Accidental Cleanliness Destroys $1.1m Art Installation

[AnarchistFish]

Honestly, I'm surprised something like this hasn't happened before. Or maybe it was...

I think it has

Art that gets mistaken for ordinary mess deserves to get accidentally cleaned up

 

[Formica Archonis]

That is worth $1.1 Million!?

BRB gluing a bunch of sticks together so I can get myself set for life.

Holy crap, it looks like Space Ghost started sucking on the gas pipes again. "It's symbolic, Moltar. Things don't always have to do things. Now help me plug it into the wall."

Spoiler: For the curious.

 

[Viper1265]

I notice a lot of post saying that modern art is indistinguishable from garbage, well hear this, a garbage bag filled with air and tied off was awarded $47,000 of taxpayer money.

''It's not a bag of rubbish, it's a rubbish bag. The medium is clearly portrayed: It says it is a bag, air, and a twisted top.'' http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88v/barry.html

Also, I would hardly call the piece damaged by the cleaning lady irreparable if all she did was wipe the paint off the bin. In my opinion modern art should only be worth the sum of its materials + how nice it would look in my house and I both weep for and laugh at those who find paint haphazardly splashed onto a canvas, mundane household objects, or even a literal can of shit to be worth thousands of dollars.

 

[Megawat22]

I'm reminded of the scene in "How Not To Live Your Life" where the main character (who does tours in an art gallery for a job) was showing a girl he was dating some of the "art". As he's going around showing her them she asks what he thinks of them, "Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. This one is quite profound." the last piece of art being a picture of a bull pooing.
This Modern art thing is stupid in my eyes. But I'm quite... blunt? I'm not sure. I don't look for meaning in things. If I like art, it's because I think it looks nice, not because it makes me wonder about the blight of impoverished Portuguese cats.
Not that all modern art looks like crap, some if it can look alright as small decorative pieces or paintings. But I'm not paying more than £30 for a picture of a bunch of multi-coloured shapes. I could get a toddler to do that and I'd only have to tell him what really happens if you stay up past 7pm.
And I'm certain this cleaning lady is some sort of vigilante, fighting pretentious artists and their work around the world. And I fully support her, so much so that I shall become a janitor in an art museum and aid her in her quest. It'd also help me be more like the Janitor from Scrubs, I've already got the crazy down, now I just need to grow an extra 7ft. And start referring to myself as Janitor.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

I posted this to my facebook as a comment on a post about this article, and I think it bears repeating here:

Truth is, though, this isn't the real art movement of our time. You want to see that, get on Membase sometime; those image macros, the exploitable faces? /That/ is the art movement of my generation. Also take a look at Deviant Art sometime if you want to see examples of other legitimately contemporary art movements. Stuff like the piece that that cleaning lady destroyed is something that makes a few people a lot of money, while the rest of us laugh at how gullible people are; it's not what historians are going to look at 100 years from now and say "this is the art movement that defined the generation."

What do you guys think? Am I right, or am I off my rocker? Personally, I can't see how rage faces /aren't/ the primary artistic movement of my generation, with smaller movements also being represented on sites like Deviant Art.

I think this statement has a lot of promise. When people look back at the art of our time, sure, a lot of academics will talk about the post-modern and post-post modern twaddle that sits in the Tate until someone accidentally throws it in the bin, but the artistic style that is seen to define our generation will not be taken from there, but from Courage Wolf, Lolcats, and rubbish Microsoft Paint "Forever Alone" comics. These are the things that students will study when looking at the Art of the 2000's, The same way we relegate periods to the "expressionists", the "classical" artists, the "Gothic Art" we will be seen as the time when "Internet Art" exploded, when the artists became everyone.

In 100 years time you will get Art students doing projects on art at the turn of the millenium, and some will choose to study and recreate the post-modern stuff, but others will choose the light hearted internet memes. Recreating their own on their pirated editions of "AdobePhotoshop CS 65", trying to capture that "Microsoft Paint" aesthetic, and understand the pop. culture references that drive them (Was this Justin Bieber some sort of Eco-terrorist? Why did everyone hate him?).

And although it is likely that these images will be forgotten, I don't think that will happen. What is uploaded to the internet stays here, pretty much forever. I found a review today for Call Of Duty 2, while googling "Stunning Visuals". Yeah, that hasn't aged well, but it means our crappy memes won't be forgotten in a hurry, they are all stored in a cobwebby serverfarm somewhere, just waiting for someone to punch the correct keywords into the search engine.

My point exactly. While I think the internet is less permanent than printed media is (Geocities, anyone?) It would just about take the destruction of the entire World Wide Web to completely destroy the stuff we're talking about here, and even then there are hard copy print outs and stuff like that; some of it will survive. Heck, you think finding a review of CoD 2 is something impressive? Get on Google Groups sometime. There are archived usenet discussions about The Empire Strikes Back and The Return of the Jedi which were carried out during each film's original theatrical run. Stuff sticks around on the internet for a long, long time.

