Reader Heinz G. sends us these two photographs of a sort of igloo made from industrial waste bins. It's by artist Brian Jungen, and was apparently exhibited at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian in Washington.
My problem is that, to me, something like that isn't art. I find no aesthetic value or purpose in it whatsoever - it's just a differently-shaped stack of garbage bins. Clearly, however, my view isn't universal, otherwise the Smithsonian wouldn't have chosen to put it on display!
What say you, readers? Is something like this really art? Let us know your opinion in Comments.
Peter
12 comments:
Well it's not ugly, but it looks more like a turtle shell than an igloo.
Of course beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I can look at a trench p on a high-line and see the guy took pride in his work- or a power panel or a set-up.
That's art to me,,,but then again, I'm a conservative- so I don't get all the nuances that a Liberal would understand.
It's not exactly ugly, but ... it looks like a fancy display at a hardware store, rather than a museum.
I'd say that it's art, inasmuch as it's a reimagining of a traditional object in a new medium; that the medium is plastic waste bins may be immaterial (unless one places some symbolism in repurposing of waste containers, etc. etc., but I'm not going there.) Also, the artist created a smoothly curved structure, with curved embellishments, from blocky rectangular bins -- so there's some artistic improvement there, too.
People have created vast structures of matchsticks; a single matchstick has no artistic value, any more than a single blob of paint, but assembled? Sure!
I'm going to go with not art. All it is is stacking garbage bins together. You could stack books together and it would only be a stack or pile of books, not artwork. I think this would fall more under industrial design, and I wonder if it would insulate as well as a standard igloo (if the bins were filled with insulation of some sort).
Similarly, the Mona Lisa is just dabbing some colored goo on canvas, eh? Gothic cathedrals are just chunks of stone stacked and stuck together? (In other words the results are greater than a simple sum of their parts.)
I think it's more of a functional art. It's not art for arts sake, but more like how architecture can be art.
Passes my test for art. What is any art but a rearrangement of materials? Why should plastic waste bins be any different from stone or iron? They're arguably equally utilitarian.
Not sure if it's art that I like, but that's a different matter...
It's sculpture.
Sculpture is what you trip over when you're looking at art.
I'd call it a craft or industrial display rather than art. It has some aesthetic appeal, but it doesn't elevate my spirit, make me look at the world in a new way, or inspire much besides mild curiosity as to how it is fastened together and did the creator use an internal scaffolding before getting the arch completed.
LittleRed1
Art and beauty are both in the eye of the beholder, of course. But what I wonder is: What happens to the structure when it rains?
Leatherneck
I've got to admit that I have a very low opinion of modern art. Robert Rauschenberg graduated from high school with along with my mother. They knew each other quite well. My mom got a degree in art from a university here in Texas and then became a mother. When I compare Mom's art with Rauschenberg's I know which I prefer. On a professional level, modern art is mostly a con game. Especially when it is supported by the government.
It is clever and eye-pleasing IMHO. However, if it's something that might happen to two blocks worth of trash bins because of a dare at a fraternity bender, it's not art fine enough to put in the Smithsonian.
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