Accidental Cleanliness Destroys $1.1m Art Installation

[procrasty]

Perhaps not, but the analogy still works; snakeoil salesmen would come into town, make all of these extraordinary claims about what their medicine would do, and people not only fell for it, they actually believed it worked, thanks to a combination of opium and the placebo effect. Modern artists use very similar tactics.

no, they don't because the two things are still utterly different. art doesn't claim have a physical curative effect on the human body, the only effect it has is emotional, and that's a subjective matter.

edit: anyway, to bed with me.

 

[Paragon Fury]

The world gets a little bit better.

 

[Twilight_guy]

Shouldn't they have ropes or something to make it obvious to not approach the thing?

Also, anyone who wants to go say this isn't art because they don't value it can go shove the largest most splitter filled stick they can find up there rear. Subjectively condemning art because the viewer doesn't value it is why people don't see games art. Don't be dicks, be better then those guys.

Ladies and Gentlemen, total proof of one thing:

Modern Art is shit.

My favorite example of this, I saw in the Guggenheim museum.

[image/]http://www.toutfait.com/issues/volume2/issue_5/articles/merritt/images/04_shovel_big.jpg[/IMG]

No really. That's it. It's an unaltered snow shovel hanging from the ceiling.

It's also a comment on fact that if you're famous then if you say its art it becomes art. The artist intentionally provided an unaltered snow shovel as a comment on the art-world. He thought it was dumb and thus he provided an example of why.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Perhaps not, but the analogy still works; snakeoil salesmen would come into town, make all of these extraordinary claims about what their medicine would do, and people not only fell for it, they actually believed it worked, thanks to a combination of opium and the placebo effect. Modern artists use very similar tactics.

no, they don't because the two things are still utterly different. art doesn't claim have a physical curative effect on the human body, the only effect it has is emotional, and that's a subjective matter.

Art claims to have meaning, though -- meaning that the artist intended, not just meaning imposed by the viewer (which is another example of the emperor's new clothes effect.) Pray, tell what a solid red canvas means? Even with the context (It's apparently supposed to be a portrait of a peasant girl), it falls flat. This current breed of artist is selling an idea of cultural, emotional, and artistic depth that they fail to embody, but hope nobody will notice. I mean, if you guys just said you liked it aesthetically (some of the best uses of Jackson Pollock style paint splatters I've seen have been on "Trading Spaces" type shows, where they were made on the spot by an interior designer and used to complement the colors of a room, but not as art objects in and of themselves) you wouldn't be taking any crap for it. It's when these "artists" claim their art has some deeper meaning that we start to call bullshit on it.

Edit: Incidentally, that blog has a quote from Mein Kampf in it. I'm not an anti-semite, and I don't think the author was, either; he was quoting Hitler because Hitler was a big fan of the "Big Lie" theory, and while he was falsely accusing the Jews of using it in that passage, it was also a good example of a technique he himself -- and any other successful dictator; Stalin was quite fond of the same method -- used on a regular basis, a technique that that passage illustrates quite well, and a technique that, frankly, the art community is currently employing.

 

[SD-Fiend]

"The world has lost a valuable, irreplaceable piece of art", no it definitely has not. If your "art" is indistinguishable from trash, you are a failure. You are a drain on society and a waste of space. Go get a real job loser.

well that was rude... but quite appropriate.

 

[procrasty]

Perhaps not, but the analogy still works; snakeoil salesmen would come into town, make all of these extraordinary claims about what their medicine would do, and people not only fell for it, they actually believed it worked, thanks to a combination of opium and the placebo effect. Modern artists use very similar tactics.

no, they don't because the two things are still utterly different. art doesn't claim have a physical curative effect on the human body, the only effect it has is emotional, and that's a subjective matter.

