You must be taking the p#ss!

[Baron Greenback]

I read an article about a man who has been fined for attacking a piece of art. The artwork is a urinal.

Now regardless of my views on what constitutes "art" what I found most shocking was that "In a December 2004 poll of art experts, the urinal was named the most influential modern art work of all time."

Come on! surely anything by Warhol has been more influential.

By the way this "art" is worth nearly $6m sing, I think I am in the wrong job.

Full story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4644032.stm

[Bremen]

That's just ridiculous. It's time to flush those "art critics" down a toilet. BG, want to create a 6-million-dollar porcelain crapper? It'll become priceless once we've used it to flush away the critics!

[Quasimodo]

Theses critics should just piss off.

[Bafana]

Should have just pissed in it...

Art is for people with too much time and too little life.

[bushbride]

Industrial design and the artists world...

Shall I play devils advocate for a millisecond?

Why is it that the day-to-day bodily functions remove them from 'art' and place them in the 'funny house'? Some of the world's greatest roman works are bathroom related... the Japanese have a culture of 'baths' and bathroom designs that is quite unique...

Art, industrial design, culture, a joke! what ever you want to call it - someone thought it was art and put a value to it...

[Plavt]

Should have just pissed in it...

Art is for people with too much time and too little life.

Poor Eric, how could you be so unkind?

Plavt.

[Wind In My Hair]

Art is for people with too much time and too little life.

online forums must be art then!

[Baron Greenback]

online forums must be art then! Laughing

Nice one WIMH, that makes us all artists then

BB I appreciate your point playing devil's advocate, but I was not dismissing that functional utilities can take a form of art (look at apple's products) my shock was how art critics could have called it the most influential modern art work of all time. There is the rub.

[Wind In My Hair]

thanks baron. come to think of it, this forum is rather aesthetic in look isn't it? not quite sure if the overall style is impressionist (lots of posts make fuzzy points) or modern (random splashes of opinions)

[bushbride]

I am sorry that you took offence to my posting Baron. It was not intended to critisize and take your topic off point. Though I see quite a similarity between the urinal and some of Warhols works.

[Bubbles]

True Baron, utilitarian commodities can be termed as art, but it's the degree of craftsmanship, or 'art' which goes into their making which is in question, isn't it?

There are those who think that even an accidentally dropped bit of poo on a paper, by an elephant, who then walks back across it ...is art. Or that a thrown brushful of poster paint on a left over Christmas card...is art.

Well, I suppose it could be deemed so, but let's get real here. If we put the label 'art' on something, shouldn't it be something someone has spent many years studying, or practising, to achieve? I'm not saying that it should be academic study, but long and hard love of the subject.

This would apply to the utility aspect too, because the application of technology to make an item deemed 'beautiful or artistic' should be appreciated too.

Then it can be termed art, even if it's not the sort of art WE like.

I just think it's all about effort and continuous work, not just a quick chucking of paint, or bits of old newspapers stuck on with glue. But, perhaps I'm wrong.

I guess we can say that ANYTHING is art. Eating is art, skin is art, living or dying is art.......because they all have their beauty, and it all comes from us, the living things....but I think if you want ART, then you should say, 'I am an artist, this is my medium, I have worked it for many years, I believe what I turn out are works of art...' Not say, 'I'm an artist because I found this old cardboard box outside 7/11 and I was sick on it, so now it's art'....sort of thing....

[Baron Greenback]

I am sorry that you took offence to my posting Baron

No need to apologise, no offence taken, sorry if my retort seemed too harsh

Bubbs your post reminded me of an episode of Sponge bob square pants. Sorry if I have degraded this conversation to the level of cartoons but it must have had a hidden message for the kids that I have only just realised.

Sponge bob decides to take an art class, taught by his eternal suffering friend & neighbour Squidward. SB has no idea about the value of learning art & just does his own thing which leads to amazing works of art, SWD is enraged & insists that SB learns the basics before he can truly understand 'art' more due to his own frustration that he is not as good an artist as SB.

SB is convinced that his art is no good & hides away leaving behind the sculpture he has made which is a statue of David. SWD is muttering to himself when an art collector arrives & gushes of the statue of David. SWD takes the credit & promises more works of the same standard.

SWD goes looking for SB & finds him hiding in the rubbish feeling very sorry for himself that he is not as good as SWD. After some persuasion SB comes back to the class & has vowed to study art, unfortunately what he now creates is exactly the same as SWD & of no value to the art dealer.

Anyway back to reality, what is a definition of 'art'? I would put forward that art is something that generates emotion, primarily in the viewer, but equally an expression from the artist. That's my art in a nutshell

[Wham]

Well, I suppose it could be deemed so, but let's get real here. If we put the label 'art' on something, shouldn't it be something someone has spent many years studying, or practising, to achieve? I'm not saying that it should be academic study, but long and hard love of the subject.
I just think it's all about effort and continuous work, not just a quick chucking of paint, or bits of old newspapers stuck on with glue. But, perhaps I'm wrong.

Yes bubs, you are wrong - very wrong. I never understood modern art until i saw a 20,000 year old cave drawing of a square. Imagine... Up till that day, there had been no square and then, voila - a square - an almost purely non natural image created in someone's imagination and then transferred out of the mind and onto the wall. It must have been a miraculous moment. Ever since then i am open minded to the idea that every once in a while there is something new that comes along - and it does not need to be the product of hard work etc. - just insight. And as for Marcel Duchamp's toilet - the joke was always - and still is - on you - and that is what still makes it funny.

[Wham]

Also - Barren, it seems to me that the writer of Sponge Bob and Marcel Duchamp have a lot in common. I found this on the web:

"Marcel Duchamp took aim at conventional notions of "high art," "culture" and commodities by presenting mass-produced objects such as a bottle rack or a snow shovel as sculpture. He coupled his visual assaults on "art" with verbal puns: he signed his Fountain, "R. Mutt," or "armut," German for poverty, and named a Mona Lisa defaced by a drawn-on goatee beard and moustache L.H.O.O.Q., a coarse French pun (when the letters are pronounced in French they sound like the phrase "elle a chaud au cul", meaning "she's got a hot ass")."

also - re the toilet - in his own words:

The creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative act.

— Marcel Duchamp

[bushbride]

One of the greatest works of the modern world is no more than a splattering of paint on Canvas - Jackson Pollack’s 'Blue Polls'. It received the same criticism when it was first sold i.e. 'how could it be worth $13.4 million dollars? my child could have throw paint at a wall and produced the same effect'

In Pollack’s world - art is colour and texture, raw passion of working the paint into a canvas

For Worhol - art is an expression of pop culture and advertising by reproducing items from a time period. That is, tracing a can of tomatoes on multiple canvases and arranging them on a wall.

In the case of Duchamp - art is to make a point that shocks the viewer. It is political, it mocks society, its pushes a boundary.

To me, art is many things - it is interpretation, it is an emotional reaction, it is a reflection on a point in time, it is technique (colour and tone), it is a reflection on culture, insight, it is a political statement...

But, ultimately, it is a dollar sign - someone is willing to pay money for the pleasure of viewing it…

...this goes right back to the renaissance – the wealthy paid for Michelangelo, Di Vinci etc to create artworks for them – hence art is art when someone puts a $ sign.

Whether it is good or not, is open to interpretation