RoR: Forum

GOOD GRIEF! IT'S A FUCKING URINAL! THIS IS A MORAL OUTRAGE AND TREASON TO REAL ARTISTS! ROUND UP THOSE DAMN EXPERTS, I'LL PISS ON ALL OF THEM! GRR!

THE INCREDIBLY ANGRY PIANO HULK

Post 1

Thursday, December 2, 2004 - 11:30am

This is beyond disgusting. What must something like this do to young artists who are just starting out?

Barbara

Post 2

Thursday, December 2, 2004 - 11:31am

Adam.
I will take a photo of you doing that, and we can submit it for next years top prize...

I am somewhat disgusted by that and most of what passes for *art* these days. But you know, its meaningless. I doubt that other for investment purposes (*maybe*), anyone will purchase and enjoy that garbage.

So, in reality, (which is, people purchasing or viewing art for enrichment,inspiration and just pure joy), this means little. I am hoping.

John

Post 3

Thursday, December 2, 2004 - 1:28pm

When you consider the trajectory modern art has taken, this actually makes perfect sense. Look at the date of when this object was "made". It predates surrealism, most abstract painting, the serious acceptance of "found art" most high level absurdism, the fascination with the grotesque, all of it. This one work truly did do more to make art what it is today than any other piece of work, when we consider how unheard of such a gesture would be at the time this was put in a museum. All you nihilo-post-absurdist shock jocks, you're late to the party: Marcel DuChamp beat you to it by more than 50 years.

Post 4

Thursday, December 2, 2004 - 4:26pm

Duchamp's most famous quote was that he "liked breathing better than working". Thats not evasion anyway!

Check out his "nude descending a staircase" to see he was not devoid of talent.

Post 5

Thursday, December 2, 2004 - 7:01pm

Even after the controversy here over the great art poll, I don't think anyone here would disagree that this is a travesty.

Post 6

Thursday, December 2, 2004 - 7:17pm

I am glad you all are making me laugh with pleasure.

Robert, excellent point.

What is probably good news to you all is that Stephen Hicks and I are writing a book on Postmodern Art. We have a week intensive coming up in January.

This book will not be POMO bashing, in fact, we hope to offer insights into the conceptual nature of the works, show how the PM artists have followed their path; how they have taken to the limits an aspect of art; the kinds of stances they have chosen; etc. But then will not shy away from the fact that all of them, at least the purists of them, i.e. the historically important ones, have a non-integrated view of art, which leads them ultimately towards nihilism.

Newberry

Post 7

Thursday, December 2, 2004 - 7:39pm

What's going on here is this: the people who look at the urinal and approve of it as a work of art are unwilling/incapable of having a genuine artistic experience. For such people, having the urinal win an award such as this is the show itself. Snickering at the ridiculous-ness of a urinal is what they substitute for experiencing the last few pages of Les Miserables.

Post 8

Thursday, December 2, 2004 - 8:28pm

[replying to Joe... and finding out I crossed two posts]

I don't. I would defend some surrealist, abstract, and postmodern art. But this is revolting.

(Edited by Jeanine Ring on 12/02, 8:30pm)

Post 9

Friday, December 3, 2004 - 1:58am

Two points that may be relevant:

I do not believe he intended to start a movement or would have approved of the people who followed his lead.It was a statement of despair in the face of the events of WW1 etc. Like it or not that is what Dadaist art is about,it is the first agit-prop.

The fact is that it has influenced people(for the worse no doubt) therefore the critics maybe objectively right. It does not necessarily confirm approval of the object anymore than describing muhammed as an important world figure makes you a muslim.

Post 10

Friday, December 3, 2004 - 3:58am

Michael: "What is probably good news to you all is that Stephen Hicks and I are writing a book on Postmodern Art."

Very good news indeed, Michael.

Barbara

Post 11

Friday, December 3, 2004 - 5:59am

Michael, I am trying to understand what forces drive the marketplace for art?

