4 ms·
Very rarely is a picture or painting interesting just by looking at it, but the story behind an image is much harder to sell on the street. As to "people don't
by quchen 13y ago
Very rarely is a picture or painting interesting just by looking at it, but the story behind an image is much harder to sell on the street. As to "people don't recognize art when they see it" type of posts, there are plenty of Banksys out there you've never heard of. In addition to that, what would the appropriate reaction have been according to the poster? People fast-food shopping art at a street corner, like that's any better?
- vinceguidry 13y agoReminds me of that time when Joshua Bell played in a subway with an incredibly expensive violin. They showed people just walking past, not knowing at all what they're missing. When I saw that I thought, "what the hell is he trying to prove?" You always need to adapt your art to the medium and provide contrast. To do otherwise is to argue against reality. Your average run-of-the-mill street performer is always going to get more attention than Joshua Bell will on the street.
- fennecfoxen 13y agoI thought the real lesson of that episode was "most people on the DC metro in the early morning hours are probably commuters in a bit of a rush to get to work on time." Perhaps an evening concert in the same venue would have been more productive...
- Rimpinths 13y agoGene Weingarten of the Washington Post set this up and wrote a Pulitzer Prize winning article about it. It's a great article, "Pearls Before Breakfast": http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04...
- yetanotherphd 13y agoWow, that is one hell of a smug article. >As metro stations go, L'Enfant Plaza is more plebeian than most.
- reubenmorais 13y agoAt least give the author the benefit of the doubt. I've never lived anywhere near Washington D.C. but a quick search reveals the station is anything but "plebeian": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27Enfant_Plaza_%28WMATA_station%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27Enfant_Plaza_%28WMATA_stat... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwest_Federal_Center,_Washington,_D.C https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwest_Federal_Center,_Wash.... In other words: woosh.
- yetanotherphd 13y agoDid you read the article? Is the smug tone some kind of joke that I'm not getting? Because based on my own reading the author really does judge the commuters for not stopping, and the use of "plebeian" was not in jest. I think you're going out of your way to sound sophisticated by pretending you "get it".
- mherdeg 13y agoTry not to let this article turn you off Weingarten's work — I think this story was meant to be a bit "fun". For something more serious, check out Weingarten's thought-provoking feature piece about dead children — "Fatal Distraction", http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2009-03-08/news/36840402_1_courtroom-tissue-class-trip http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2009-03-08/news/36840402_... . His story does a good job of (1) telling stories about tragic accidents where children were forgotten in the back of cars and died; (2) showing that the key factor in whether or not the parents were prosecuted was not the facts of the situation but instead which prosecutor's district the deaths occurred in; (3) finding a surprising explanation for the increase in these accidents — rear-facing car seats. Given the subject matter, it's neither smug nor glib, and so you might prefer it to his subway violin story.
- hkmurakami 13y agoHmm I had heard that the $20/hour or so he made was significantly more than what the average street performer would have gotten though? So even the commuters in a rush could tell that he was something.