crunchy on 2/4/2009 at 23:16
I thought he was supposed to walk ON water.
Kolya on 2/4/2009 at 23:22
What is he holding there?
It's interesting how the weather is to be read left to right, western style, you'd have to mirror it for an Asian viewer.
Scots Taffer on 3/4/2009 at 00:05
It looks like a sideways slung belt buckle, but it's not clear.
crunchy on 3/4/2009 at 00:42
Maybe it's the iPod he gave to the Queen!
Tocky on 3/4/2009 at 02:02
Quote Posted by LittleFlower
But imho the picture you linked is just a decoration. Not art. Unless there is some nice story or meaning behind the picture. Which I don't think there is. As I've stated before in this thread, I think art is about ideas, not about execution. I don't think there's much idea behind the picture.
And there you would be wrong. But more in a moment.
I'm not going to click to see a urinal. I see several during the course of a day. I also don't think there is a great deal of meaning in one. I can appreciate the humor of what he did but think it shows an undeserved disdain of things aestetic. But if recepticles for excretion cause some gestalt epiphany for others then I'm happy for them. They should be able to cure cancer and levitate objects with thier minds in no time with as many as they see in the course of a day.
As for the redhead, she is by Varga. This means nothing to you but if there is anyone you know who fought in WWII then ask what his work meant to them. Far from home and scared, not wanting to kill or be killed, and seeing ugly in spirit and reality they needed something to remind them that what they were seeing was not all to life. There is beauty and sweetness. There is almost unbearable joy in the mere sight smell and taste of earths bounty. There is reason to fight for life and it isn't a skinned sheep shooting heroin.
demagogue on 3/4/2009 at 02:39
For the record, Duchamp entered the urinal anonymously (as R. Mutt, haha ... always loved that part) with the full hope that it would be rejected -- he was a judge at the exhibition, and was counting on the outrage of the fellow judges -- and much to his delight it was rejected and put behind a partition out of view, despite having paid its $6 entry fee.
It wouldn't have worked as a scandal unless it was decided that it wasn't art. Duchamp later admitted he would have been (almost) disappointed if it had been accepted, but under the circumstances was elated. Point being: it was essential that it wasn't art, just for the occasion of taking pot-shots at the establishment, and putting together a laughable defense as a piece d'absurdité in itself.
Of course, all of those guys (in the interwar scene) counted art and anti-art as the same thing -- famous quote by Breton on it -- with the same goal of liberating the imagination. Whatever did that was what they were after.
Tocky on 3/4/2009 at 03:17
Dada ya? I was a bit harsh. I do appreciate the thought that goes into making people see things differently. The erasure of art in that book said a great deal about the fruitlessness of vanity when time is ultimate victor. I also appreciate the irony of so many words about art in a thread started by still life which has rarely been used to inspire ideas. But I find beauty itself to be very inspirational.
Maybe I was a bit defensive of Varga too. I just feel it was a bit more than whacking off to pinups. And too there was something about those guys.
Not long back we buried a friend of mines dad. I knew he had won a silver star but not what for so I asked my buddy after. He said he won it in the best way possible. He was rounding a bend with one of those godawful watercooled brownings they had to switch up carrying because they were so heavy when he came upon two panzers idling while thier crews cooked dinner. He was way out front and all by his lonesome. They saw him and started to go for thier guns left propped against the tanks. He swung that heavy bitch off his shoulder and seamed a line of bullets between them and thier guns. They held up thier hands. He got that star by not killing anyone.
Scots Taffer on 3/4/2009 at 04:03
Awesome story.
Me, I'm glad the thread has encouraged the discussion it has - I am nothing if not nearly entirely ignorant of the greater theories of art so even if I can't ascribe to it per se, I enjoy the cogent debate.
crunchy on 3/4/2009 at 04:10
re: Duchamp's urinal, unfortunately these days it would have been accepted as art.
(apologies if this has been mentioneed in the previous 8 pages)
Last year some fucker grabbed a stray dog off the street, tied it up in a corner of an art gallery and left it there to starve to death. Apparently that was art.
PigLick on 3/4/2009 at 05:13
well, anything can be art if it is displayed for the aesthetic criticism of all.