 

[AdumbroDeus]

And people who haven't even seen the piece start commenting about how modern art is trash, typical.


Perhaps you guys don't realize this, but YOU'RE NOT THE CROWD THAT IT'S AIMED FOR.

Compare a lot of modern to games like limbo. Notice how stylized the game is, to the point where everything is completely abstract and seen only as shadows. That conveys a lot of meaning, but at the same time, principal one of modern arts is:

1. The more abstract the art becomes, the more meaning it can convey, but the more difficult it is to discern the meaning of the piece.


This is true to the point where some pieces intended to convey many layers of meaning are complete gibberish. This is the point where people can sneak bullshit in as "art". Since this is the level where telling the difference between something that has many layers of meaning that are simply difficult to discern and having no meaning whatsoever requires a significant art education, this is the level where people can give meaningless pieces to rich people who like being opulent.

 

[Mauso88]

The cleaner mistook the piece of art for an unsightly mess, who says the two things are mutually exclusive?

 

[procrasty]

wow, something you don't like doesn't deserve to be destroyed you know.

you hate it (based on a low res photo on the internet, which i guess is enough to judge) so it's great that it was damaged? that's...a really horrible mindset.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

And people who haven't even seen the piece start commenting about how modern art is trash, typical.


Perhaps you guys don't realize this, but YOU'RE NOT THE CROWD THAT IT'S AIMED FOR.

Compare a lot of modern to games like limbo. Notice how stylized the game is, to the point where everything is completely abstract and seen only as shadows. That conveys a lot of meaning, but at the same time, principal one of modern arts is:

1. The more abstract the art becomes, the more meaning it can convey, but the more difficult it is to discern the meaning of the piece.


This is true to the point where some pieces intended to convey many layers of meaning are complete gibberish. This is the point where people can sneak bullshit in as "art". Since this is the level where telling the difference between something that has many layers of meaning that are simply difficult to discern and having no meaning whatsoever requires a significant art education, this is the level where people can give meaningless pieces to rich people who like being opulent.

If it requires an art degree to understand it, chances are it has no real meaning, and even the people with art degrees are just making stuff up so they won't look stupid in their peer's eyes. Again, the Emperor's New Clothes.

 

[procrasty]

but it doesn't "require a degree". like any cultural output, it just requires interest. i like it, but i've been interested in it for quite some time, so yeah, there are various little things you have to learn to "get it" but it's not stuff that requires any more study than the basic "language" of film, or literary devices. you have to do a cirtain amount of learning to understand everything in culture.

it's not a failing on a persons part not to understand it, but it's also not a failing on a works part if it relys on the language of it's field.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

but it doesn't "require a degree". like any cultural output, it just requires interest. i like it, but i've been interested in it for quite some time, so yeah, there are various little things you have to learn to "get it" but it's not stuff that requires any more study than the basic "language" of film, or literary devices. you have to do a cirtain amount of learning to understand everything in culture.

it's not a failing on a persons part not to understand it, but it's also not a failing on a works part if it relys on the language of it's field.

Okay, fair enough, but show me a single piece from these modern Dadaist wannabes that is actually worth the materials it was made of, and actually has some deep meaning that goes beyond shock value. You won't find it. As I said earlier, at some point they forgot that the entire point of real Dada was that the art was crap, and in fact that the whole notion of art was meaningless. These post-post-modernist pretentious assholes? They've managed to pervert Dada into the very establishment it was trying to destroy. They are the ultimate sellouts.

 

[Zefar]

and yet, the custodians don't go throwing Picasso's into the trash. Guess they knew this one was garbage.

Well the huge difference is that Picasso's paintings are at least on the wall with a frame around it. It still look like crap but he did paint it.

Personally I find all of this "New" art to be completely retarded. Most of it are made by people who couldn't paint for shit. Well someone probably used shit to paint. Or at least make some stains to skid tracks.

But still I've bought a painting from a guy who went to door to door and sold just some hand painted picture of several trees in a forest.

It was really really good. But this guy ain't getting $50000 or so at all. Noooo we gonna have to give this to the people who can place objects in a weird way.

I'll get a picture later though if I want too.

Btw anyone remember when some monkeys or elephants painted some paintings and the judges wasn't told about it? Then when they revealed that it was made by animals they where furious.
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/weblog/comments/3836/

AHa found it. Those people are just looking for ways to make money without even trying.

