Art. Poncy guff or inspiring objects?

[gremlin]

Based on today's untimely and premature death of Claes Oldenburg at just 93. His stuff always bought a smile to my mooie, as do other artists, such as Kapoor. I remember being in Chicago, which was my kinda town, and coming across Cloud Gate https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_Gate

Not only is it amazing to look at, but seeing people interacting with it, kids running under it, etc really made me pleased I'd seen it.

Ditto the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square. I like the ice cream that's (still?) there. As someone said on a previous post, juxtaposing with the solemnity of the other statues makes it even better.

So, public art: waste of good money? Waste of time? Essential to spiritual wellbeing? Somewhere for pigeons to crap?

[KungFooBob]

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[Horse]

This was superb

https://publicdelivery.org/olafur-elias ... ine%20Hall.

[Count Steer]

I'm a fan. Particularly of the slightly ironic, playful stuff that highlights how boring most of the built environment is (eg the reflecting and distorting by the Cloud Gate of the cuboid buildings and Oldenburg's gardening trowel surrounded by skyscrapers). I got quite into spotting Gormley's chaps ( ) around Lunnon when Event Horizon was there. (One was in the foyer at the office of the people running the energy market when I was there).

Been involved in building a couple of installations too and got to meet William Pye...chances are you've seen at least one of his. Gatwick water feature, Salisbury Cathedral font - usually involve water.

https://www.google.com/search?q=william ... &dpr=2.130

[gremlin]

Love this one, even if it isn't modern art. I must make a point of actually finding it and having a good look. With contact lenses in.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philpot_Lane

[gremlin]

Been involved in building a couple of installations too and got to meet William Pye...chances are you've seen at least one of his. Gatwick water feature, Salisbury Cathedral font - usually involve water.

https://www.google.com/search?q=william ... &dpr=2.130

My tribute to Pye, at Chez Gremlin

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I bet he doesn't have to have to fish out dead leaves and battle algae in his installations.

[Mussels]

Mostly poncy guff. Especially noticeable when a local councillor gets his hands on a few 100k to improve an area, he wants to be remembered so instead of spending it on something useful he finds a nice artist willing to take it all off his hands and do the thinking for him.

[Mr. Dazzle]

I was in London on my lonesome with time to kill a few months back. Mrs. D thinks most art is bollox, but I'm less sure. I decided to pay a visit to the Tate Modern 'cause I know she'd never go if we were together Some of it is pretentious bollox IMO, some of it isn't. Crucially though, I imagine the split falls differently for every person. Some of it I really struggle to tell what it even is, which I suppose is half the point.

I have to say there's very little visual art (as in, paintings, installations, sculpture etc.) which moves me. In my amateur view, Art is supposed to be anything and everything which communicates an idea you can't convey in plain English in all honestly 99% of the time I've not got a scooby what the art's supposed to portray, beyond the literal.

Lots of Music on the other hand really speaks to me, loads of it makes me think of things beyond said literal. I 'get' what the artist is trying to convey, or at least what I think they are.

I think most of everything Van Gogh did looks like GCSE artwork at best,

His paintings are actually one of the few that I (think I) "get". The Starry Night in particular makes me think of what it's like to look over the countryside on a warm summer night - it doesn't look like that, but it feels like that.

[Count Steer]

Been involved in building a couple of installations too and got to meet William Pye...chances are you've seen at least one of his. Gatwick water feature, Salisbury Cathedral font - usually involve water.

https://www.google.com/search?q=william ... &dpr=2.130

My tribute to Pye, at Chez Gremlin
20220719_123104_copy_784x1613.jpg
I bet he doesn't have to have to fish out dead leaves and battle algae in his installations.

Mr Pye would be proud. (But might like a bit more stainless steel ).
He's a lovely fella, in his eighties now but he pitched up to help with a repetitive task constructing umpteen components for a light installation at Salisbury Cathedral. He couldn't quite believe we were all volunteers as, getting on in years, he had to employ technicians to do a fair bit of stuff.

