Art mistaken for trash; thrown out

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DPDarkPrimus
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Art mistaken for trash; thrown out

Post by DPDarkPrimus »

A CLEANER at a top art gallery BINNED a bizarre exhibit she mistook for rubbish.

The piece — made from cardboard and paper and wrapped in a plastic see-through binliner — looked just like a sack of litter.

So the woman diligently hurled it in a rubbish crusher and it was destroyed.

She had no idea it was all part of an “installation” made by a German artist and carefully displayed on the floor at London’s Tate Britain.

Gustav Metzger’s work was appropriately called First Public Demonstration Of Autodestructive Art.

It stood proudly in the gallery’s prestigious Art And The Sixties display.

But to the Mrs Mopp on her rounds it was trash already bagged up to be thrown out.

The dismayed 78-year-old artist quickly had to create a replacement.

And he has been offered compensation by gallery bosses, who refused to say what the exhibit was worth.
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Make sure to check the link to see the picture of the "art". I bolded my favorite part of the articles.
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Stormbringer
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Post by Stormbringer »

Yeah, I'd have tossed it too (whether I knew or not). That's not art, it's crap left over from making art.
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Post by CaptainChewbacca »

Is anyone else amused that name of the cleaner-lady was Mrs. Mopp?
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Admiral Valdemar
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Post by Admiral Valdemar »

CaptainChewbacca wrote:Is anyone else amused that name of the cleaner-lady was Mrs. Mopp?
Maybe she's the original cleaning lady...

As for that "art", well, best gallery for it would be a scrapheap.
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Post by Perinquus »

I love this! Proof positive what utter trash (pun intended) passes for art these days.

I have my own theories as to why this is. There was a time when "fine" art was very popular. The works of the Old Masters were admired by virtually everyone when they were painted. The works of the Impressionists were widely admired by the general public during the 19th century, when the impressionist movement was current.

And this was the problem.

You see, the art world is absolutely full of elitist snobs (not just visual either, you also find them in music, literature, etc.), and, well, there was just something wrong if this stuff appealed to the dirty, unwashed masses. So you had cubism, expressionism, and so on, and with each new avante garde style or school, art becomes nuttier and nuttier, until you get crap like this. The less the general public likes it, the more it pleases the art snobs. If Joe Sixpack says it's an ugly piece of shit, then the art snobs can praise it as high art, talk about its symbolism, and congratulate themselves on their superior insight, and appreciation of true artistic talent.

But the delicious irony of all this is that the art snobs are fooling themselves as much as they are trying to fool everyone else. They don't understand this crap any better than anyone else does; they just pretend to. And I think many of them can actually convince themselves they do understand this shit. When I was living in Ireland, I read a humorous article in the Irish times about an English suburbanite dad who dabbled in oil painting as a hobby. He had a canvas all prepared, when his wife sent their four year old to come and get him for something. While he was away seeing what the mrs. wanted his little girl went behind him and started finger painting on his canvas. The result was a mess that looked not all that unlike a Jackson Pollack painting. As a lark, the man took the kid's "art" and entered it into a local art show. It took first prize, with the critics cooing and rhapsodizing about the artists use of color, the composition, etc. And it was a little kid doodling on a canvas, nothing more.

Art critics today are so full of shit it isn't even funny.
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Post by Alyrium Denryle »

That...sht... is not art. It is trah...sorry, but...no...
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Post by neoolong »

I think I threw that away too.

Damn it, forget getting a job, I should just be an artist.
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Post by Durandal »

Oh how incredibly apt.
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Post by Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi »

Being an artist must be easy given the crap that qualifies as art nowadays, but there has to be a catch of some sort. I'm imagining it's that most people lack the ability to justify their "art" with some explanation about how it's symbolic of the valiant struggle of hipsters to get the price of coffee at the local Starbucks below $4.00 a cup.
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Post by Admiral Valdemar »

There's an episode of Spaced which deals with abstract artists perfectly, though one character in the series is a constant piss-take on arts students in general.
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Post by Gandalf »

It would be great if this artist was just staging some big practical joke, getting the art elite to ramble on about the meaning. Then at the last moment he admits it was actually just his garbage.
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Post by Captain Cyran »

Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi wrote:Being an artist must be easy given the crap that qualifies as art nowadays, but there has to be a catch of some sort. I'm imagining it's that most people lack the ability to justify their "art" with some explanation about how it's symbolic of the valiant struggle of hipsters to get the price of coffee at the local Starbucks below $4.00 a cup.
It has more to do with the fact that shit like that doesn't sell. My sister and her husband are both artist, he had a show with a whole bunch of very good pieces. I think, 4 or 5 of the 12 pieces for sale were sold. Simply put 99% of artists do not survive on their art, they survive by getting jobs teaching about art, or finding a job flipping burgers or something.
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Post by Death from the Sea »

if that sack of crap is art, then I have a masterpiece sitting in the kitchen garbage can.....
Gandalf wrote:It would be great if this artist was just staging some big practical joke, getting the art elite to ramble on about the meaning. Then at the last moment he admits it was actually just his garbage.
that would be funny. especially since they offered to compensate him for it. I wonder what they valued it at......
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Post by Gandalf »

Death from the Sea wrote:I wonder what they valued it at......
Well it's clearly a post modern interpretation on a traditional rendition of... crap.

$5.
"Oh no, oh yeah, tell me how can it be so fair
That we dying younger hiding from the police man over there
Just for breathing in the air they wanna leave me in the chair
Electric shocking body rocking beat streeting me to death"

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Post by Fire Fly »

Have we, collectively as human beings, begun to suck so much when it comes to art work that we will call shit like this "art"? And what about blobs of painting on a canvass? Is that art? A friend once said to me, "Here's a simple way to tell what is art and what isn't art: if you can make, then its not art." :D
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Post by Fire Fly »

Ugh...should be "if you can make it also, then its not art." Stupid edit button, where are you?!
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Post by BlkbrryTheGreat »

You titled the header for this thread incorrectly. It should really say "Trash mistaken for Art".
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Post by Faqa »

Hello, Mr. Arrogant Delusions. Meet Mr. Reality Check....

So, lots of modern art is trash. That, I already knew....

Then again, I must be some kinda uncultured barbarian not to recognize the deep artistic meaning of life behind plastic bags......
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Post by SCRawl »

Try and tell the art crowd that this crap is, well, crap, and you're an anti-intellectual. Bunch of douchebags....
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Post by Iceberg »

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Post by DPDarkPrimus »

If you need to explain the painting for more than 10 minutes, it's not art, it's shit with a cover story.
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Post by Companion Cube »

Call me old fashioned, but I have this firm belief that art should, you know....take effort to create, and demonstrate the skill of the artist.
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Post by Darksider »

What the hell?

I'd have thrown that away too.


Remind me to save a couple of bags next garbage day, I could start my own exhibit.
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Post by Mange »

Garbage is garbage.

Oh, so this means I'm creating art every time I throw garbage in the dust bin? Finally a chance to becoming a millionaire.
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Post by neoolong »

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