On Tuesday I wrote scathingly of the load of old shite the Tate Modern sometimes serves up under the title "art", because as an alternative artist you could literally shit yourself and call it "art". And if people don't like it you call them a heathen or uneducated or stupid and simply complain that they don't understand.
Well I then read something like THIS story about some arrogant Cypriot Australian who has had an ear grafted on to his arm in the name of art.
It's a shame it wasn't another penis. If he had done this at least he could have taken the piss twice as much !
Now I await all the criticism from people who tell me that it is because I lack "an inner soul" or a "post ironic understanding" or it is because I am simply thick. If it is because I am ignorant, then at least it is bliss.
3 comments:
Nich,
You've proved that art can generate opinion, and that obviously people like different things. A little like politics I guess, it's based upon our perceptions and attitudes.
I agree that in all honesty I don't see a grafted ear as art, but I think it's important not to say that it is shit, but that you think it is shit, becuase, as I think you mentioned in your previous post, the value of art is in the eye of the beholder.
I guess the story "The Emperors New Clothes" passed lots of people by.
Anything can generate opinion, but it does not make it art.
Discussing the layout of a road network, the time it takes to repair a sewer, the way that somone throws a ball are all things people can hold an opinion about, but that is not art.
We are too unwilling to admit that some people take the piss with art. A true artist, oth in the sporting sense and in the creative sense can produce something that is special, unique, indeed something beyond the abilities of the ordinary man or woman.
Cristiano Ronaldo, Mikel Arteta, David Beckham or Steven Gerrard are all artists, whereas your local Sunday football team are not. Simply saying "they are different" does not make someone an artist because if it was the case, then the many players I have played with on Sunday morning are all artists because they ahvem at various times ran off to be sick, had to empty their bowels in a hedge, stripped on a ball and damaged ligaments, headed posts, fought their own team, taken some kind of drug at half time to keep them going or even fallen asleep on the toilet before a game.
Does this make them artists ? Well if they did half these things on a piece of paper then they would be called that, but only because people have been conditioned to believe it.
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