Art claims to have meaning, though -- meaning that the artist intended, not just meaning imposed by the viewer (which is another example of the emperor's new clothes effect.) Pray, tell what a solid red canvas means? Even with the context (It's apparently supposed to be a portrait of a peasant girl), it falls flat. This current breed of artist is selling an idea of cultural, emotional, and artistic depth that they fail to embody, but hope nobody will notice. I mean, if you guys just said you liked it aesthetically (some of the best uses of Jackson Pollock style paint splatters I've seen have been on "Trading Spaces" type shows, where they were made on the spot by an interior designer and used to complement the colors of a room, but not as art objects in and of themselves) you wouldn't be taking any crap for it. It's when these "artists" claim their art has some deeper meaning that we start to call bullshit on it.

*sigh* you don't see that in it, but it doesn't mean that the people who do are fools, or wrong, or being conned. again i could tell you what i see in a solid red canvass, but to what end? for you to tell me than i'm wrong to get something out of it?
i like rothko paintings, love in fact, and many people get nothing from his work at all, and that's fine. but them not getting anything out of it doesn't mean i'm wrong because this work happens to mean a lot to me, or that he was committing a con act when creating them, it just means i have my own tastes.

and this is the only point i'm trying to make, people will get a lot from aspects of culture which others will get nothing from, nether side is right, or wrong. it's not a war, or a debate, it's just taste.

g'night

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Perhaps not, but the analogy still works; snakeoil salesmen would come into town, make all of these extraordinary claims about what their medicine would do, and people not only fell for it, they actually believed it worked, thanks to a combination of opium and the placebo effect. Modern artists use very similar tactics.

no, they don't because the two things are still utterly different. art doesn't claim have a physical curative effect on the human body, the only effect it has is emotional, and that's a subjective matter.

Art claims to have meaning, though -- meaning that the artist intended, not just meaning imposed by the viewer (which is another example of the emperor's new clothes effect.) Pray, tell what a solid red canvas means? Even with the context (It's apparently supposed to be a portrait of a peasant girl), it falls flat. This current breed of artist is selling an idea of cultural, emotional, and artistic depth that they fail to embody, but hope nobody will notice. I mean, if you guys just said you liked it aesthetically (some of the best uses of Jackson Pollock style paint splatters I've seen have been on "Trading Spaces" type shows, where they were made on the spot by an interior designer and used to complement the colors of a room, but not as art objects in and of themselves) you wouldn't be taking any crap for it. It's when these "artists" claim their art has some deeper meaning that we start to call bullshit on it.

*sigh* you don't see that in it, but it doesn't mean that the people who do are fools, or wrong, or being conned. again i could tell you what i see in a solid red canvass, but to what end? for you to tell me than i'm wrong to get something out of it?
i like rothko paintings, love in fact, and many people get nothing from his work at all, and that's fine. but them not getting anything out of it doesn't mean i'm wrong because this work happens to mean a lot to me, or that he was committing a con act when creating them, it just means i have my own tastes.

and this is the only point i'm trying to make, people will get a lot from aspects of culture which others will get nothing from, nether side is right, or wrong. it's not a war, or a debate, it's just taste.

g'night

All I have to say to this is that it's not wrong if you personally derive meaning from said red canvas, but the meaning is your own, and it comes from you, not the artist. If you find meaning in it, cool, but you're the one creating the actual art in that case; all the artist did was throw something up on a wall and let other people do the actual work. In the same way that The Lord of the Rings is not an allegory for World War II[footnote]Look it up if you don't believe me; Tolkien is on record saying that none of his books are an allegory for anything; he hated allegory.[/footnote], that red painting is nothing more than a red painting; a nice accent piece for interior decorating, but not something that can stand on its own.

 

[Asuka Soryu]

Art: 0

Cleaning lady: 1

Take that, social commentary!

 

[deckai]

Does anyone know the tale of "The Emperor's New Clothes"? Reminds me of the whole modern art scene, where we are the Emperor and the artists are the tailors.....


... but seriously, there are only a few "modern" artist that I consider good (and most of them aren't even popular). And on the very bottom of my valuable-art list are the performance artist....

