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Pease explain why this is art.

Motokid said:
By the end of the week my family has this nice collection of dirty clothes that we all throw into, and around hampers...quite fetching actually. I'd be willing to sell one of our piles of dirty clothes strewn about the floor for a paltry hundred thousand dollars US. I'll bring the clothes to your home/apartment/flat and personally arrange them to look just like they would look at my house. The only thing missing would be the dog that likes to claim the pile for her temporary bed. Very colorful collection. $100K US. A real steal.
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But that's just a pile of dirty clothes. By your own admission it's a pile of dirty clothes. You are not saying anything by having a pile of dirty clothes other than that you are a lazy bastard. Get them cleaned! :D

Now, had you exhibitioned this - rather than call it for what it is - I would have been tempted to look at it a different way. A personal perspective, a global perspective, and, if possible, from the artist's perspective. Sadly, knowing that it's just a pile of dirty clothes I can't do that. And, were it to be purchased, who are you to put a price on art and what it means to the buyer?
 
Libre said:
The point is not whether you think the urinal is art or if you think it isn't. Personally, I can't stand this sort of thing - those experts have their heads up their butts - if you pardon the expression - but the point is, someone should not be allowed to damage or detroy somebody else's property - (property that is harming nobody, I might add) - because they don't like it.
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Actually libre, the point is exactly whether or not you think this is art. That's the title of this thread, and the question I asked. Obviously the attempted destruction of the piss-pot is wrong by any means. I provided the link to the article so that people here could see what the experts thought of this thing, and what the estimated worth of the thing is/was. I also had to provide the link because there might have been people like me who had never heard of "Fountain" and would need to actually see the piece to understand what I was asking.


And Stewart, it would be art and not just dirty clothes because I would personally come and create the pile for you. It would be performance art as well as art. It stops being "just a pile of my dirty clothes" when I create it for you, and it's no longer is mine. Just as the piss-pot was just a piss-pot until it was called art.
 
Here is the original arrangement of "My Bed," which shows more of the artist's intent, for better or worse:

awww.artnet.com_Magazine_reviews_henry_Images_henry5_6_7.jpg
 
Any kid/teen/early twenty-something/college kid creates that exact same thing almost every friggin day of his/her life. Hopefully without the noose.

I get the same feeling when people talk about the "miracle of birth".
It's not a damn miracle if it happens thousands of times a day for centuries on end.

It's also not art if you can pick just about any bedroom in the world at random, and find pretty stinking close to the same thing.
 
Motokid said:
Any kid/teen/early twenty-something/college kid creates that exact same thing almost every friggin day of his/her life. Hopefully without the noose....It's also not art if you can pick just about any bedroom in the world at random, and find pretty stinking close to the same thing.
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My guess is the artist thought the same thing, and that's why she added the noose--a quick and handy symbol that took no effort at originality and fooled the Turner Prize committee.
 
Ah, but CDA, now that the other artist has done her bed, your installation piece will seem derivative. On the other hand, yours has books.
 
Ditto to what Mari said.

Hm..it was influential, certainly. I always thought it was pretty funny.
 
I remember half-rotten pig cadavers - it was art.
I remember goldfish in blenders - it was art.
I remember 'whatshisname' wrapping buildings in plastic foil - it was art.

The first I merely found disgusting, and didn't see much art in how they were cut and arranged. The second I did see art in, because it made a statement about levels of power. Especially the fact that some people couldn't hold themselves back and actually did blend the goldfish causing a major uproar. It happened on a museum about 15 minutes' drive from where I live.
The last I didn't get the statement of.

Summary: I understood one out of 3. It was clear from newspapers that there were some who had not understood the goldfish in blender, whereas I had. Then it is logical for me to assume that there are some who understood those I did not understand.

The argument "Everyone can make that" is simply not valid, because if everyone could make it and call it art then why haven't they done so? That is exactly the beauty of it. when it comes to pretty art almost everything has already been made. Statues of pretty people and paintings of pretty forests, it's been done already.

The point of things such as the bed and the urinal is exactly to take things anyone could have taken - we've all seen messy bedrooms and urinals, I'm sure - and put them in a new light, because no one else thought of doing it. And that last bit is the whole point. No one has thought of this before, and that's what makes it art.
 
Took a while to find this...

monkey art

and for novella, my fuzzy little friend :) , please pay attention to the last bit about Piss Paintings and Andy Warhol.

:eek: :D :D
 
Jemima Aslana said:
The point of things such as the bed and the urinal is exactly to take things anyone could have taken - we've all seen messy bedrooms and urinals, I'm sure - and put them in a new light, because no one else thought of doing it. And that last bit is the whole point. No one has thought of this before, and that's what makes it art.
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So you're saying that if i think up something really gross, that hasn't been done before (and believe me, I could do that, because I'm a pervert :)), and call it 'art', then it is art?
 
You mean something like this CDA?

Also in the sale is one of Andy Warhol's famous Piss Paintings.

To create the works he put copper paint on canvas, placed them on the floor and invited his friends and colleagues to urinate on them.

Dated 1979, Bonham's gave it an estimate of between £35,000-£45,000.
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CDA said:
So you're saying that if i think up something really gross, that hasn't been done before (and believe me, I could do that, because I'm a pervert :)), and call it 'art', then it is art?
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Did you see me mention the half-rotting pig cadavres? I really don't think you can come up with anything I'd find anymore gross than that. Equally gross, yeah, someone will be able to do so, but more? I doubt it.

I'll accept it as art, mainly because I think the concept of 'art' is one of the few things I don't believe we should try and define, simply because we'd never agree on it.
 
Mm. The goldfish in the blender was always a classic. I liked that one. It was vibrant.

Art is something I am rather annoyed with these days. I don't like modern art or post-modern art. I find most of it to be obnoxious. Peeing on a statue of the virgin mary, not what I would consider art. I would consider it a STATEMENT.

I agree that destroying property is the issue here. Whether or not it was art, doesn't matter.

But then again, if the guy who smashed it would have called what HE was doing art, would it have been acceptable? Because I think that could be considered art by today's standards.
 
blurricus said:
But then again, if the guy who smashed it would have called what HE was doing art, would it have been acceptable? Because I think that could be considered art by today's standards.
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He could have called it art, and it could actually have been art, but it still would not be acceptable, because this art would still entail harm to someone else's property.

There's something called The Art of War, Martial Arts etc. These are 'arts' too one might say, but they too include the destruction of people and property which is not acceptable, but this does not take away from the fact that they are still art forms.

Two entirely different levels here :p
 
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