Its an extremely difficult task to find art that resonates with the entire audience. When I did improv theatre, I had to find that resonance every night on stage. Same when I was performing music on stage. Same with my art shows. Art that they didnt want, they didnt buy. Jokes they didnt like they didnt laugh at. If the public purse is to decide what all the taxpayers are to fund, unfortunately the task is to find what all the taxpayers will enjoy. Not an enviable task. The examples sited in Andy Rooneys piece were examples of obvious failures of the task. By making a point, perhaps the powers that be will put forth more effort into their decisions rather than making the obvious blunders they did. That is the point of my post. To ensure that the various public bodies be they corporate, government, or otherwise that can broadcast some kind of message need to be aware that whatever they do is held to a high standard, JUST as high as the public ballet, the public symphony, the public architecture etc. and one artists “wet dream” should not be tolerated UNLESS it resonates clearly with those that will be subjected to it while the artist moves on to other projects.
Second point being, all art is expression, and you dont have to be an “artist” to make it. Anyone can pluck a string, hum a note, or draw with charcoal. Its our great equalizer across all societies.
Third point, An opulent society that funds ambitious art projects is one thing, funding massive art installations while people starve next door is something to be gravely considered.
I think that you are the one who is dim. I was using New Orleans as an example of a situation where people are in need of help. And I never said that all art should stop…what I said was that PUBLIC MONEY is better spent helping people in desperate need.
But accepting that collection meant accepting signifigant expenses–maintaining it, protecting it, housing it–yes, the Art Insititute has lots of private fundraising, but if I am reading this link (warning, PDF) coorectly, they receive money from the Chicago Park District Tax every year. Are you saying that accepting that donation was immoral because it is commiting tax money to funding the arts?
What I hear repeatedly is that art is what you, mrrealtime define art as. That’s fine. However I do not think that you are privileged to be the person who arbitrates what is art and what is not for the rest of humanity. If you are not intending to sound as if this is what you are doing, you may want to rethink the way you are wording your statements.
You don’t get to tell artists in what medium or how or for what purpose or with what inspiration they create. It would behoove you to get off your high horse, pronto. Smarter folk than you have smashed themselves on the rocks of trying to pen art in to their personal vision of it.
Christ on a cave-wall in Lascaux I don’t know why I always have to get into these defenses of modern art. It’s like a red flag to a bull and I should know better. I-don’t-know-much-about-art-but-I-know-what-it-aint’s just never seem to take a deep breath and broaden their goddamn minds.
No, I think you need to go to your library. Have you seen how many hundreds of thousands of scholarly works have been published on modern artists? If “Hundreds of thousands of scholarly works” is what it takes to convince you that something is worthwhile art, then you’re going to have to admit a whole bunch of modern stuff.
This is bullshit; you’re here to make blanket statements about all of modern art based on the very few pieces you’ve seen, which you apparently didn’t understand, and anyone who disagrees can just fuck off because “it’s just your opinion,” which you shared with the board for some unknown reason.
I don’t believe you. How many of those “experts” told you that all modern art is stupid and you don’t need to go look at any of it?
It’s a Catholic church, and I think the diocese would frown on him using donated money to fund his personal pet projects that have nothing to do with what the money was originally collected for, so no, I don’t think he would have dipped into the church’s regular budget for that
Art that is displayed where the public can see it is different from art that is funded with public funds. When I say that funding art is a violation of public trust, I mean that money collected from taxes is understood to be paying for public necessities. While I feel that art is important, I do not feel it is a necessity. Better for it to be paid for by private enterprise.
I never ONCE said modern art is “stupid” or whatever. I have strong feelings and opinions about many works of art, and they are all unique feelings. That is irrelevant to the point. I did say that good art has been produced since DaVinci, but I do not feel we have made the same progress artisitically over the past 500 years as we did the 500 years before DaVinci, at least based on what I had seen and was able to form an opinion on. That by no means is absolute, its just been in my experience and is utterly and completely an opinion, certainly changeable with continued research.
The point is, art that is funded by the government, corporation, etc. and kept in public view for all to see needs to be held to a higher standard, and those that make the decisions should be held accountable to the public and not be hiding behind bureaucratic or convaluted pretentious “explainations”.
I know nothing about this church, so I can’t say anything definitive, but I’d be surprised if he DIDN’T dip into the budget or at least wasn’t able to dip into the general funds.
If art is a necessity, then shouldn’t it be espoused by the arbiter of the general welfare: government? We do believe in schools and hospitals. Art is the non physical component of well-being.
Grog made horse’s face look like Andy Rooney. Mrs. Rooney could tell no difference. Mrs. Rooney looked at other half of horse. Mrs. Rooney could tell that half for sure.
Grog got to finish carving World Cup from buffalo chip.
I think they do receive tax dollars, and I’m not crazy about the idea of that. But, I think there is an inherent difference in spending Park District funds (at the local level) so that the general public can be exposed to great art, than it is for federal funds to go to supporting artists so that they don’t have to get a job to support themselves.
ahem,
“Do something good, like Michelangelo, or DaVinci…what? Too hard? Perhaps another career choice is for you.”
“Some puddle of urine in the middle of a white room IS NOT a progression from DaVinci, its an embarassment that is evidence of the effect of a blind bureacracy churning out funding for utter nonsense.”
“Its sad that a couple of idiots would rather spend hundreds of thousands of dollars wrapping some island in plastic instead of building a house for someone in New Orleans,”
“Originally Posted by percusson
What makes them idiots??
Uh, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars wrapping plastic around stuff? What more do you need??”
directly or indirectly…you are calling modern art “stupid or whatever”