 

[Worcester Sauce]

This enrages me somehow, so apperently I care about art ..odd

Maybe you care about money?

Or about cleanliness .

 

[procrasty]

All I have to say to this is that it's not wrong if you personally derive meaning from said red canvas, but the meaning is your own, and it comes from you, not the artist. If you find meaning in it, cool, but you're the one creating the actual art in that case; all the artist did was throw something up on a wall and let other people do the actual work. In the same way that The Lord of the Rings is not an allegory for World War II, that red painting is nothing more than a red painting; a nice accent piece for interior decorating, but not something that can stand on its own.

honistly, last one now.
fine art isn't a language, it's not about getting a message across to an audiance with no margin for error, that's illustration, or graphic design (and even then only to a greater extent rather than entirely). a work having ambiguity is not failure on the part of the artist, and it cirtainly doesn't mean they didn't try (please stop assuming malice, there is a really massive gulf between "i don't get what the artist is trying to say" and "they just threw it up on a wall").
the meaning that an artist puts into a work doesn't have to match perfectly with what the viewer takes from it. you say the red canvass is "supposed to be a portrait of a peasent girl" as if the viewer is supposed to be able to tell that from looking at it, and assume that if they can't, not only has the art failed but the artist was just bullshitting all along. different works come from different places, some are trying to tell stories, others are reactions to things, some can be "read" others are more just experiances. titles can offer some context, some are intended to push the viewer in a perticular direction (titles can form part of the work). looking at that painting purely as a red fild and looking at it as a peasent girl changes the way it's being viewed, but it's still not about getting a very speficic message across.
a work can be trying to get a meaning across without that meaning having to be exact.

yeah, i know i said bed, and this is probably starting to read as me being tired. i guess the thing i still don't undersatnd is why it all has to be framed this way? why can't an artist just make work you don't like, or don't get, why does that have to make them a con artist, or mean they're not trying? art and culture is weird and huge and varied enough that everyone should have more than enough room in there to find something they love without needing to get into any scapes about it.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

All I have to say to this is that it's not wrong if you personally derive meaning from said red canvas, but the meaning is your own, and it comes from you, not the artist. If you find meaning in it, cool, but you're the one creating the actual art in that case; all the artist did was throw something up on a wall and let other people do the actual work. In the same way that The Lord of the Rings is not an allegory for World War II, that red painting is nothing more than a red painting; a nice accent piece for interior decorating, but not something that can stand on its own.

honistly, last one now.
fine art isn't a language, it's not about getting a message across to an audiance with no margin for error, that's illustration, or graphic design (and even then only to a greater extent rather than entirely). a work having ambiguity is not failure on the part of the artist, and it cirtainly doesn't mean they didn't try (please stop assuming malice, there is a really massive gulf between "i don't get what the artist is trying to say" and "they just threw it up on a wall").
the meaning that an artist puts into a work doesn't have to match perfectly with what the viewer takes from it. you say the red canvass is "supposed to be a portrait of a peasent girl" as if the viewer is supposed to be able to tell that from looking at it, and assume that if they can't, not only has the art failed but the artist was just bullshitting all along. different works come from different places, some are trying to tell stories, others are reactions to things, some can be "read" others are more just experiances. titles can offer some context, some are intended to push the viewer in a perticular direction (titles can form part of the work). looking at that painting purely as a red fild and looking at it as a peasent girl changes the way it's being viewed, but it's still not about getting a very speficic message across.
a work can be trying to get a meaning across without that meaning having to be exact.

yeah, i know i said bed, and this is probably starting to read as me being tired. i guess the thing i still don't undersatnd is why it all has to be framed this way? why can't an artist just make work you don't like, or don't get, why does that have to make them a con artist, or mean they're not trying? art and culture is weird and huge and varied enough that everyone should have more than enough room in there to find something they love without needing to get into any scapes about it.