[Horse]

We're very lucky in this area in that Greenham Common, post-cruise missiles, was returned to public access. More important financially is that all of the buildings were turned into a business area, with a trust distributing profits.

Part of that goes into funding some whacky, arty, outdoor theatre and events.

https://101outdoorarts.com/outdoor-even ... oor-events

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

Some of it's good, some of it's bad, but it's for you to decide which is which and you don't have to think what other people think.

I wonder if Stonehenge is Neolithic public art?

[Skub]

I'm of the opinion most art has it's place,it's the people who invent daft things to say about it have a deep vein of pretentiousness.

Quite often the perpetrators of art are more interesting/off the wall than their handiwork.

[Horse]

I wonder if Stonehenge is Neolithic public art?

We're easily pleased in West Berkshire

This was the end of 15 minutes of dominos tobbling through the town.

[Count Steer]

I'm of the opinion most art has it's place,it's the people who invent daft things to say about it have a deep vein of pretentiousness.

Quite often the perpetrators of art are more interesting/off the wall than their handiwork.

Unfortunately training in art seems to include lectures on writing daft things. Went to a show of MA student's work recently and almost all of them had come up with some impenetrable guff about their inspiration and what they were hoping to do through their work. One of them (bless 'em) just had written a funny limerick.
Mind you, I could write a fair bit about what Rachel Whiteread's 'House' means/meant (to me) that would reduce many to impotent apoplexy. (Got to love a work that polarises opinion ).

[Mr. Dazzle]

MK has loads more public art that any other similar sized place IME, it's part of the whole "New Town" thing. We've got the most famous bit of course...



But my favourite is this thing in teh hillside in Campbell Park. Presumably it's someone with a sense of humour, fake concrete cave to go with the fake concrete cows.

[Mr Moofo]

I do like the Pop Art genre - esp Warhol and Lichtenstein - and a few others. And I do quite like Koons taking the piss out of the whole establishment.

Some of the Industrialist German / Russian stuff is uber cool and a good refection of the time (until Stalin and Hitler got hold of it)

I do like Bauhaus and 1930 Art Deco stuff - with a little bit of Frank Lloyd Wright and others thrown in. Gaudi's stuff is interesting - but a bit too Hobbit and Tolkien for me (with an influx of Gaudi's pro fascist ideas)

I do an an issue with art critics - who seem to have lots of words to say about stuff - but essentially they are just making up a story to suit their views.

Renaissance / Flemish Painters/ Holbein etc - and pictures of fat Lords and Ladies leave me cold.

Graffiti - with Basquiat , Keith Haring I like as a comment on modern trends / life

[Mussels]

I'd much rather visit one of these.

[Mr. Dazzle]

Yebbut those never actually worked. Art isn't even supposed to work.

[Cousin Jack]

Mostly poncy guff. Especially noticeable when a local councillor gets his hands on a few 100k to improve an area, he wants to be remembered so instead of spending it on something useful he finds a nice artist willing to take it all off his hands and do the thinking for him.

That.

Local town centre is a dying shithole. Local council has just spent £80 or £90k on what looks like a 6 year olds version ofa totem pole. Only about 30 ft tall.

[Count Steer]

Mostly poncy guff. Especially noticeable when a local councillor gets his hands on a few 100k to improve an area, he wants to be remembered so instead of spending it on something useful he finds a nice artist willing to take it all off his hands and do the thinking for him.

That.

Local town centre is a dying shithole. Local council has just spent £80 or £90k on what looks like a 6 year olds version ofa totem pole. Only about 30 ft tall.

Can work the other way though. If they'd got eg the Angel of the North type of thing and people were flooding in and emptying their wallets, people would be about it*. I know people who have come over to London from Greece, then made a trip to Ilfracombe to see Hirst's 'Verity' which Ilfracombe got on loan for 20 years.

*(Well, the one's who aren't muttering 'bloody tourists' and willing to see the place die on its feet that is).