pong
one of my books around here, features aliens disguising their ships as FEDDERS HVAC units, and parking them all over our cities.
I forget which book, though.
Art is in the eye of the beholder. You either “get it” or you don’t.
Thanks for the pong. I really like this article.
I guess it don't(make sense)
“On the day I went to see it, the sculpture was, like so many pieces of modern taxpayer-purchased public art, being totally ignored by the actual taxpaying public, possibly because it looks — and I say this with all due artistic respect for Bud — like an abandoned air compressor.”
I’ve been involved with the arts my entire professional life (35+ years) and I completely agree with Barry. There’s a lot of crap that passes itself off as ‘art.’
I feel part of the problem is that arts administrators, who are the ones that control the purse strings and get nice fat salaries at taxpayer expense, are terrible naive and ignorant about the arts (real artists, with their begging bowls, are usually at the very end of the arts funding line)
There was a time when to be an artist, or to be involved with the arts, was to have a vision of excellence beyond the ordinary - to understand that intelligence, discipline and creativity were all essential - and to know that true genius was a rare commodity.
Today’s arts are now a watered down, Barneyesque “I love you, you love me” world. The prevailing attitude is that “everybody is an artist.” Excellence, mastery, intelligence are only of minor concern. What matters is that you fit in.
I was at one meeting this past year, where the speaker, head of one of my region’s largest arts advocacy organizations and who once told me she knew nothing about the arts, declared that the individual artist was a thing of the past.
In today’s arts world, a Van Gogh or Beethoven would be of little use.
With the emphasis of todays arts administrators to keep things in the black, to keep the cash register ringing, to fatten up that wallet, persons of genuine talent, insight, creativity and intelligence are a liability. It takes a certain amount of risk, a certain about of courage to nurture the new, and in this today’s arts are sorely lacking.
Oh sure, they’ll have token exhibits and performances somewhere off to the side, but all the main areas and performance stages with be nothing but pop culture and entertainment.
Which raises that question - Why are taxpayers forced to fund pop culture? Isn’t that what business is supposed to do?
I enjoy pop culture and also feel that the arts are an integral part of any society, but it bothers me when I see citywide festivals, that claim to be representing the arts and are funded in part by government grants, pushing pop exhibits and entertainment, while arts organizations are going around saying that individual artists area thing of the past.
No wonder we get a large cube of metal stuck in concrete passed off as “art” ... but where is the talent, the genius?
Most modern art seems to be something the ordinary person could master rather easily.
I, for one, would have no problem seeing government funding for the arts curtailed. It would be interesting to see who survived. While administrators and their organizations might fade, real artists and their temperaments, which make them such an anathema to the prevalent attitude of mediocrity that infests today’s world of art, will survive.
I like Dave
on art..
23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. “Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art.”
http://www.uhuh.com/nwo/communism/comgoals.htm