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91-year-old woman fills out crossword – turns out to be $116k artwork in museum
- kiba 10y agoIf a person can mistaken an artwork as not-art, is it really art?
- TuringTest 10y agoYes, as long as enough other persons identify it as such. Otherwise, there are fairly few things that we could call 'art', and modern art wouldn't exist at all.
- lbolla 10y agoActually, one could argue that something is "artistic" if it has the unique property that nobody at all finds it "artistic"... I recommend the works by Arthur Danto (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Danto https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Danto) for very interesting definitions of "art".
- mynewtb 10y agoIt definitely has now been transformed into art as a contemporary statement of utmost societal importance.
- TuringTest 10y agoFrom the article: > Museum director Eva Krause said she believed the damage could be easily repaired. If I were them, I wouldn't erase the words. I'd say the incident should increase the value of that piece, now that it has been widely reported.
- throwaway049 10y agoArt can take the form of an interactive installation. Perhaps that's what she thought was the case here.
- Freak_NL 10y agoThis strikes me as an interesting case of failing communication in museums and art galleries. How is a visitor supposed to tell if something is supposed to be interacted with or not? This is not much of a problem in any museum with antique art — the common mantra being „touch nothing; at all” — but with contemporary art the lines often get blurred. Some pieces do explicitly invite viewers to interact in some way, but how is a visitor supposed to tell which installation is interactive and which is merely using inviting descriptions?
- aninhumer 10y agoMoreover, one could consider that uncertainty itself to be part of the art.
- TuringTest 10y agoIMO museum curators should embrace that blurriness rather than fight it; it provides for interesting stories like the ones told in the article (I just love the party aftermath being cleaned up as rubbish); and that kind of misshappenstances at museums has become a trope all by itself. Science museums have certainly followed that route, and I think they're better for it; becoming interactive makes for better learning. For those really valuable objects that could be damaged by willing interaction, there should be some kind of physical protection anyway.
- Freak_NL 10y agoI'm not sure that the insurance companies would agree with that sentiment. :) Certainly, in such museums focussed on interactivity and a child-friendly experience, this is the (commendable) modus operandi, and it works exceptionally well. Contemporary artists and curators at modern art museums, however, seem to have been pushing for less physical demarcation around their exhibits. Ground covering installations are sometimes placed right in the path of visitors (who are often caught up in their imagination admiring some other piece of art), with no barrier or warning in place. With art installations that actually are intended to be interactive, I never feel comfortable interacting with them because of this air of ambiguity. Doesn't help that this may have very well been the artist's intent in the first place…
- heartsucker 10y agoI'm not much of an artist, but I dislike people defining what is and is not art. I feel like it often takes on a level of snobbery or elitism. "My child could have painted that!" in regards to a painting that sold for $1.5m. Sure, but they didn't, and some artist did. I like the definition of art as being: It's art if anyone has ever called it such.
- aninhumer 10y agoIndeed. When people talk about whether something "is art", they're usually using that phrasing as a proxy for discussing whether they think something has artistic merit. But as a result, more often than not people end up in pointless semantic arguments about the definition of art instead of discussing their opinions of the artistic merit itself. One may think a piece of art is worthless, but saying it's "not art" is rarely a useful way to express that.
- cLeEOGPw 10y agoFor me something is art if I would find it put near a dumpster and would think "Wow, who would throw this out? That's an amazing piece of work!". And by this definition, I can assure you, a large part of the modern "art" wouldn't qualify - when put in a dumpster, it would be indistinguishable from trash.
- aninhumer 10y agoSee this is what I mean. Why not say "For me a piece of art is worthwhile if..." instead of "For me something is art if..."? The latter leads to responses like "Oh no, it's still art because art means..." instead of "Oh but I really like X which doesn't fit your criteria, what do you think?"
- kiba 10y agoThere's art that's absolutely garbage to look at, and then there's art that's basically indistinguishable from trash. At that point, it's just stuff.
- sevenless 10y agoAt least she didn't encounter Marcel Duchamp's Fountain.
- TuringTest 10y agoMarcel, your in all our hearts.
- mynewtb 10y ago"With his reading and training pieces, the artist wished to increase the spectators' awareness of the systems, actions and rituals that we persist in and carry out every day without reflecting on them," Ms Torp wrote. Sounds like the old lady was the first one to actually be aware of the piece's call to action. :-)
- ghostDancer 10y agoIn fact it could be considered a success for the artwork , it fulfilled its purpose. And got the attention it looked for.
- cronjobber 10y agoPainted Words... "... late twentieth-century Modern Art was about to fulfill its destiny, which was: to become nothing less than Literature pure and simple" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Painted_Word https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Painted_Word
- TuringTest 10y agoWow, that's an insightful bit. I always try (and fail) to explain to my friends why Conceptual Art can at times advance the state of artistic inquiry, even if the material product is on itself quite unremarkable. Labeling it as "literature" may shift the frame of reference, and make people realize its value. I'll try that trick next time.
- moron4hire 10y agoInteractive art pieces like this are not uncommon. And there are way too many artists out there to be able to keep track of their style of work. It was clearly an honest mistake. They are pressing criminal charges "for insurance reasons", but they could have not, "for decent human being reasons".
- pluma 10y agoBeing a German myself, I think there's a joke in there somewhere about Germans and following orders.
- cm3 10y agoIf you think the people of Germany follow orders, then go to Tokio. You might be surprised at how much stricter a population can follow rules. Even visiting the neighbor Switzerland will reveal a more trust-based society where people follow common rules and shun those that don't. Take their garbage disposal system for instance. But you're right that the population of Germany is more disciplined compared to many other societies.
- pluma 10y agoIt's more of a matter of reputation and historical precedent (Nuremberg defense and all that) than an accurate representation of modern day behaviours, really. We're actually quite an unruly bunch compared to some other countries. It's true we have absolute no sense of humour, however.
- torkable 10y agocrossword puzzle art pick one