Because people like you keep insisting that these works have meaning. They don't; literally all of the meaning is provided by the viewer. That's not ambiguity. That's a completely blank canvas by another name. I don't have a problem with liking abstract art for its aesthetic functions; pretty colors are pretty, I'm not denying that. I am denying that these are profound works of art worth so much as a hundred dollars, let alone millions. There's nothing profound about them; they're just wall decorations.

 

[asinann]

If your "art" can be mistaken for garbage, it isn't art.

 

[procrasty]

Because people like you keep insisting that these works have meaning. They don't; literally all of the meaning is provided by the viewer. That's not ambiguity. That's a completely blank canvas by another name. I don't have a problem with liking abstract art for its aesthetic functions; pretty colors are pretty, I'm not denying that. I am denying that these are profound works of art worth so much as a hundred dollars, let alone millions. There's nothing profound about them; they're just wall decorations.

and i disagree with you.

i did a drawing (just in a sketch book) over the summer which had nothing other than four straight lines on it, i actually based it on a perticuar level of game i was playing through. i made several versions, each increasingly abstract and minimal before i ended up at the four lines. the final version was the one that matched what i thought and felt about that level, it was the one with the most meaning.
now, it's abstract minimalism, not your taste (and usually not my style if you're wondering, i do representational work, and illustrative stuff to boot) but hey like i keep saying, each to their own. but that doesn't mean the meaning i put into it evaporates, that the time i spent refineing the image no longer happened.

personally not getting meaning from a work is fine, different things speak to different people. but that doesn't mean the person who made the image didn't put meaning there, or just made the work without thinking.
it's entirely possible to accept that a person has put a great deal of work and meaning into something even if don't like it or get anything out of it.

again, weird, varied, plently of room for everyone to get along

(careful, if i get any more tired i might insist we fight this out in a battle royale of skipping and whistling happy tunes)

 

[ACman]

She did the world a favour if you ask me, hire her in all the "art" museums.

P.S You think thats bad? Perhaps I should introduce you to this: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/d/de/Piss_Christ_by_Serrano_Andres_%281987%29.jpg/220px-Piss_Christ_by_Serrano_Andres_%281987%29.jpg

Piss Christ...A little crusifix covered in urine. It's in an art museum as we speak.

Piss Christ is a great way of demonstrating that Christians, who make a big deal of being more tolerant than other religions can be just as bad.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

It's funny that the guy on radio 4 who said video games weren't art would probably defend this ruined piece to the hilt and look down on say, Okami.

People seem to be complete slaves to the idea of subjectivity these days. It's like nothing is objectively good or bad anymore.

Case in point, whenever a thread starts on The Escapist asking why people like something the majority of people say 'Well it's subjective'. Rather than entertain any dialogue on whether said thing has actual merit.

I personally feel like it's getting kind of ridiculous...but I guess that's subjective too...

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Because people like you keep insisting that these works have meaning. They don't; literally all of the meaning is provided by the viewer. That's not ambiguity. That's a completely blank canvas by another name. I don't have a problem with liking abstract art for its aesthetic functions; pretty colors are pretty, I'm not denying that. I am denying that these are profound works of art worth so much as a hundred dollars, let alone millions. There's nothing profound about them; they're just wall decorations.

and i disagree with you.

i did a drawing (just in a sketch book) over the summer which had nothing other than four straight lines on it, i actually based it on a perticuar level of game i was playing through. i made several versions, each increasingly abstract and minimal before i ended up at the four lines. the final version was the one that matched what i thought and felt about that level, it was the one with the most meaning.
now, it's abstract minimalism, not your taste (and usually not my style if you're wondering, i do representational work, and illustrative stuff to boot) but hey like i keep saying, each to their own. but that doesn't mean the meaning i put into it evaporates, that the time i spent refineing the image no longer happened.

