BS: Modern art?

Subject: Modern art?
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 08 Jul 01 - 12:56 AM

Do you think modern artists are "taking the piss"? I heard recently of an exhibition with nothing in it, the visitors to the gallery were supposed to imagine the exhibits! I think this is daft and a big con (I dont know if they had to pay, but if I didnt see anything I would definetly ask for my money back).There was also a man who cut a cow in half and put it in a big fish tank, I dont think this is really art.The pictures I like are landscape scenes and animals.

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: The Shambles
Date: 08 Jul 01 - 05:32 AM

Has not art always taken the piss? For it is part of the function of art to do that

The joke is then listening to the critics, especially the ones that would tell you its merits.

I think I like the concept of art that you can't buy or own (or see. To produce such art would seem to signal the end of art industry and 'professional artists', which I feel would be a jolly good thing.

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Dunc
Date: 08 Jul 01 - 05:41 AM

If I were asked to pay to see an exibition where I had to imagine the exhibits - I'd be asking the organiser to imagine my entry fee.

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: 8_Pints
Date: 08 Jul 01 - 05:45 AM

"Beauty is in the eye of the Beholder!"

Bob vG

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: bushy
Date: 08 Jul 01 - 06:11 AM

Having a daughter who has just taken A levels in Art, Graphics, and textiles, no I don't agree. The amount of work and a large amount of effort which she has put into all these three subjects, I am a bit annoyed that a large amount of people think it is an easy option to take. My daughter has just finished a foundation course at a local art collage this included a large part of modern art and having seen my daughter work for at least eight hours a day without a break it is not an easy option. I think it is a shame that the really extreme modern art is always shown, and made fun of, there is a huge amount of really good modern art which has gone unoticed and as from past knowledge knows a lot of hard work has been done. My daughter is just about to start a B.A (Fine Art) at Winchester School of art and I know she has got three years of hard work ahead of her.

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: echo
Date: 08 Jul 01 - 07:45 AM

I have just completed a three year fine art degree at St. Martin's School of Art London. You may be interested to know that during the course I did not actually produce one physical piece of art. I 'imagined' all of my works in my head. I have been awarded a First Class Honours degree. It may well be my end of year exhibition to which you rudely refer. I would ask you to simply come to the galley and experience my imaginary work, I think you would find it quite a challenging experience.

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Mike Byers
Date: 08 Jul 01 - 07:58 AM

It seems to me that one big advantage of an imaginary art exhibit is that you don't actually have to pay to go an "see" it: you can imagine it from the comfort of your home or even from another country. It sounds a bit like P.T. Barnum's "this way to the egress" to me. But I make my living doing modern art, although I like more traditional work, too. I've found that if you create pieces that other people find interesting and worthwhile, you'll do fine. I've never tried cutting a cow in half, though; I suppose you'd want to freeze the cow first and then get a chainsaw...

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Celtic Soul
Date: 08 Jul 01 - 10:45 AM

That sounds very much to me like the "Emperors new clothes" story.

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 08 Jul 01 - 10:50 AM

I quite like the idea of imagining the exhibits - I may actually "see" some modern art I enjoy that way.

Jon

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Mountain Dog
Date: 08 Jul 01 - 11:07 AM

Jon,

I think you're right...and if you don't imagine anything you like, you have no-one to blame but yourself!

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: The Shambles
Date: 08 Jul 01 - 12:01 PM

Thank you for the invite. But can't I just imagine that I am there?

I fail to see how (or why) any artist would wish to take credit for something created entirely by other peoples imagination?

Perhaps you could explain?

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Roger in Sheffield
Date: 08 Jul 01 - 12:22 PM

JiH I think the best bit about the Cow in Formaldehyde is that (I am almost certain about this) someone else did the cutting. It was Damiens idea therefore his art - not the cows, the calfs or the man who did the chainsawing. Is it art? you decide

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: mousethief
Date: 08 Jul 01 - 12:25 PM

I was thinking of doing a concert where the people just imagined I was playing and singing -- but I would probably get beat up. Maybe physical violence is the way to stop these so-called artists from selling new clothes to the emperor? As much as I deplore violence.

Either that or we could stop funding it. No wait, that would be censorship, wouldn't it?

Absinthe makes the art grow stranger.

alex

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Roger in Sheffield
Date: 08 Jul 01 - 12:37 PM

mouse I think its already been done years ago - now what was the piece called?

Bushy I am sure your daughter is working hard which is why I think stuff like my bed makes a mockery of that work

I say its art therefore it is, seems to be the justification

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Amos
Date: 08 Jul 01 - 12:41 PM

The cow in the fish tank is definitely "Art". I knew her when she was alive and giving milk to babies, which did more for the world. Back then, we called her "Artemis", but they shortened her name when they shortened her frame to fit her in the aquarium. She was a good milker, but she'd get the vapours every now and again, and one day she upped her off-left hoof and clipped her owner right in the jaw, resulting in a fast sale to a starving artist....

