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Solo Ratpup
Citizen
Username: Flamecoach
Post Number: 2
Registered: 9-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, February 17, 2005 - 8:00 pm: | 
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Just in case you missed it, the latest turmoil in the art world happened this week when one of those "dogs playing poker" paintings sold for $590,000. Compare with Christo's Central Park for $20 million. Which seems like a better deal to you?
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/dogs_playing_poker |
themp
Supporter
Username: Themp
Post Number: 1512
Registered: 12-2001
| | Posted on Friday, February 18, 2005 - 1:22 pm: |
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I see them as unrelated. |
Tom Reingold
Supporter
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 5581
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Friday, February 18, 2005 - 6:20 pm: |
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I see the Gates as a better value, because more people get to see it. I think the price divided by the patrons is lower for the Gates.
I understand that the city expects to get more than its money back on this deal. A relative of mine could not get a hotel room for the weekend!
This is a great story of arts patronage. |
Dave
Moderator
Username: Dave
Post Number: 5325
Registered: 4-1998
| | Posted on Friday, February 18, 2005 - 11:14 pm: |
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I would pay $21 million to have those stupid poker-playing dog paintings destroyed. |
jeffl
Supporter
Username: Jeffl
Post Number: 990
Registered: 8-2001
| | Posted on Sunday, February 20, 2005 - 8:38 am: |
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Just imagine if all that fabric was poker playing dogs. |
jacman
Citizen
Username: Jacman
Post Number: 270
Registered: 6-2002
| | Posted on Sunday, February 20, 2005 - 4:27 pm: |
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The total cost of The Gates is being borne by Christo and Jeanne-Claude. It is costing the taxpayer zero; in fact, it's a net gain for the taxpayer because all proceeds from the sale of The Gates-related t-shirts, posters, key chains, etc. is going to the Central Park Conservancy.
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notehead
Supporter
Username: Notehead
Post Number: 2089
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Monday, February 21, 2005 - 12:24 am: |
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Went to see 'em yesterday. (The gates, not the dogs.) Somebody asked the inevitable question, "What does it all mean?" I said, "It means if you do something on a large enough scale, people will make a humongous deal out of it, no matter what it is."
Later, it ocurred to me that, if you are going to do a "sculpture" on that kind of scale, you are certainly a bit limited in the form it can take. Couldn't exactly make a Central Park-sized statue out of marble, could you? Still, I kind of wonder if Christo & Co. aren't laughing their butts off. |
Tom Reingold
Supporter
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 5599
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Monday, February 21, 2005 - 6:51 pm: |
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But your answer was shallow because the question was. "What does it mean" doesn't always lead to a useful answer. There is a story, perhaps apocryphal, about Beethoven playing his latest sonata. Someone asked him what it meant, so he went back to the piano and played it again. The point being the meaning is the message itself, and it is not necessarily intended for dissection. |
notehead
Supporter
Username: Notehead
Post Number: 2097
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 22, 2005 - 5:09 pm: |
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I completely see your point, Tom. I'm an artist, myself. But the richness of a Beethoven sonata is evident, I think, even to unschooled listeners. IMHO, "The Gates" is just silly. It doesn't offer the wackiness or juxtaposition or feeling of "statement" of other Christo projects. It's a massive work completely devoid of nuance, technique, or emotional position. Yes, it is a manipulation of experience, but better to call it "decoration" than "art". You can cite Rothko or other artists who create minimal pieces, but somehow this particular Christo installation doesn't seem to qualify in my mind as art. The only thing it's really got going for it is the scale. But hey, he paid for it, and it is drawing hordes of visitors, so I ain't complaining. |
Tom Reingold
Supporter
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 5624
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 22, 2005 - 5:29 pm: |
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Notehead, your words are a telltale sign that time will be kind to this work and call it a revolutionary piece. To question something as art is overreaching. Sounds like you just don't like it. If it doesn't serve a function (e.g. transporting or feeding people) other than some people's enjoyment, it's art. At least, that's my definition of art. |
ML
Supporter
Username: Ml1
Post Number: 2295
Registered: 5-2002
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 22, 2005 - 5:31 pm: |
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Are you snobs looking down on the poker playing dogs?
C'mon, those paintings have given joy to millions! I laugh every time I see them. At $590K they're a bargain. It works out to pennies per laugh.
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Catastrophe
Citizen
Username: Cat
Post Number: 62
Registered: 6-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 22, 2005 - 5:32 pm: |
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Even a penny is too much to pay for a picture of a bunch of mutts!
feh!
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flugermongers
Citizen
Username: Flugermongers
Post Number: 380
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 22, 2005 - 7:50 pm: |
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The only thing I've heard that Christo and Jeanne-Claude explained besides a sort of, it-means-what-you-think-it-does-take-what-you-will-from-it approach... I have heard it explained that when Olmstead and (what's the other guy's name?) built the park, they made it swirly and all over the place to counteract the grid of the city -- so the frames of the gates are the grid of the city, and the flow of the fabric represents the park.
