Fake paintings have hung in museums for decades. Does the discovery that they were fake invalidate the experience people had viewing them?
Conceptual art is conceptual. If it makes you experience emotions those emotions are valid interpretations of the art.
Besides – how do you know the Mona Lisa ISN’T a fake? :tinfoil:
This question makes me think that you’re not really following my argument at all, because it’s so nonsensical.
But, sure, playing along: if I went to an exhibit that promised I could see a real living woman from the early 16th century and there was just a painting yeah I might be put out.
To be clear, are you agreeing that it would be totally fine for the Louvre to replace the Mona Lisa with a fake, as long as someone visiting the museum couldn’t tell? They could paint “FAKE” on the back where you could only see it if it were stolen, but museum-goers wouldn’t know the difference.
Oh, I agree.
Given that art thefts are a thing, and a museum patron might get injured during one, is it irresponsible of most museums to not put out all fake art to reduce the chance of injury?
I think if you asked those people some of them would say it does. By revealed preference, it clearly matters to art collectors. People pay large amounts of money for authentic art and very little for known reproductions.
There are no museums that I know of that advertise reproductions, so whatever it is that people get out of art, it’s more than the arrangement of pigments on paper (or gun barrels in living rooms)
There is a not-totally-crazy theory that the real Mona Lisa was stolen years ago and a fake put in its place. It has been stolen several times, and it’s not 100% certain that the one in the museum now is the “real” one.
I would think that would be ill advised because of the risk that the secret would leak out, as this would damage the museum’s reputation and make people question everything they see there.
I think the real value in a museum is in the scientific and historical research of the artifacts it contains; their safekeeping for future generations; and making our shared heritage available for us all.
From that perspective, I think it is important that the real painting is kept, stored safely, and correctly identified so that it can be studied.
Whether the painting that people see in the halls of the museum is the real deal or a replica concerns me less, as long as it is clearly marked as such. I don’t worry too much about which parts of a fossil mount are original and which are casts, so long as this information is communicated to me; same thing with the painting.
More people are likely to visit the museum of the painting on display is real rather than a replica, so that’s a practical reason to show the real painting.
I don’t think a fake Mona Lisa is analogous to a fake gun in the Still Live art installation. If Still Live was designed with a fake gun, that doesn’t take anything away from it; the lie that the gun is loaded is PART of the art. A fake Still Live would be akin to setting up an art installation as similar as possible after the original artist takes his down, and claiming that it is the same work of art.
[Quote]Oh, I agree.
Given that art thefts are a thing, and a museum patron might get injured during one, is it irresponsible of most museums to not put out all fake art to reduce the chance of injury?
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That’s a stretch. I’m not saying Still Live shouldn’t use a real but unloaded gun because of the risk that someone will steal it, load it, and use it to commit crimes. Is it irresponsible to put art next to a window because of the risk someone might fall out of it? When a museum puts up a painting, the intended way for the audience to consume the art is to look at it. There is no risk of death or dismemberment in this.
The intended way to interact with Still Live is to sit in a chair with a gun pointed at you, having signed waivers claiming to release the artist of liability, having climbed past barbed wire, and having been informed that a loaded gun on a random timer is pointing at you. This is meant to inspire fear and thoughts about mortality.
This does not require actually introducing a real fear of death and dismemberment, and so if d&d results, I think you would be hard pressed to claim that the true threat of harm was an integral part of the art piece.
If the real Mona Lisa was under a curse, and 1 in 1,000 people who look at it will die the same day, and the museum had irrefutable proof that such a curse was real, but they displayed it anyways, then I would consider them morally odious for doing so.
(I would consider the “proper” response in that scenario to be revealing to the scientific community the existence of the curse so this phenomenon could be studied for the betterment of mankind; but if this couldn’t be done for whatever reason, the museum would be in the right to display a fake Mona Lisa in that case)
My point here is that once we start deciding based on something other than the actual risk, it gets pretty murky. It’s fairly straightforward to say that a risk of X deaths per hour of participation in an activity is an unacceptable risk. Once you start arguing over whether the risk is inherent or manufactured, it gets real squishy.