personally not getting meaning from a work is fine, different things speak to different people. but that doesn't mean the person who made the image didn't put meaning there, or just made the work without thinking.
it's entirely possible to accept that a person has put a great deal of work and meaning into something even if don't like it or get anything out of it.

again, weird, varied, plently of room for everyone to get along

(careful, if i get any more tired i might insist we fight this out in a battle royale of skipping and whistling happy tunes)

The thing is, in the case you described, those four lines were actually a purely representational work based on a game design you were working on; they were effectively concept art. The game itself may be abstract, but that drawing, in a weird way, wasn't. This isn't a case of me saying "I can't see the meaning, so it's not there." What I'm saying is "if the meaning isn't there, don't try to make stuff up to look intelligent" -- a statement that clearly doesn't apply to your work. And really, I'm making two statements: one, if it doesn't have meaning, don't claim it does. Two, if it does have meaning, try to actually get it across in a way that either clearly gets it across, or at least gets people thinking in the right direction, and does it in a way that involves some modicum of artistic skill or talent. Looking back at Tracy Emin, "My Bed" fails on the last count, but I will say that her work "Everyone I've ever slept with" actually does work on an artistic level. I can't really claim that that was bad art. A bit crude, perhaps, but it did what was intended, and it got the message across. The works we've been discussing in this thread up to this point, on the other hand, pretty much all fail on one count or another -- or, in the case of that red canvas I mentioned, all three at once.

Edit: Derp, you were playing through the game, not designing it. Either way, while the drawing was minimalistic, it actually did have meaning, and it was a meaning you could explain. It probably fails in getting that message across as an exhibition piece, though, and that's what we're really talking about here. If it's just something for your private sketchbook, who cares if you're the only person in the world who gets it? The problem is when something that abstract gets sold as an exhibit, and people who have no freakin' clue what it means start acting like they do.

 

[aashell13]

"the cleaning lady couldn't tell the difference between your sculpture and an unsightly mess"

...

if that's not a scathing indictment of modern "art", I don't know what is.

 

[mrpenguinismyhomeboy]

Just rename it to It Starts Dripping From The Ceiling & Is Then Mopped UP, a meditation on the futility of trying to keep our world clean and organized in the face of Mother Nature's beauty and chaos. We must either give up and live in harmony with nature or work at destroying nature itself, along with its beauty, down to the art found in the stain of a dried up rain puddle.

So yeah, pretty much anything's art, as long as you consider it to be so. Sure, the people valuing it at $1 million+ are ridiculous, but so are you in this thread who will insult entire generations of art because you don't like it, then ***** when people don't consider games art because the most popular ones are about a random white guy killing thousands of foreigners for some randomly justifiable reason or a random stereotype killing the prostitute he just slept with in the back of the car he used to run her over.

*clap clap clap clap clap clap*

The thing that people don't get about Modern art is that it's not about look or feel or whatever, well it is actually, but it's more about the idea behind the piece rather then anything else. Like most of these things are just really cool. Like that piece looked really cool and if it could be confused for a stain then I guess that means the artist won because his art did break past the museum barrier to cleaning lady. See because modern art is like, all conceptual. You have to realize the structure and like, the framework behind what your looking at, and you have to think about not what your given but what you have to look for. Modern art is an acquired taste but once you learn it your life will improve. And if we had some modern art in video games we'd finally get some respect for this medium. But that will come in time.

 

[Toy Master Typhus]

The reason some of these modern arts are worth so much is because of the artist's lineage and or proven education. In Art history in High school they pretty much taught that through out history and still in the modern age it isn't about what he makes, it's about who makes it. The only time good artist get recognition for their work is when their dead so people who found them can make money selling them at LARGE amounts. That is how art always was and I pray it won't stay like that.

What pains me the most the fact that people who have high "value" in the art community can seem to make anything that will sell for ridiculous amounts without trying anymore. Andy Warhol at least tried to make us look at things differently even if it was a bunch of randomly colored soup cans and Marilyn Monroe pics.