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Colorado: State-funded sex-toy art upsets governor
9News via Denver Post ^ | 7/21/2005 | Paula Woodward and Nicole Vap

Posted on 07/28/2005 9:48:51 AM PDT by lainie

Gov. Bill Owens is weighing in on the debate over an artist given a $5,000 state fellowship grant, after hearing about the works of art that depict sex toys on hooks.

"Obviously, this is offensive and in extremely poor taste," said Owens, who couldn't view the piece himself but had it described to him by staffers. The governor is in New York for an awards ceremony for the University of Northern Colorado Business School.

The artist, Tsehai Johnson of Denver, received the fellowship from the Colorado Council on the Arts in 2003.

The work, originally titled "Twelve Dildos on Hooks" and completed in 2000, was one of several pieces submitted to the CCOA by Johnson when she was applying for the fellowship grant.

Johnson changed the title of the piece to "Large Implements on Hooks" before officially submitting the work to the council.

She told 9News in an interview that she changed the title for artistic reasons.

"I wanted the title to be a little more open-ended so that it didn't become so easily dismissed," she said.

Johnson described the piece to 9News: "They're meant to be sex toys, but sex toys that are talking about a lot of issues."

(Excerpt) Read more at denverpost.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events; US: Colorado
KEYWORDS: art; sextoyart; thedole
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To: lainie

Yeah, he's all upset about it after the radio talk shows started lampooning it. Better late than never to get on the old bandwagon.


21 posted on 07/28/2005 10:26:30 AM PDT by dljordan
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To: pissant; Dashing Dasher; Owl_Eagle; Darksheare
Phallus ping!! Now that it has been defined for you pissant.
22 posted on 07/28/2005 10:27:33 AM PDT by Jersey Republican Biker Chick (People too weak to follow their own dreams, will always find a way to discourage yours.)
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To: Jersey Republican Biker Chick

"Art, it SPEAKS to me!!" -Said in bubbly voice with eyes Runaway Bride wide.

*I am SO gonna regret this..*


23 posted on 07/28/2005 10:29:43 AM PDT by Darksheare (The day the tagline went "Boink!")
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To: All
More pieces by the same "artist"
24 posted on 07/28/2005 10:30:26 AM PDT by lainie
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To: taxcontrol

Talent and imagination. ( sarcasm implied)


25 posted on 07/28/2005 10:32:16 AM PDT by TASMANIANRED (Democrats haven't had a new idea since Karl Marx.)
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To: lainie
"I wanted the title to be a little more open-ended so that it didn't become so easily dismissed," she said.

Sorry, honey, they're still dildoes on hooks. Changing the name to "Starry Nights" or "Guernica" or "Mona Lisa" isn't going to help.

26 posted on 07/28/2005 10:33:02 AM PDT by Billthedrill
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To: lainie
She told 9News in an interview that she changed the title for artistic reasons.

"I wanted the title to be a little more open-ended so that it didn't become so easily dismissed," she said.

Translation: "If I used the real description before I got the money, there's a good chance someone would have done a reality check and kept me from the funds."

27 posted on 07/28/2005 10:35:14 AM PDT by trebb ("I am the way... no one comes to the Father, but by me..." - Jesus in John 14:6 (RSV))
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To: politicket

That caught my attention, too. What is it used for?


28 posted on 07/28/2005 10:36:22 AM PDT by BJClinton (Are you aware that the First Amendment secures your right to refrain from incessant carping?)
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To: lainie

Why is it that almost every form of local entrepenurial enterprise other than "artistic expression" gets by predominately without state and local taxpayer financing.

Is it because "artists" in general need that support?, or could not make a living without that support?

No. It is because the taxpayer subsidized artists could not make a living without either taxpayer support or changing what they do as an "artist". Taxpayer subsidies for "art" are specifically drawn to prop up art that neither the public in general nor commercial interests would otherwise support on their own.

The artistic community and their political sychophants make the false argument that "art" is good simply for the sake of art and that the failure of public taxpayers to subsidize artists represents a direct attempt to stifle freedom of expression and a failure to "support" "art".

Both of these arguments are lies. As individuals and as corporations we support "art" all the time, with our checkbooks and our personal choices of what "art" we like. We are not required to support your art just because you are an artist and want to produce the art that you chose to produce.