Putting a bunch of high value art in one place is a choice that results in a small but increased risk of death due to being a bystander in some art heist to people who come see it. That’s a foreseeable risk. Is it worth doing so to let people view important art? Probably.
If we think that people get just as much out of the experience if the art is fake then it seems like an unacceptable risk to actually put a bunch of expensive things and attract the potential danger of criminal activity. It’s an attractive nuisance.
Yes!
Undoubtedly, people do get exactly the same experience when viewing a real and a (sufficiently convincing) fake painting, so long as they don’t learn that the painting was fake. The fact that they may later place less value on the experience upon learning that the painting was fake doesn’t change that. Since museums want people to keep valuing viewing their art, they won’t put up fakes (or at least, they won’t tell people that they’ve put up fakes).
I disagree with this. Lots of the value of experience is the memory of it. Finding out it was fake diminishes the experience.
Sure, and since modern art galleries want to be considered cutting edge, they won’t put up fake murder chairs or people will eventually realize that they’re just bullshitters.
And they also won’t put up real murder chairs or they will go to jail for murder.
Since this now seems to be a discussion of the nature of art, it’s probably better suited to Cafe Society.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
" parts of the following reply may be considered inordinate … therefore, i have purposely ‘blurred’ that specific content … it may be viewed with a mouse-click. the url of the video also has been ‘cloaked’ … simply down-arrow to reveal the hyperlink.
all the same … edward-kienholz seemed to have a propensity for the macabre as well as perversion … including both symbolism as well as analogies:
“KIENHOLZ: Edward Kienholz and Nancy” (art exhibition)
there’s one spot in the above video [“my country 'tis of thee” (1991) 8:41] … where four ‘political figures’ are assembled tightly bunched together. from above, looking down, one probably would see a “rosetta” pattern. from different perspective, and from ground-level … the observer notices, with each of the four members of the ‘group’ … one of their hands extends forward … while the other hand extends rearward … grasping the ‘reproductive organ’ of the politician behind themself. and … what’s that streaming down each of the four figures … from head to foot? of course … this part is ironic … being labeled “my country 'tis of thee”. political satire … ha?
meanwhile … another piece of artwork, purposely positioned very near in proximity … is a mock “statue of liberty” … bearing a sign, perched on top of the torch … the sign reads “it’s not my fault”. what i noticed, is that “lady-liberty” resembles edward’s wife nancy, when she was younger … though, probably s’just my imagination.
if you look closely … and, i agree, we can only see what the camera-lens allows … you will notice vulgarity /indecency in every one of ed’s art pieces. my own personal opinion … some ‘art’ is not really art at all.
I’ll bet that waiver wouldn’t stop someone from being charged with manslaughter if the chair killed someone.
Agreed. From the perspective of the person putting on the art installation, I think there’s a difference between an activity where the risk of death is intended and a part of the experience, and a situation that has some inherent danger but which isn’t intentionally dangerous. Someone earlier made the analogy of a bungee jumping place that says “we cut 1 in 100 lines, to make things more exciting!”.
What if instead of 1 in 100 (clearly a much higher fail rate than traditional bungee jumping), they said “the risk of something going wrong is 1 in 100,000; therefore we will intentionally cut 1 in 1,000,000 bungee cords. We introduce some risk, but less than the risk inherent to bungee jumping.”
I would still think they’d be liable in that situation.
and i contend the mechanism that shoots the gun was disabled permanently. so, in order for someone sitting in the chair to be at risk (or, indeed, anyone at the gallery) … a person would need to break into the art-gallery at 3am … and exchange the disabled gun with a real gun. imo … the purpose behind the art was the ‘fear’’ factor … 'nuff said.
hmmm … wonder if honolulu_lulu’s question was answered to his satisfaction.
Glad I could be of even such limited help.
oh, god … only now i saw your previous post with the url … am sorry i overlooked it … guess i should be more observant next time … pls accept my apology, vesicant … 