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Far as much discussion as there is here about how this was a colossal waste of time and resources, I’d be curious how many people here work for a company that’s

by dereg 4y ago

Far as much discussion as there is here about how this was a colossal waste of time and resources, I’d be curious how many people here work for a company that’s net profitable. It’s very easy to be moralistic about other peoples money, especially when it comes to art. However, I wonder if it’s a bit hypocritical.

gizmo385 4y ago
While I agree with the larger point you're making here, asking whether or not the company people are working for is net profitable is a poor counter here, specifically because it centers "meaning" purely around monetary amount. There is value to be derived and created that has nothing to do with the dollar amount that ends up in your's or someone else's bank account at the end of the day.
chongli 4y ago
A lot of people feel this way about modern art in general. At some point along the way, art stopped being about trying to bring beauty and happiness and clarity into the human condition. Since then, art has become a pure signalling death spiral. What passes as “good art” these days is completely relegated to the art community and utterly unintelligible to regular people. Is there any wonder that people dismiss it as a waste of resources? It’s every bit as bad as NFTs, academic turf wars, and Twitter purity spirals [1]. It’s yet another warning sign of the impending decline of civilization, if Toynbee’s thesis is to be believed. [1] https://unherd.com/2020/01/cast-out-how-knitting-fell-into-a-purity-spiral/ https://unherd.com/2020/01/cast-out-how-knitting-fell-into-a...
- Ancapistani 4y ago
  > At some point along the way, art stopped being about trying to bring beauty and happiness and clarity into the human condition I’m no art critic, but you’ve only described one purpose of art as far as I can see. Art is about communicating emotion. Some art attempts to make you feel “happiness and clarity into the human condition”, sure - but other works make you feel all kinds of things, including horror in disillusionment. I think this is why I see some value in at least the idea of Dada, while others look at it and see nothing worthwhile. In fact, in that case, the reaction of those people is itself part of the installation. I remember coming to that conclusion in a city museum, where someone had taken a (new, obviously) toilet bowl and installed it as a water fountain. I had never heard of Duchamp at the time, but I immediately felt like I was seeing something that was, in fact, “art”. I came away from it thinking things like “we all have preconditions that color how we see the world”, “objects with common uses can fit other uses”, “just because something fits a purpose, doesn’t mean it’s a good choice”, “people are pretentious for scoffing at this without even considering why it was created”, etc. The point is, it caused me to feel things, and think about things that I wouldn’t have otherwise considered. My youngest child at the time was probably 3 or 4, and I remember her sitting in a stroller and looking at me like horns had sprouted from my head when I took a drink from it. I filled one of her sippy cups from it, and she refused to drink it. On one hand - it was just a porcelain fixture with municipal water piped into it, like every other fountain that we’d ever used. On the other, the mere fact that it looked like something that she associated with human waste meant that she was unwilling to consider that it was clean. The way other people looked at me when I drank from it carried between amusement, shock, and outright disgust. At that point the bystanders became the “art”. Hell, my actions became the art when I drank from it. A couple of others followed, some shook their heads, etc. So… yeah. I got wordy there, but from my perspective I’d say that anything that evokes emotions in others is in fact art.
- crooked-v 4y ago
  > At some point along the way, art stopped being about trying to bring beauty and happiness and clarity into the human condition. I suggest dating that at around 19 BC, when Virgil created the absolute masterpiece that is the Aeneid, probably the greatest work of Latin literature that has ever existed... as a nationalist propaganda piece designed to justify the existence of the newly-formed empire and to retroactively proclaim the divine and heroic heritage of the Roman emperor of the time.
  - chongli 4y ago
    Sure, and one might also quibble and say that Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling as a piece of pro-Christian propaganda. And yet there is some difference between those gorgeous frescos and a banana duct-taped to a plain wall that goes much deeper than the time and effort they took to create. Whatever his reasons, Michelangelo created something which awes and inspires millions of people every year, regardless of religious affiliation or belief. Cattelan, on the other hand, has succeeded only in reminding the public how utterly irrelevant modern art has become: a lame joke for people with too much money and too little taste.
    - Invictus0 4y ago
      Just wondering, how would you compare this work to the Nazca Lines or Stonehenge? To me it seems like a modern take on the both of them. Does all art have to be pretty paintings?
      - chongli 4y ago
        No, not all art has to be paintings. But I do believe that all art is rooted in an aesthetics. This work (Michael Heizer's) is a lot more beautiful and interesting than typical modern art (such as Cattelan's Comedian). I would even go so far as to call it an anachronism: it has all of the sincerity and none of the cynicism. My original comment was about modern art in general. The more I look at Michael's work, the less I think my previous take applies to it. I think it's an exception to the rule, however.
- morelisp 4y ago
  Were it in German and not English, this comment would be completely indistinguishable from Nazi propaganda.
  - ohCh6zos 4y ago
    The Nazis were also anti-smoking. It stands to reason the problem with the Nazis is related to the war and crimes against humanity and not every stance they took on every issue.
    - morelisp 4y ago
      Most people include the classification and treatment of entartete Kunst as part of the Nazi crimes against humanity.
- mejutoco 4y ago
  > At some point along the way, art stopped being about trying to bring beauty and happiness and clarity into the human condition. I read many times that this happened after the 2 world wars. At least as far as western art is concerned.
dade_ 4y ago
Should we manage to annihilator ourselves with nuclear weapons, it will be proof that we didn’t expend all our resources on killing each other. Over 13,000 nuclear warheads exist today and nothing is more crazy than that.