I have a question -- how come I keep hearing The Gates only related to Christo? I hear "Christo's Gates" and similar stuff on the news, and when people are talking. Isn't Jeanne-Claude just as much a part of it?
I think this "exhibit" is really cool. I think that the project, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, and their thoughts and seriousness on the project are all very pretentious and somewhat stupid, but it still remains a very awesome experience to walk through the gates. Meaning, it is cool that something like this was thought of, and done, and I really think is amazing -- but it isn't something to be so acclaimed as absolute brilliance and taken so seriously that there are certain guidelines to follow to think about it. Ha, I don't know how to explain what I'm trying to say.
On their site, it says:
"All the materials from Christo and Jeanne-Claude's artworks are industrially recycled. This makes sure relics are not scattered about the place, looking into the past.”
This is preceded with a whole diatribe about how the individual gates won’t be sold because it is all of them together that is one work of art. I view that as pretentious, even though awesome.
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Bettina
Citizen
Username: Bettina
Post Number: 30
Registered: 8-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, February 24, 2005 - 10:23 am: |
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Just curious, what the heck is nuance, technique and emotional position?
I thought the gates were lovely, fun and a great experience to walk through with thousands of other strangers on a beautiful winter afternoon. |
patty
Citizen
Username: Patty
Post Number: 458
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Friday, February 25, 2005 - 1:10 am: |
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My reflection on the trendiness of 'have you been yet?' (and as long as people enjoy, I figure, so what...) was elevated by a friend (who's 'been') who had an equally generous review. His answer to my "So, how actually saffron is everything?" was "It's really more Hazmat than anything else." A fine laugh was had all round. |
Duncan
Supporter
Username: Duncanrogers
Post Number: 3926
Registered: 12-2001
| | Posted on Friday, February 25, 2005 - 2:48 pm: |
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What I like best about them (not having seen them yet, tomorrow morning) is that the last time everyone in NYC was looking and talking about the same thing it was two enormous towers crumbling at our feet. For no other reason this is a good and healing thing.
Tom, your definition of Art is, uh how to put this gently, dead wrong.
quote:If it doesn't serve a function other than some people's enjoyment, its art.
no no no no no and again no.
Art is very definately something. It is, as laid out by Britannica
quote:the use of skill and imagination in the creation of aesthetic objects, environments, or experiences that can be shared with others"
Art and artists by definition don't have one. Least not the way we think they should or do. The things we hold in highest esteem in the greatest galleries in the world were once mostly functional. I'm going wayyyyy back here. By the time commissioned art became a thing there was a definition related to Platonic perfection and other such crapola. But to say that art is something that doesn't have a function is to deny the Mission their furniture, Frank Lloyd Wright his windows and many others their own work. You might argue that the aforementioned are more "crafts" than "art". But it wouldn't float.
Tolstoy had some fun thoughts on it calling it the truest form of intercourse between man and man, paraphrasing obviously. But his more astute observation I will directly quote..
quote:Every work of art causes the receiver to enter into a certain kind of relationship both with him who produced, or is producing, the art, and with all those who, simultaneously, previously, or subsequently, receive the same artistic impression.
This is my favorite take on the definition of art
quote:Art serves the preservation and survival of a person's consciousness (or mind or self), as opposed to the preservation and survival of a person's body or material nature
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Tom Reingold
Supporter
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 5649
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Friday, February 25, 2005 - 2:51 pm: |
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Duncan, thank you for all that food for thought. So art can be functional. But if something is aesthetic and not functional, can it be anything other than art? |
Soda
Supporter
Username: Soda
Post Number: 2656
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Friday, February 25, 2005 - 5:06 pm: |
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You know how sometimes you're walking around and you KNOW that you've been forgetting something, but just can't think of what it is? Well, since I arrived here yesterday for my little visit with The Oracle, I've had this nagging feeling that simply wouldn't quit. Of course, I'd rather go to sleep by the pool at noon without sunscreen than ask my host to clue me in. You know how he can get... "Ooooh, look who needs help remembering something from the other day! Ooooh, please tell me, oh great Oracle, 'cause my puny little brain is fried!" No thank you.
Anyhow, I had just hopped into the hammock swing after swimming a few laps (It's only 76 degrees and cloudy -- too cool for a dip, really, but I was SO tense, and the water's 30 degrees warmer, so...), when it hit me. Thank G-d! Man, I cannot believe how unfocused I've been lately. I meant to post this a week ago:
I swear, no more posting till I'm back in SOMA. I've got geriatrics drooling all over me, waiting to beat me at shuffleboard. (Heh-heh!)
-s.
BTW: The Gates come down this weekend. YAY! |
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