For instance, take Lincoln Center in New York City. A place that was constructed with and recieves financial assistance from the taxpayers - as needed to "promote" "art"; particularly opera, ballet and orchestral concerts. Yet, in spite of all the taxpayer support what perecentage of the local population in the city can afford a nite out at Linclon Center - the construction guys, married with three kids in Queens, the hotel service workers, the dishwashers and waiters, the taxicab drivers, the busdrivers, starting cops and firemen, starting teachers, nurses, daycare workers, and many thousands of others??? Not likely at $65 to $100 dollars a ticket. So who goes to Lincoln Center mostly? Mostly the upper class and upper middle class liberals that claimed that "preserving a place for" their favorite "art" was important to "society"; while most of their "society" cannot afford to "enjoy" what they claimed to have "preserved".

Public funding and financing of all "art" is a sham.

Yes, public buildings should have art as part of the environment and decor of public buildings, but that art should be chosen with no intent whatsoever to "promote" art or to promote or help any artist. It should be chosen by committees of non-artists who are tasked with improving the ascetic environment of public space - not advancing "art" or improving "art" or promoting "art" and certainly while also trying NOT to make any political statement with its artistic choices. The mission is simply to improve the look of public space - end, fini, total and no other objective. If you have even just one "artist" on the commitee or influencing the committee then you will have already conceeded to the artistic prejudices and politics of that artist.


29 posted on 07/28/2005 10:36:42 AM PDT by Wuli
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To: lainie

That is not art.


30 posted on 07/28/2005 10:42:04 AM PDT by Dante3
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To: lainie

Looking at her (I'm assuming this is a her) other "works", she seems to have a major case of penis envy. Or at least she feels if it ain't phallic, it ain't art.

She also seems to have a thing for cup hooks!


31 posted on 07/28/2005 10:45:18 AM PDT by KosmicKitty (Well... There you go again!)
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To: lainie

um....I'll take items you find in a bathroom for $200, Alex.


32 posted on 07/28/2005 11:03:31 AM PDT by Eagle of Liberty (Card-Carrying Member of the BFEE)
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To: kharaku
I guess the government logic justifies that if it builds sewers it can buy this tripe.
33 posted on 07/28/2005 11:05:47 AM PDT by oyez (¡Qué viva la revolución de Reagan!)
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To: Wuli
No. It is because the taxpayer subsidized artists could not make a living without either taxpayer support or changing what they do as an "artist".

And these subsidies actually hurt Art because idiots like this one get paid for something stupid. If she was forced to create something that someone might buy, Art would have continued to grow. But since the Art realm is now Communistic, good art is dead.
34 posted on 07/28/2005 11:09:18 AM PDT by Eagle of Liberty (Card-Carrying Member of the BFEE)
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To: Reagan79

Take out the piss from "Piss Christ" and the Left would have whined about the seperation of church and state.

Substitute a Koran for a Bible that had cow sh*t smeared on it in the name of Art, and the Left would have screamed blashpemy.


35 posted on 07/28/2005 11:12:07 AM PDT by Dolphan (It's the 99% of Mohammedans that make the other 1% look bad.)
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To: Darksheare
, I know of several pseudo-intellectual types in my area who will fawn and grovel at this stuff, praising it as 'thought provoking' all the while.

That used to make me puke when I lived in New York. I moved to Gainesville, Florida, a few years ago, and it still makes me puke - those pseudo-intellectual types are everywhere, even in the tiniest burg in these United States.

36 posted on 07/28/2005 11:12:31 AM PDT by livius
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To: livius

Yes, that is true, unfortunately.
What makes it even more disgusting, they give out art grants for this stuff.
And it shows absolutely zero talent.
Meanwhile, people who DO have talent get rebuffed as not being 'controversial', 'forward thinking', 'modern', or 'progressive' enough.
(I'm beginning to hate the word 'progressive' with an extreme hatred...)


37 posted on 07/28/2005 11:22:54 AM PDT by Darksheare (The day the tagline went "Boink!")
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To: BJClinton
That caught my attention, too. What is it used for?

Dunno...maybe to put on tight shoes?
38 posted on 07/28/2005 11:24:57 AM PDT by politicket (Our Supreme Court just destroyed our land...any Patrick Henry's out there?)
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To: BJClinton

Some of those looked like porcelain faucet handles.


39 posted on 07/28/2005 11:30:08 AM PDT by Darksheare (The day the tagline went "Boink!")
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To: Darksheare

It will make you even more disgusted to know that "progressive" is worldwide code for dumb PC lefty. In Spain, they refer to them as "progres" (a noun). And in Europe as in America, they are of course the ones who get the grants and the government/foundation goodies.


40 posted on 07/28/2005 11:47:46 AM PDT by livius
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