 

[Sectan]

Probably a bad comparison, but art is like a joke. If you have to explain it, you've already killed it. Some guy had a chimp paint a bunch of scribbles and it was brought to an art show and some (Professional? I don't know I didn't pay attention) appraisers appraised the piece at a few hundred thousand. When they were told it was painted by a chimp it was worthless. It seems people just buy the names on the pieces instead of the pieces themselves.

EDIT: Haha didn't even see the guy's post above me. Was typing this from the first page

 

[procrasty]

Okay, fair enough, but show me a single piece from these modern Dadaist wannabes that is actually worth the materials it was made of, and actually has some deep meaning that goes beyond shock value. You won't find it.

so..you're asking me to provide an example, but also saying that if i come up with one you'll ignore it? that's not much of a motivator, but i'll go on anyway. in this case i'd mention the "unmade bed" (tracy emin), often derided as "shock" but basically a self portrait, exactly the kind of thing artists have been painting for years, but created in three dimentions using real objects, as a scene the audiance can expore, actually employing some of the same narrative deivices that many FPS games do.
as i say, it gets dismissed as "shock" but if the done thing here is doing a like for like with games, the same viewpoint it applied to those by people who just don't like them.
there's nothing wrong with not liking something, but that doesn't make the thing you don't like of no value to anyone, or worthy of being destroyed, and it doesn't make the people who make it frauds, or the people who like it wrong to do so.

As I said earlier, at some point they forgot that the entire point of real Dada was that the art was crap, and in fact that the whole notion of art was meaningless. These post-post-modernist pretentious assholes? They've managed to pervert Dada into the very establishment it was trying to destroy. They are the ultimate sellouts.

or they have different ideas on the value of that work than you. not everyone agrees that was what dada was about, and of people who do, not all of them agree they were right.

 

[Kuilui]

Hold on THAT is worth how much?! Excuse me I'm going to go collect some picket fencing and get some wood glue. I'd say what else I'm going to do but the money is mine! *Runs off to home depo*

 

[Slayer_2]

Modern art is so creative (and indistinguishable from a mess), yet video games are nothing but toys for kids designed to corrupt them. This kinda thing was bound to happen sometime.

 

[Evilsanta]

What? How can that be worth that much money?! (Saw the pic of it) WTF is wrong with the world if something like that is worth 1.1 million?!

My mind can' comprehend this...


OT: That was art? Ok...And games aren't art because?

 

[archabaddon]

"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.

I'm sure the artist would if he wasn't terribly dead.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Okay, fair enough, but show me a single piece from these modern Dadaist wannabes that is actually worth the materials it was made of, and actually has some deep meaning that goes beyond shock value. You won't find it.

so..you're asking me to provide an example, but also saying that if i come up with one you'll ignore it? that's not much of a motivator, but i'll go on anyway. in this case i'd mention the "unmade bed" (tracy emin), often derided as "shock" but basically a self portrait, exactly the kind of thing artists have been painting for years, but created in three dimentions using real objects, as a scene the audiance can expore, actually employing some of the same narrative deivices that many FPS games do.
as i say, it gets dismissed as "shock" but if the done thing here is doing a like for like with games, the same viewpoint it applied to those by people who just don't like them.
there's nothing wrong with not liking something, but that doesn't make the thing you don't like of no value to anyone, or worthy of being destroyed, and it doesn't make the people who make it frauds, or the people who like it wrong to do so.

As I said earlier, at some point they forgot that the entire point of real Dada was that the art was crap, and in fact that the whole notion of art was meaningless. These post-post-modernist pretentious assholes? They've managed to pervert Dada into the very establishment it was trying to destroy. They are the ultimate sellouts.

or they have different ideas on the value of that work than you. not everyone agrees that was what dada was about, and of people who do, not all of them agree they were right.

Tracy Emin? Dude, I think you may be the only person on the planet who both likes Tracy Emin and /isn't/ a paid art critic. Unmade bed was truly a piece of crap. She may have had artistic intentions behind it, but seriously, she basically curated her own nasty ass bedroom. Does anyone want to pay me for an exhibit of my bedroom? The floor isn't strewn with condoms, but there's dirty laundry all over the place. Tracy Emin is an example of exactly what is wrong with modern art. She's not doing anything profound, she's not doing anything that takes any real talent, she just makes crap, puts it up on the wall, and somehow makes millions on it.

As I said earlier, you want to see some art that actually represents a generation? Go to memebase. Those anonymous artists are actually making relevant works of art; Tracy Emin and her ilk make self indulgent cash grabs.

 

[archabaddon]

What? How can that be worth that much money?! (Saw the pic of it) WTF is wrong with the world if something like that is worth 1.1 million?!

My mind can' comprehend this...


OT: That was art? Ok...And games aren't art because?

Because of the attitudes associated with gamers. That's my best guess anyhow Although the performances of some gamers [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2QxLpS3aIM] could surely count as performance art.