Is This Art?

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Nov 5, 2007
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Dallas, TX
My daughter is on a field trip with her school. It's for the art students and since she's in Photography she got to go. It's a pretty cool trip. Anyway, they are at a museum of "modern" art.

I'm not sure how I feel about this one. It seems that the artist took advantage of a situation. I hope he or she didn't get paid very much for it. A few years ago we were at some other art museum, and the artist had painted a white square on the wall. Slightly different tint than the museum's wall. The explanation off to the side, read something about how once you notice something it's alive. And how it's a part of the world...something to that effect.

BreathingWallTitle.jpg


And the artist's interpertation of "the threshold of perception"

Yes, it's a blank wall...
BreathingWall.jpg
 
However, now that I look at it. I wonder if the museum didn't just put this up to fill up space. Hopefully it's that and some crazed artist didn't make any money for doing nothing.
 
I'll be the first to say that art,, as well as beauty is in the eyes of the person viewing it.

BUT,,,,,,, too many people THINK they are artists,, and create very unusual or weird stuff,, calling it art. The same folks gravitate to the liberal arts ares of their towns & such,, and pat each other on the back about how wonderful they are.

Sane,, hard working common folks never get fooled into paying money for most of the CRAP they call art.

Locally, we have Trasheville,, eerrr,, Asheville,, with a whole "River Arts District" and they CONSTANTLY promote anything & everything going on there on our local news. Helene destroyed a lot of that district,, yet,, the city & so many weirdos are doing all they can to "restore" the arts district in Trasheville. The local news does more & longer stories about that crap than serious news stuff all the time.

Luckily,, I've never been confronted by any person who calls themselves an artist, yet produces the ugliest crap known. If I were to get into that kind of position,, I'm going to really upset that person with facts.

You want art? Go look at all of God's creations & see if you can even come close to matching it.
 
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Most "art" is crap that fools don't know enough to bypass. That 62 cents of banana and duct tape a prime example. Fools and their money. Too bad the non-fools can't have the money.
 
I would say it is more philosophy than art....
I really think you should just tape a banana to that wall when no one is looking and see what happens.
If they catch you then ask for a couple hundred thousand for the art work.
 
Pre-internet memes.

Art, especially social commentary art, was never supposed to be a money making business. They call them "starving artists" for a reason. No one ever said "I want to grow up to be a rich artist". Musicians were supposed to be wandering minstrels, and now they are going back to that status after thirty or so years of being able to cash in.
 
I like a lot of the comments here! My daughter is interested in art, and we talk about it a lot. She really likes the French impressionists. I think I do as well. @contender mentioned nature, and a lot of them tried to capture nature. They also came from rich families and could afford to just sit around and paint all day. Monet actually paid the farmers to leave the wheat in the fields through the winter so he could see the hail bails in different seasons.
 
I like a lot of the comments here! My daughter is interested in art, and we talk about it a lot. She really likes the French impressionists. I think I do as well. @contender mentioned nature, and a lot of them tried to capture nature. They also came from rich families and could afford to just sit around and paint all day. Monet actually paid the farmers to leave the wheat in the fields through the winter so he could see the hail bails in different seasons.
I actually think there is another obvious fact about the French Impressionist, they were all extremely near sighted.
 
I think you need to define art for yourself before you can say whether a work is art or not.

For me, art is a work of craft that transcends it's original function and tells us something about life,
nature, or the human condition.

That wall does less of that for me than looking at my freshly mown yard. And I wouldn't consider myself an artist.
 
Maybe 30 years ago Portland Or. passed an arts law on new buildings. All new buildings had to have 10% or something like that of the total cost going to art. They said it was to keep artists working.
Reality: Artists over charge for crap work, builders buy it to comply with the law. Some builders don't give a damn what it is they pay for it put it up or install it. Could be paintings, statues, etc. Anyone wonder why Oregon is a high cost/tax state. Then people get to walk or drive by and look at crap.
 
