition of Rothko...it was with some satisfaction that I later found out that two of the paintings she had in vain attempted to "explain" to me and make me appreciate, had been discovered, months later, to have been hung upside down the entire time).
in my entirely personal view, if you need a "special attitude" or an instruction manual to appreciate a work of art, it isn't art, it's elitist wankery.

art has to absolve a "function" for me to appreciate it.
-it can be a celebration of something (an event, a state of mind, the patron of the arts who pays the bill, something of social and historical value).. the object of the celebration should be explicit and easy to understand.
I am just as moved as the next guy by relevant pieces such as Guernica or the Birth of Venus even though I wouldn't want them anywhere near the walls of my house.
-It can have a decorative or entertainment value, and as such I appreciate most of Warhol's and Dalì, pieces. I will however shoot myself in the head before I'll shell out the kind of money people attribute to their work just to have a pretty wall in the living room.
-It can be meant to elicit an emotional reaction from the spectator. in this case it's even more subjective than otherwise and I shall not have a stuffy "aristocrat of the arts" look down on me and other people who "don't get it" simply because my reaction to a particular piece is "that's not art, that's ugly and I have half a dozen siblings whose drawings looked just the same, back in the day when they hung on the fridge."
a well thrown firecracker can provoke just as strong a reaction, but the first kid that throws one at me and tries to tell me that it is an artistic expression shall soon find that my emotional reaction has the shape of my foot up his anatomy.
-It can just be a subjective piece. a way for the artist to express his feelings and mood. thought by the artist and ultimately executed for the artist himself. I call that emotional wankery.
even more so if they try to sell me an "artistic statement" that doesn't absolve any of the other purposes of the art but basically just says "look at me, I'm an artist, and I'm doing something new that has no meaning or purpose at all..now pay a load of money and I'll do it again"
if you want to do that, by all means, proceed..just don't quit your day job just yet.
don't get me wrong, I don't make exceptions...when I write narrative and destroy it or put it away without letting anyone else read it I'm doing just the same..I'm giving my soul the DIY-love treatment.
whenever someone buys into those expressions of the author's "self" and pays inordinate ammounts of money to share those feelings (or possess them rather)..well..I suppose the artist has just hit the jackpot and does well to milk it for all it's worth...for my part, I will not buy into it or call that art, no matter how much the market tells me it's worth.

and don't get me started on Dadaism.. what a pile of pretentious crap (in tin cans and sold for a crapload of money) that is...

you can of course agree or disagree with any of the above. we are all free creatures, and this is how I see and call it, whether it's because I'm ignorant or just have peculiar tastes..doesnt' really matter, as I'm as happy this way as you, most likely, are happy to disagree.

...anyway, none of the above is in any way relevant to this particular thread and the spirit of this thread, which you either have misinterpreted or chosen to ignore. (or maybe I didn't make it clear from the start...in fact, I probably haven't)
yes, the artist is dead, which is sad...yes, the cleaning lady may lose her job, which in my book is a lot sadder and really not something I would wish on anybody... but that is not what I found funny about this piece of news. what I liked was the subversion of having a piece of news that is not funny for anyone directly involved, but from a distance is rather laughable and says a lot about certain people, certain expressions of culture (and, incidentally, modern art)
beyond this, I'm not going to try and explain what I found funny, because it's either self evident or beyond my capability to explain it...
if I had found a good link to a news story about a fisherman being swallowed whole by a raging tuna, or a granny paragliding to celebrate turning 90, I'd have posted those, because I assume they'd have lifted my spirits just as much as this one.

[Gnoman]

For those wondering why the cleaning lady would try to clean it in the first place, not everything in an art museum is intended to be art. That's why my local museum (quite a good one) puts clear plastic boxes over anything that might be mistaken for not-art, so you can always tell which chairs are display pieces from Revolutionary France and which ones are intended to be sat on.

[Feytalist]

Because the internet apparently ate the post I made about 16 hours ago:

I understand that what is called "art" has a wide range of application and interpretation. But I am friends with a few artists who work with more... usual media; oil and canvas, sculpture, metal, porcelain... And I know that they would be... aggravated at the price tags on some of these pieces.

In any case, the damn thing should have been roped off or something.