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The $2M Urinal: Why Hard Work Doesn’t Cut It (2018)

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Re: The $2M Urinal: Why Hard Work Doesn’t Cut It (2018)

#161

Post by perl4ever »

wazoox wrote: post #32

Contemporary art is a sophisticated form of money laundering for the very rich. As it almost completely exempt from taxation, it's an ideal vehicle, relatively fungible and open to crazy speculation. The crazy financiarisation of our world made many collectible objects prices skyrocket (see old cars, art, etc). But Contemporary art is the best of all, because, contrary to ancient art or old ferraris, its supply is un…

"Crazy financiarisation" may have gone further than you think.

Multiple artists have engaged in trading securities in order to create chart patterns which are art.

http://www.sarahmeyohas.com/stock2016/

and

"On 31 March Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan...called on South Africans to mobilise and organise against corruption and State Capture. In Cape Town...hedge fund manager James Gubb heeded the call. As a form of protest, Gubb began trading Gupta-owned Oakbay shares in order to create, in the price chart, a work of art depicting a middle finger."

Re: The $2M Urinal: Why Hard Work Doesn’t Cut It (2018)

#162

Post by WheelsAtLarge »

Wow, this is a very rare article that crystalizes a very real aspect of success. It's worth reading.

We constantly read about people working night and day to create a successful project but failing to succeed at it.

Networking is a very real and needed aspect of success. We regularly start projects with other people in mind but if you can't get your constituents to agree with what you want to create then you're headed towards failure.

It is nice to think that we don't need and don't want to deal with other people but that's a fallacy that will get you nowhere in life. The sooner we realize that the faster we'll move forward.

Excellent article, thanks to the person that posted it.

Re: The $2M Urinal: Why Hard Work Doesn’t Cut It (2018)

#163

Post by pnathan »

paganel wrote: post #67

Whenever people discuss about contemporary art I get reminded of these incredibly poignant Soviet war paintings [1] which manage to partially describe what the atrocities on the Eastern Front meant for the people involved, but which are nevertheless a lot less well-known compared to contemporary art "darlings" like Jackson Pollock whose works don't tell me absolutely anything and who had his career propped up by the…

After getting into painting a few years ago, I dug into aesthetics a bit and quickly ran into the same fundamental problem: most abstract works are, prima fascie, giant heaps of crap. I mean, I sat down and tried to read different intros to art theory, etc, but it all was so much flim flam trying to paper over the obvious: it was fecal matter, sold for high prices (don't get me started on pomo performance stuff).

One text I ran into was by an Objectivist: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00P9RV9PE/ - which goes into the motives and rationales for why the modern art went the way it did - and compares with other societies. Fascinating book.

Fundamentally, the Objectivist text comes down to roughly this

> – Proletarian: relevant to the workers and understandable to them.

Which is a description of soviet realism (something Objectivists might find startling).

http://www.russianartdealer.com/socialist-realism/

I also want to stress that the notion that art is subjective, or that it should make you feel, is wholly a product of the Romantic era and its challenge of a previous understanding of art as being an _objective_ thing with a ladder of values.

So I strongly concur with you here.

Re: The $2M Urinal: Why Hard Work Doesn’t Cut It (2018)

#164

Post by pnathan »

pradn wrote: post #143

A few years back, Maurizio Cattelan made a solid-gold working toilet and installed it in the Guggenheim. Regular museum goers could stand in line, go into the little bathroom, and use the toilet. It was a completely functioning toilet. As I recall, the solid-gold toilet seat was very very heavy - go figure. Cattelan's artwork riffs off Duchamp's artwork: how much is a toilet worth? Well, a solid-gold toilet is work a…

That installation has acquired a certain noteriety - when the White House requested an art piece, the toilet was offered...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/the-white-h...

Re: The $2M Urinal: Why Hard Work Doesn’t Cut It (2018)

#165

Post by leoc »

TLAFanBoy wrote: post #157

"Displayed at an angle and out of its normal context, it was oddly beautiful" I disagree, the toilet was not "oddly beautiful" and displaying it at an angle and out of its normal context didn't make it any more "oddly beautiful." It was a sort-of clever "troll" mocking the pretentiousness of the "art crowd" and it's significant because 100 years later the "art crowd" is still, how to put it? "Butthurt" over Duchamp's…

That seems incorrect. The contemporary fine-art world, or certainly the public-gallery, taxpayer-funded side of it at least, has been dominated by conceptual art https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conceptual_art for decades now: in other words, by people chasing heavily diminished returns on Duchamp's old hack. It's hard to imagine that the people adulating and spending millions on Damien Hirst's bisected shark and other, even slighter stuff are still upset about Duchamp.

Re: The $2M Urinal: Why Hard Work Doesn’t Cut It (2018)

#166

Post by barbecue_sauce »

oarabbus_ wrote: post #139
krapp wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems more like a criticism of art critics and the subjectivity of art valuation than modern art as a category, given that most modern art isn't done by chimpanzees. Although, ironically, the hoax itself makes it a valid form of performance art anyway.

>Although, ironically, the hoax itself makes it a valid form of performance art anyway. This is the bullshit that makes people weary of modern art. If you disagree, you fail to realize that this post, and indeed hacker news itself, is postmodern performance/interactivity art. Your opinion is wrong and invalid if you disagree.

This is the bullshit that makes modern art more interesting than painters trying to represent reality on canvas.

Re: The $2M Urinal: Why Hard Work Doesn’t Cut It (2018)

#167

Post by empath75 »

paganel wrote: post #67

Whenever people discuss about contemporary art I get reminded of these incredibly poignant Soviet war paintings [1] which manage to partially describe what the atrocities on the Eastern Front meant for the people involved, but which are nevertheless a lot less well-known compared to contemporary art "darlings" like Jackson Pollock whose works don't tell me absolutely anything and who had his career propped up by the…

This is a lot of words to basically say the tired ‘my kid could paint that’ thing.

Re: The $2M Urinal: Why Hard Work Doesn’t Cut It (2018)

#168

Post by Spooky23 »

paganel wrote: post #67

Whenever people discuss about contemporary art I get reminded of these incredibly poignant Soviet war paintings [1] which manage to partially describe what the atrocities on the Eastern Front meant for the people involved, but which are nevertheless a lot less well-known compared to contemporary art "darlings" like Jackson Pollock whose works don't tell me absolutely anything and who had his career propped up by the…

I worked in a place with a big collection of modern art. Initially my impression was “what a bunch of nonsense”. But when you look at it in context, it isn’t without meaning, and is often beautiful in its own way. It is thought provoking.

While I sometimes question the talent required to create some of these pieces relative to other works, it’s difficult to really judge without context. Many of the things that I value in my profession no doubt seem silly or trivial to laymen as well.

Re: The $2M Urinal: Why Hard Work Doesn’t Cut It (2018)

#169

Post by hyperpallium »

paganel wrote: post #67

Whenever people discuss about contemporary art I get reminded of these incredibly poignant Soviet war paintings [1] which manage to partially describe what the atrocities on the Eastern Front meant for the people involved, but which are nevertheless a lot less well-known compared to contemporary art "darlings" like Jackson Pollock whose works don't tell me absolutely anything and who had his career propped up by the…

What about an emotion-priming title, then a picture of clouds?

Pollack almost literally uses inkblots, like the Rorschach test.

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