Years back when I still lived in San Francisco and was working for the Post Office,the P.O. used to sponsor an employees "art show." I was pretty deep into photography so I entered a few of my shots.One took first place in photography and another took a special honorable mention over everything in the show. That means over sculptures, other photos, paintings you name it. The honoable mention was only surpassed by a painting that frankly I think would gag a maggot. Title was, "The girl with the purple face." The following year I entered a few more photos and copped a few prizes but the one that won over everything was a blank pice of paper with a birth control pill glued to it. The title? "Morality 1968". It won over everything in the show. Unbelievable!
PJ
 
Sometimes there is more to the story .

This video is about modern impressionism was actually a CIA psy op.

Language warning, but worth watching.

 
Interesting, I didn’t know that
It's a joke at least I think so... but from what I've seen most of those paintings look out of focus to me.

Now to tell a story... I of course over the years of my getting ejumacated would on occasion have to take a class on art or such and they usually would have in their the Dutch Masters and would show a picture.. usually in a text book of these guys with funny hats sitting around a table... pretty lame picture and of course because I was more interestied in other things at the time... looking at the girls legs sitting in the desk beside me or such... I really did not pay attention...
Jump to 2008 and my wife and friends take a 3 week trip to Europe and our first stop is Amsterdam and white there we go into some museum and it's all pretty neat and I walk into a room and there is the painting... and it is Big by the way, and I'm looking at it, the same one in the text books ... and I'm looking at it and all of a sudden it hits me... how in the hell did the guy paint this... the damn light coming through the window and how it hits the dudes sitting around and the shadows... holly cow this damn thing is a masterpiece.
 
When you look at a painting made 300 years ago that looks like a photograph, few would claim that this is NOT real art. The same for a carved statue such as what was done by Michaelangelo. But today what is called art is absurd. A few years back I visited the Detroit Art Museum primarily to see the mural done by Diego Rivera, but spent a bit of time in the "modern" art section of the museum. In one glass case was a blackboard eraser, the same type eraser we used when I was in elementary school. Nothing had been done to the eraser, it just sat by itself in a glass case. That anyone would call this art was truly unbelievable.
 
I will say that sculpting out of marble or such just totally amazes me... how Michael Angelo or anyone else could do it is just totally amazing... you are slowly chipping away and the big deal is to not take too much off because there is no way to put back.
 
My daughter is on a field trip with her school. It's for the art students and since she's in Photography she got to go. It's a pretty cool trip. Anyway, they are at a museum of "modern" art.

I'm not sure how I feel about this one. It seems that the artist took advantage of a situation. I hope he or she didn't get paid very much for it. A few years ago we were at some other art museum, and the artist had painted a white square on the wall. Slightly different tint than the museum's wall. The explanation off to the side, read something about how once you notice something it's alive. And how it's a part of the world...something to that effect.

View attachment 106616

And the artist's interpertation of "the threshold of perception"

Yes, it's a blank wall...
View attachment 106617
And I thought the duct taped banana was bad.
 
If Hunter got paid for art the blank wall is a masterpiece. My favorite art was always done by God and viewed in the early sunrise over the hunting field or the pages of Playboy magazine. No one can top Sunrise in the Rockies or the perfect female form so I always figured why try?
 
If Hunter got paid for art the blank wall is a masterpiece. My favorite art was always done by God and viewed in the early sunrise over the hunting field or the pages of Playboy magazine. No one can top Sunrise in the Rockies or the perfect female form so I always figured why try?
when our son was attending Wyoming University, he called me up one weekend at about 5am his time and said he was sitting out at their campfire at Glacier Lake watching the sun come up and it was absolute heaven . . . . . 🙏
 
Graffiti is some of my favorite modern art. I love that style.

I’ve always wanted to get one of the good graffiti artists to do a big mural on my garage door. Not kidding at all.


Some of it is really good, some really amazing talented people. But it’s terrible to do it without permission. On private or public property.

I’ve been seeing it on the backs of signs over the interstate. That’s just crazy. I can’t believe nobody sees them climbing up there.
 
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