Cleaning Woman destroys Aaaaarrrrtttt

[Murph]

A putzfrau cleaned away some Aaaaaaarrrrrrttttt that someone paid $1.1 million for: Oops! Cleaner Scrubs Away $1.1M Artwork - San Antonio & Texas News Story - KSAT San Antonio This goes to show once again that Murphy's Theory of Art holds. The theory is; If self absorbed, self abusing ART critics like the Art, then it is crap that they are trying to sell someone for about a thousand times what it is worth. And if the ART has to be explained, then it is crap. Art, should speak to the person, and even if the comment is: "Pretty picture", then it is Art. But if you have to explain that a black square of metal with a white dot on it means "Mans inhumanity to man", or someone slinging paint on a canvas means "lobotomy #6", then is it Aaaaaaaaarrrrrttttt (rimes with fart), and is crap. I saw an example of this in the Smithsonian Modern Art wing years ago where two learned "critics" were literally oozing over a Red square with a small yellow strip on the right half, and it was titled something or other, cannot recall, but it was one of those titles where you go "huh?"

These learned critics were gassing on about the "form", the "dynamic tension", "the shifting of the paradigm in art towards a new meaning", etc, etc. I just had to comment, being young, brash, and somewhat arrogant on my own. After telling them it was just a red square with a yellow line, I was lambasted as a "heathen", "I had no soul", and "I was obviously incapable of appreciating the subtle shade of meaning". I just left shaking my head, with my opinion of Aaaaaaaarrrrrrttttt and Aaaaaaarrrrrrrttttt Critics firmly set.

Good Art does not need to be explained, you understand it, and know it is Art.

[d2creative]

If it gets you that worked up, it is most definitely Art.

[Murph]

Actually it makes me regret that I was not an Art Studio owner where I could sell overpriced crap to suckers and make a really nice living on it. But I could not do that because I know who both my parents are.

Originally Posted by d2creative

If it gets you that worked up, it is most definitely Art.

[Howard Barlow]

I take this as a timely warning. I was just about to spend a couple of million on an art piece. No doubt, I would have hired a cleaning woman to tidy up and she would ruin it. Wow! I feel like I just dodged a bullet!

[auddii]

Yeah, one of my "favorite" pieces at the Guggenheim many years ago was a canvas that someone had put a piece of tape down, then painted the rest of the canvas slightly off-white. Remove the tape, and tada! Art! Really?

[Howard Barlow]

My thought on such items...I mean art pieces, is... "I didn't really have an idea, so I did this."

[ptrd]

I agree, if you need a 10 page essay or have to explain it to the masses, then it's not art, it's great salesmanship.

[Murph]

Amen to that!

Originally Posted by ptrd

I agree, if you need a 10 page essay or have to explain it to the masses, then it's not art, it's great salesmanship.

[Murph]

Art:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi..._Kanagawa2.jpg

Crap:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi..._5%2C_1948.jpg

Art:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...9zanne_115.jpg

Crap:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ion-Libido.jpg

Art:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...nake_River.jpg

Crap:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...tSaintJean.jpg

Art:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi.../2/21/Fuji.jpg

[brewercm]

Too funny.

Originally Posted by Murph

Art:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi..._Kanagawa2.jpg

Crap:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi..._5%2C_1948.jpg

Art:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...9zanne_115.jpg

Crap:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ion-Libido.jpg

Art:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...nake_River.jpg

Crap:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...tSaintJean.jpg

Art:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi.../2/21/Fuji.jpg

[snydersnapshots]

Brings to mind a story about Ace Powell, a Montana artist who is in the same league with Russell and Remington. Seems Ace was snowed in for a few days. With nothing else to do, he painted, wiping his brushes on a spare canvas to clean them. Months later in his gallery, with all this wonderful western art worth many thousands of dollars, a woman spotted the canvas he'd cleaned his brushes on and wanted to buy it!

One has to wonder how many of those "artists" are laughing their way to the bank. Kind of makes me want to go buy an arc welder, some scrap metal, and a cheesy french beret and go find an art exhibition...

[d2creative]

Woah, the massive amounts of irony in this thread just keeps building! SO awesome.

And ya gotta love the dirty canvas story.
I mean how many times have photographers ended up with something like a completely accidental shot that ended up being a huge hit? I'm sure way more than we/they would like to admit. Oh no, I MEANT to do that. Ya, right.

[Steve Balderrama]

who are any of you to judge the artists intentions? You don't have to like it, but it doesn't mean that the artist was simply trying to cash in.

Much modern art is an exploration. I suspect many of you would consider Carlos Cruz Diaz to be crap because all he did was explore the way color mixes in various ways. However, I would consider his huge exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston recently to be one of the most interesting shows I've seen. Many people look at Picasso's later work and think he can't draw because of the cubist forms, when in fact he was quite the good draftsman and painter in a more traditional sense in his early years. Jackson Pollock was a a fine representational artist before moving into surrealism and pure abstraction.

Mark Rothko painted huge canvases of nearly but not quite solid dark color to be placed in the Rothko chapel here in Houston. I didn't really "get" these paintings until I realized that they were all designed not only to work as a collection of canvases rather than a single one, but also to work in the space itself, which Rothko designed, to create a sense of quiet serenity. The work in that case is not so much the canvases, its the entire building and it's contents, and the overall feeling it generates when you simply sit inside.

[Howard Barlow]

It isn't art, until I say it's art.

[d2creative]

Originally Posted by Steve Balderrama

The work in that case is not so much the canvases, its the entire building and it's contents, and the overall feeling it generates when you simply sit inside.

See, there ya go. You had to explain it.
So according to the OP it's not art. Fact.