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No, actually they do. All artists do. Otherwise it wouldnt be art.

not really... artists make stuff, critics and historians explain it. At least sometimes,,, there really isn't a formula.

A good book about why this kind of art may or may not be art is Nigel Warburton's "The Art Question".

Taking a simplified look at the Institutional theory,, McCarthy's turd is art because it's being presented in a gallery. On the other hand,,, it's also being presented on a powerline,, so maybe it's art and energy? Hmmm...
 
I saw a picture and I thought, that isn't Paul McCarthy.:p All I can think of is the Beatles.
 
You know, now that I think about it, this seems like the kind of "display" that some of the students of The Rhode Island Institute of Design would do. Just take a look at their hocky team, The Nads, and their mascot, a skating phallus. Imagine what the cheerleaders might say... (bonus points to anyone who gets this school's joke)
 
The title of this thread is a wonderful thing.

Almost Onionesque, but the fact that it's reality makes it even more amazing.
 
I don't "get" a lot of modern art, I must say. I'd like the artist to explain why this "art" is a dog turd and not a deposit from another animal.

Quite a funny end to the piece though.

Neither do I. It must be nice to make a big pile of crap (literally) and get paid for it :rolleyes:
 
My take on the giant turd and Christo's Murdering Bumbershoots can be found on my website, The War on Art.

http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Trailer/8989

Your website is a nice piece of conceptual art theory and criticism in its own right :D

Regarding Murdering Art have you seen:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/wear/5208460.stm

BBC said:
Two killed as artwork 'lifts off'


Two people have been killed and 13 injured after a giant, inflatable sculpture blew free from its moorings.

Many were inside the artwork, which consists of connected rooms, when it lifted 30ft into the air at Riverside Park, Chester-le-Street, County Durham.

The Dreamspace sculpture is thought to have drifted for about 40m.

A 38-year-old woman from the town and a 68-year-old woman from Seaham died. A three-year-old girl was seriously injured and was flown to hospital.

The girl, from Langley Park near Durham, is in Newcastle General Hospital.

The Health and Safety executive has launched an investigation.

Three children, aged between eight and 11, suffered neck, leg and arm injuries and were taken to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Gateshead.

An 11-year-old girl was taken to Durham's Dryburn Hospital suffering from shock and a 13-year-old girl was taken to South Tyneside General Hospital with minor injuries.

Walking wounded were also taken to the hospitals.

The sculpture - called Dreamspace - is thought to have drifted for up to 40m before catching on a CCTV camera post and coming down near a children's playground.

About 500 people were in the vicinity of the sculpture, which is half the size of a football pitch, when it came loose.

Fire officers spent much of their time trying to account for people missing inside the structure. Six ambulances and two air ambulances were sent to the scene.

Durham Fire Brigade spokesman John Robson said: "There's been a large inflatable structure, which included walls and floors and obviously the top, which has somehow lifted off the ground, and moved between 30 and 40m out of its pitched area.

"There were people inside the structure and obviously people within the vicinity of the structure on the ground, and there were a few casualties.

"There were 400 to 500 people at the park and when we first arrived it was chaos.

"There were parents looking for children, children looking for parents. We had to extricate a number of people from the structure. A number of people had fallen on top of each other."

The sculpture, created by artist Maurice Agis, has appeared at venues around the world and has recently featured on the Derren Brown television show.

It comprises several different rooms, made of translucent PVC sheets, which are interconnected and inflated by air to allow visitors to walk about inside.

I spent a while walking around inside this same inflatable sculpture a few years ago (erected at a different location), and very pretty it is inside. A deadly beauty.
 
Another murdering balloon!

Thanks for the tip! I don't know how I missed that one. But it will be included now. One thing I noticed about that article - unless I missed something ELSE - was that the artist's name wasn't included.

I have a theory about contemporary art, actually. And it's very unusual* I think - there's too much money in it, too many government and rich foundation grants, so the avante garde, who should be creating revolutionary art have become relegated to the merely weird and quirky. If you take the king's shilling, you must play the king's tune - or at least, you mustn't make him mad. Ask Diego Rivera. So all that's left is sensationalism, rather than anything of social value or lasting beauty (which has long been discredited - some art teachers won't even use the word 'beauty' in their courses.).

*unusual because it runs counter to the idea of the starving artist. If an artist is starving, it's probably because s/he is actually saying something.
 
Just keep it away from our fan. :mad:

pickering-Boardwalk-Along-Beach2.JPG
 
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