Is it all the following together, or does any one have more influence on what is produced?

1)Art galleries
2)Museums
3)Art schools
4)Art critics and writers
5)Art buying "public"

John

Post 12

Friday, December 3, 2004 - 9:29am

David wrote about the urinal:
"The fact is that it has influenced people(for the worse no doubt) therefore the critics maybe objectively right. It does not necessarily confirm approval of the object...

I almost bought this for a second. But there's one problem: the poll wasn't "the most influential modern object of all time," but influential modern art work of all time."

And it's not art.

Post 13

Friday, December 3, 2004 - 7:20am

Shock! Outrage! Join the club.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/talking_point/4061491.stm

And, as Stephen Hicks and others have pointed out elsewhere, DuChamp submitted the urinal as a prank in the first place. Which doesn't make it good art, just an good joke.

So why the hell do we have to keep explaining this joke? Because it's obvious that nobody "gets it!"

Post 14

Friday, December 3, 2004 - 10:49am

Joe, you got me there!
I agree its not art as you or I see it.
"Regardless of the nature or context of an artist's metaphysical views,what an art work expresses,fundamentally,under all of its lesser aspects is : This is life as I see it"

It is clear what Duchamp's sense of life was at this moment.(1917)
It is not clear to me that it pervaded his whole life.

Post 15

Friday, December 3, 2004 - 8:00pm

John asked: "...I am trying to understand what forces drive the marketplace for art? Is it all the following together, or does any one have more influence on what is produced?

1)Art galleries
2)Museums
3)Art schools
4)Art critics and writers
5)Art buying "public"

Hi John,

I have only a general knowledge of the art market and I have no knowledge of the general market. But an acquaintance of mine, a teacher of Museology at U.C.L.A., told me that the true monetary value of art is measured by the auction houses like Sotheby's or Christie's. So that would be a must to include for your, otherwise, excellent list.

Last week I read an article that commented that what critics like sells for more at the auction houses.

A very good book and relevant to your queries is Making Modernism: Picasso and the Creation of the Market for Twentieth-Century Art by Fitzgerald. It explains a kind of three-pronged approach to conquering the art world; museum exhibitions, auction and dealer sales, and published art criticism. My long-term career ambitions are loosely following this model.

Your second question presumes that these forces influence the product, art. I don�t think that is correct. With all my experience of communication and observation of artists, I believe with my whole being that artists express their deepest sincere view of the world and themselves. Another way of looking at it might be that the art market sucks out of the woodwork certain types of artists and not others. And at some point certain types of artists simply aren�t sustained and die out.

There is also a genre of pop artists like Kinkade, I am virtually sure that he started and continued to produce paintings for the mass market. Let�s see if I can delineate this point: I could do a painting of a fireman bloody and bruised walking out from the ruins of 9/11, carrying a dead girl in his arms, his blue eyes filled with tears and determination. I am sure that would sell for a couple of hundred grand plus reproduction sales. Its not a bad idea but it is not me�there is a profound spiritual danger of following what you think others will purchase�you loose your soul, then the technical excitement dies out, and you start to repeat formulae. Experienced art people can know this at a glance.

Newberry

Post 16

Saturday, December 4, 2004 - 6:49pm

If this is art, if this piss-poor deconstructionist post-Freudian shit is art, then perhaps the art "experts" who judged it to be the most influential "art"work of the modern era wouldn't mind if I engaged in a little "performance art" and pissed in their faces on stage to the delightful sounds of John Cage. Hell, perhaps an NEA grant is in my future, eh?

Post 17

Sunday, December 5, 2004 - 11:07am

Jaime, no fair! You're stealing my idea (see post 1 :). Then again we could hold a pissing contest and see how many of these experts we can piss on simultaneously.

Adam

Post 18

Sunday, December 5, 2004 - 4:36pm

There have been moments in my life where the sight of a urinal was the most beautiful thing in the world. But, it didn't have to be that urinal....

Post 19

Monday, December 6, 2004 - 6:24am