Posted on 11/29/2023 5:58:00 PM PST by simpson96
Commissioning public art ain’t easy. Art is subjective, meaning that a piece beloved by one person may be thought of as absolutely goddamn terrible by another.
Still, there’s gotta be a better option than this:
Recently, Vienna, Austria celebrated the 150th anniversary of its Hochquellen-Leitung — the pipeline that brings water into the city. Rather than mark the occasion with a small get-together (replete with whatever terrible hors d’oeuvres they eat in Austria), the city decided to think bigger.
We can do better than a party, they thought. Hell, this is a water celebration! Let’s bring in the art group Gelatin to create a brand new fountain! And so, they did that. And it looks like ass.
The piece, WirWasser (clumsily translated as “WeWater”), features several, uh, things? There’s a guy there, I think. Some woodland creatures, too.
Look, there are some vaguely humanoid beings involved, but I cannot for the life of me figure out what’s going on. WirWasser looks like they wanted to create something to represent how water unifies us, then ended up spawning a Satanic beast hated by just about everyone. Unification mission accomplished, I guess. Hopefully they didn’t spend a lot of money on it.
What’s that? The piece cost $2 million? Oh. Oh dear.
People involved in the project seem appropriately embarrassed about it. “There is really everything in there,” a spokesperson for the city told Austrian outlet Wien Heute, clearly grasping at straws to find any redeeming quality with the piece.
One of the artists was also interviewed by ArtMagazine.cc, where, in a voice completely devoid of interest, he stated, “A fountain is a fountain. You just think about things. You come to an idea, and a solution, and an implementation — and if it works, the idea is good.”
Please, ask yourself, is it? Is it really?
If you’re holding onto some faint hope that maybe this is just a cultural difference, and that maybe the people of Austria are really jazzed about the fountain — nope.
Prior to its construction, “A group of residents and the FPÖ ran up a storm against the ‘luxury fountain,’ considering it superfluous,” writes Wien Heute. “There was even a petition against it.”
But hey, if you’re thirsty in Vienna, the fountain features a “drinking point with fresh water for passers-by.” Two million dollars well spent.
art is just a means of laundering money.
LOL!
Someone should do a giant claymation with that thing.
Is that a scrotum?
Wow! And the Austrians are ashamed of Hitler?
Ugliest drinking fountain I’ve ever seen.
Looks like a 4th grade art class Paper Mache project.
(The special ed class would have walked all over the 4th grade project)
.
🤣🤣🤣Hey, it’s better than anything Hunter did and probably didn’t go to make the world a more evil place.
The fist pic has a guy with a ‘weener’ sticking out of his head...
It’s a beaut alright....
BTW....this was part of the Communist goals for America:
22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all form of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to “eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings,” substituting shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms.
23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. “ Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art.”
Wasn’t one of the Current Communist Goals for America (1963) to make public art ugly and meaningless? I guess if it works here, it can work in Austria.
I’m Hunter Biden, and I approve that message.
Beat me to it!
Like minds....
It is like some anti-homeless architecture designed to keep people away from the water. You can’t look down and see any coins dropped in the fountain.
Very cosmopolitan.
Someone with a sledgehammer could do hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of improvement to that.
I would have done it for a mere $1,000,000 and I bet it would have been prettier. Man, that is one UGLY piece of “work”?
That is beyond hideous.
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