When is ‘Art’ Just a Stain on a Bowl?
November 5, 2011 | Filed Under Art, Britain, PCism, Society/Culture, Warner Todd Huston, Western Civilization | Comments Off
-By Warner Todd Huston
Apparently “art” is just a stain on a bowl when a janitor thinks that a piece of junk that the intelligentsia call “mah-dren arht” needs to be cleaned up a bit. That’s what happened to a piece by “artist” Martin Kippenberger at a museum in Dortmund, England.
A janitor from Germany came across the display built of stained slats of wood featuring a plastic bowl at the bottom painted to look as if it had been stained by water. Apparently the cleaner took the faux stain for a real water stain and decided he’d better clean that thing up so the bowl looked nice and shiny.
Extra points for the cleaner so keen about his job that what looked like a long-time stain was cleaned up. I call that initiative.
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Chicago’s Marilyn Monroe Stature: From the Windy City to the Tacky City
August 26, 2011 | Filed Under Art, Chicago, Cities, Entertainment, Hollywood, Illinois, Movies, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off
-By Warner Todd Huston
I finally made it downtown to see the absurd Marilyn Monroe statue that sits in Pioneer Court, the public mall area next to Tribune Tower on Michigan Avenue near the Chicago River. I have to say it is as tacky in person as it seems in photos. Moreso, maybe.
The paean to Marilyn Monroe’s famous sewer grate scene in the movie “The Seven Year Itch” went up in early July. It was created by New Jersey artist Seward Johnson and portrays Monroe as she stood above the sewer grate, dress flying in the air, face in that patented Monroe look of ecstasy.
To me, however, it resembles not so much a sculpture as it does a cheap kewpie doll-like, carnival prize. Unfortunately, it isn’t kewpie doll sized but is so big at 26-feet-tall that you can’t simply dismiss it as mere kitsch.
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More Arts Funding Boondoggles in Age of Obama Economic Meltdown
June 11, 2011 | Filed Under Art, Budget, Democracy, Democrats/Leftists, Government, Government, Corruption, Liberals, Taxes, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off
-By Warner Todd Huston
Yes, it’s time for another tale of millions of your tax dollars wasted by the NEA on “art” in America.
Supporters of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) like to puff themselves up as saviors of high “art” in lowbrow America. They love to imagine that without their advocacy for spending millions of our tax dollars to support dubious art projects, why, “art” in America would vanish. After all, you people are all uncultured, Neanderthals, you know?
Bruce E. Walker recently alerted us of the newest boondoggle to come out of the NEA. This time the NEA is sponsoring hundreds of thousands of dollars to go to video game makers.
Yes, video games. Apparently the NEA thinks we have a dearth of video games in America and they need to rescue this important and neglected “art” from somehow disappearing.
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No, Beauty is Not in the Eye of the Beholder
April 27, 2011 | Filed Under Art, PCism, Selwyn Duke, Society/Culture, Western Civilization | 1 Comment
-By Selwyn Duke
The American Thinker’s Rick Moran recently wrote a blog piece about how some Catholics in France destroyed two of Andres Serrano’s creations, excreta that some euphemistically refer to as art. Moran opened by saying that his topic would make for lively debate among commenters, and he was right. And it has also provoked a lively response from me.
In his piece, Moran states, “Art, as we learned when growing up, is in the eye of the beholder.” Yes, most of us did learn this growing up — and we learned wrong. That is to say, unless “art” doesn’t really exist.
Now, when the eye/beholder proposition is made, let us be clear on what’s being said. If we accepted that art were simply a physical representation of something — that is, it could be beautiful, ugly, uplifting, degrading or anything at all — the truth would be plain: If it were a physical representation of a thing, it would be art. And it certainly would not be in the eye of the beholder.
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Colorado: Art Depicting Christ in Gay Sex Causes Christians to Riot, Many Killed… Or Not
October 5, 2010 | Filed Under Art, Christianity, Democrats/Leftists, Free Speech, Freedom, Government, Government, Corruption, Islam, Islamofascism, Religion, Rights, Terrorism, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off
-By Warner Todd Huston
An art exhibit sponsored by the City of Loveland, Colorado that depicts Jesus Christ engaging in gay sex is causing some heartburn among local Christians.
The piece by a 10-artist group going under the title, “The Legend of Bud Shark and His Indelible Ink,” depicts Jesus receiving oral sex from a man.
Christian groups have protested the exhibit and are pressuring the city to pull this particular piece from display in the museum.
One of the reasons that Christians are asking that this piece be pulled is that the exhibit hall is open to all ages — children included. Protesters point out the sexual, perhaps pornographic, nature of the art and contend it is unfit for an all-ages showing.
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Those DVD ‘Special Features’ Rarely that Special
November 29, 2009 | Filed Under Art, Entertainment, Hollywood, Movies, Society/Culture, Warner Todd Huston | 1 Comment
-By Warner Todd Huston
When DVDs first began to contain those now ubiquitous special features, those mini documentaries, series of interviews, or behind the scenes shoots, it seemed like such an exciting idea, especially for film buffs (or series fans). But now that they have become fairly common and now that I’ve seen a lot of them, I have to say that they are almost entirely worthless for anything other than time-wasting, disc stuffers.
Did you know that JJ Abrams is a great camera shaker and is “the life” of the new Star Trek movie? Did you know that no one worked harder than Peter Jackson, director of the Lord of the Rings trilogy? Isn’t the newest Punisher movie as fun as a real live comic book? Didn’t the actors on Silverado have fun? Wasn’t Patton intense? Aren’t all these films as brilliant as Shakespeare?
Do you care at all?
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NYT Sees ‘Obama’s Face’ Everywhere, and is Loving it
June 2, 2009 | Filed Under Art, Barack Obama, Democrats/Leftists, Liberals, Media Bias, President, Society/Culture, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off
-By Warner Todd Huston
In another nearly orgasmic tribute to The One, in its Arts section The New York Times published a May 30 story buoyantly jubilant over the fact that Obama’s face “rules the web.” The story is in glee over how the Obammessiah’s portrait fills the web and that some folks are even making a bit of cash off the deal.
To my mind, though, the amusing thing about the piece is that, if read closely, it appears that only schlocky Obama art can bring any sales as any serious artistic efforts are going unsold. I don’t know what that says about Obama art aficionados, but there you have it. Obama schlock rules.
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