by dereg 4y ago

gizmo385 4y ago

While I agree with the larger point you're making here, asking whether or not the company people are working for is net profitable is a poor counter here, specifically because it centers "meaning" purely around monetary amount. There is value to be derived and created that has nothing to do with the dollar amount that ends up in your's or someone else's bank account at the end of the day.

chongli 4y ago

A lot of people feel this way about modern art in general. At some point along the way, art stopped being about trying to bring beauty and happiness and clarity into the human condition. Since then, art has become a pure signalling death spiral. What passes as “good art” these days is completely relegated to the art community and utterly unintelligible to regular people. Is there any wonder that people dismiss it as a waste of resources? It’s every bit as bad as NFTs, academic turf wars, and Twitter purity spirals [1]. It’s yet another warning sign of the impending decline of civilization, if Toynbee’s thesis is to be believed. [1] https://unherd.com/2020/01/cast-out-how-knitting-fell-into-a-purity-spiral/ https://unherd.com/2020/01/cast-out-how-knitting-fell-into-a...

Ancapistani 4y ago
> At some point along the way, art stopped being about trying to bring beauty and happiness and clarity into the human condition I’m no art critic, but you’ve only described one purpose of art as far as I can see. Art is about communicating emotion. Some art attempts to make you feel “happiness and clarity into the human condition”, sure - but other works make you feel all kinds of things, including horror in disillusionment. I think this is why I see some value in at least the idea of Dada, while others look at it and see nothing worthwhile. In fact, in that case, the reaction of those people is itself part of the installation. I remember coming to that conclusion in a city museum, where someone had taken a (new, obviously) toilet bowl and installed it as a water fountain. I had never heard of Duchamp at the time, but I immediately felt like I was seeing something that was, in fact, “art”. I came away from it thinking things like “we all have preconditions that color how we see the world”, “objects with common uses can fit other uses”, “just because something fits a purpose, doesn’t mean it’s a good choice”, “people are pretentious for scoffing at this without even considering why it was created”, etc. The point is, it caused me to feel things, and think about things that I wouldn’t have otherwise considered. My youngest child at the time was probably 3 or 4, and I remember her sitting in a stroller and looking at me like horns had sprouted from my head when I took a drink from it. I filled one of her sippy cups from it, and she refused to drink it. On one hand - it was just a porcelain fixture with municipal water piped into it, like every other fountain that we’d ever used. On the other, the mere fact that it looked like something that she associated with human waste meant that she was unwilling to consider that it was clean. The way other people looked at me when I drank from it carried between amusement, shock, and outright disgust. At that point the bystanders became the “art”. Hell, my actions became the art when I drank from it. A couple of others followed, some shook their heads, etc. So… yeah. I got wordy there, but from my perspective I’d say that anything that evokes emotions in others is in fact art.
crooked-v 4y ago
> At some point along the way, art stopped being about trying to bring beauty and happiness and clarity into the human condition. I suggest dating that at around 19 BC, when Virgil created the absolute masterpiece that is the Aeneid, probably the greatest work of Latin literature that has ever existed... as a nationalist propaganda piece designed to justify the existence of the newly-formed empire and to retroactively proclaim the divine and heroic heritage of the Roman emperor of the time.
- chongli 4y ago
  Sure, and one might also quibble and say that Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling as a piece of pro-Christian propaganda. And yet there is some difference between those gorgeous frescos and a banana duct-taped to a plain wall that goes much deeper than the time and effort they took to create. Whatever his reasons, Michelangelo created something which awes and inspires millions of people every year, regardless of religious affiliation or belief. Cattelan, on the other hand, has succeeded only in reminding the public how utterly irrelevant modern art has become: a lame joke for people with too much money and too little taste.
  - Invictus0 4y ago
    Just wondering, how would you compare this work to the Nazca Lines or Stonehenge? To me it seems like a modern take on the both of them. Does all art have to be pretty paintings?
    - chongli 4y ago
      No, not all art has to be paintings. But I do believe that all art is rooted in an aesthetics. This work (Michael Heizer's) is a lot more beautiful and interesting than typical modern art (such as Cattelan's Comedian). I would even go so far as to call it an anachronism: it has all of the sincerity and none of the cynicism. My original comment was about modern art in general. The more I look at Michael's work, the less I think my previous take applies to it. I think it's an exception to the rule, however.
morelisp 4y ago
Were it in German and not English, this comment would be completely indistinguishable from Nazi propaganda.
- ohCh6zos 4y ago
  The Nazis were also anti-smoking. It stands to reason the problem with the Nazis is related to the war and crimes against humanity and not every stance they took on every issue.
  - morelisp 4y ago
    Most people include the classification and treatment of entartete Kunst as part of the Nazi crimes against humanity.
mejutoco 4y ago
> At some point along the way, art stopped being about trying to bring beauty and happiness and clarity into the human condition. I read many times that this happened after the 2 world wars. At least as far as western art is concerned.

dade_ 4y ago

Should we manage to annihilator ourselves with nuclear weapons, it will be proof that we didn’t expend all our resources on killing each other. Over 13,000 nuclear warheads exist today and nothing is more crazy than that.