A

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Roger in Sheffield
Date: 08 Jul 01 - 01:11 PM

Can I change my mind???
Just that I like the White cube website click here - then scroll down to bottom (or read the article)
...Shall I buy the comedy bronze bin liners/

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: GUEST,jayohjo
Date: 08 Jul 01 - 01:19 PM

Right, my thoughts, as I'm really trying to understand,um, everything, but right now working on modern art in Paris.
'Modern art', as described by the tabloids etc, I see as not necessarily intended to display artistic talent as such, or skills, or whatever, but as displaying ideas - the idea being, with things that we don't see as 'art' (found objects, absract art etc) to present the ideas in a purer form, rather than 'traditional' art where ideas can be clouded by the subjectivity of the artist.
But I'm not an art student, and this is just my thoughts on things. Jayohjo XXX

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Amos
Date: 08 Jul 01 - 01:19 PM

It should be added about Art that the proper name for the piece is "Mother and Child Divided", and you can see someone in another aquarium posing as Art's mother in the background. This introduces the proper note of poignancy to fulfill the bourgeois conseption of acceptable artiness. Pax.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: The Shambles
Date: 08 Jul 01 - 02:02 PM

If you do not need to learn skills or actually produce anything, I question what is the point of the course? Is it so that one can then be called an artist?

If the idea is considered to be as important as any product, an idea that I can see some merit in, why are the 'artist's' ideas to be of any more value than those of the untrained non-artist?

Art (however it is defined), is important, artist are not.

What we are seeing now is the marketing of 'names'. In much the same way as designer labelled jeans.

The danger of being "clouded by the subjectivity of the artist", is what I would most probably describe as an idea. Not a danger but the whole bloody point.

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Roger in Sheffield
Date: 08 Jul 01 - 02:16 PM

Just found what I was looking for
if a lamb or a calf&cow killed for art (rather than food) offend thee not then what about the logical extention here
Is that my lunch paying a return visit

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Roger in Sheffield
Date: 08 Jul 01 - 02:20 PM

Yipee and exhibition too

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Linda Kelly
Date: 08 Jul 01 - 02:27 PM

John, go down to London, take yourself around the Tate Modern and the Hayward Gallery, and you will have changed your view on art completely.

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Roger in Sheffield
Date: 08 Jul 01 - 02:33 PM

....but Ickle what do you think about traceys bed?

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: 8_Pints
Date: 08 Jul 01 - 08:32 PM

Just as there might be a musical genre not to your taste, it does not follow that all instances of it might be repellant.

I think we are descending into stereotypes again aren't we!

Bob vG

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Tone d' F
Date: 08 Jul 01 - 09:08 PM

it's better for your eyes to arrest on a Constable than a Constable arrest you

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 08 Jul 01 - 09:29 PM

Thanks for the replies everybody.
I think Tracey Emin is a bit weird, have you seen what the art critics say about hear? They are dafter than she is! A few years ago I worked in an abbatoir, I did not enjoy that job, maybe I should have been happy to have been surrounded by all that "art".I suppose I am jealos of modern artists,they seem to be making loads of easy money whilst I am not.Does anybody know anything about the imaginery art exhibition? It was mentioned in the culture section of the Sunday Times, a few weeks ago.It would be intersting to see what the critics said about it, and I wonder how much it was to get in.We have a good art gallery in hull called Ferens, ther is a lot of good art in there (David Hockney, LS Lowry etc).Every year there is an exhibition of local artists work, I have just bought one of the exhibits (Hull Tidal Barrier).I have recently visited The Lowry Centre, in Salford Quays near Manchester it was very good, Free entry but if you go I would advise taking packing up for your dinner, it was about 5 pound for a cup of tea and a sandwitch.john

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Linda Kelly
Date: 09 Jul 01 - 05:22 AM

I think Tracy's bed is just one aspect of modern art, and since it was a blatant copy of my bedroom from my student days, I think she had a bloody nerve claiming the credit! The thing is, it captured our imagination, it made us think, and it shocked us -which is pretty much what art has been doing for hundreds of years. I love modern art because it interprets space in a way that makes you absolutely aware of its power. Interestingly enough, the sensational pices are often the less effective, but that's the media for you. You could just have easily said how do I like the Angel of the North- the answer is I love it- it makes me want to fly.

Subject: What's the point?
From: Ringer
Date: 09 Jul 01 - 09:58 AM

My son has just finished a Foundation Course in Art & Design at the local college. Unlike bushy's daughter, he dossed about doing next to nothing for 9 months and still came out with a certificate! He's a figurative painter (is that the term? I mean that he paints pictures that look like pictures, not like a cross between an infant's daubings and the output of a demented mincing machine.). He went on this course enthusiastic about painting, but finished it being totally dis-enchanted with "art". This, he thinks, is because his style of painting was mocked by his mentors (I may be wronging them here, but they certainly made it clear that figurative painting is yesterday's art, and that only "conceptual" art is valid these days). During his course, he was offered, and accepted, a place at Bath University to do Fine Art; however, he's now so pissed off that he's deferred it for a year (his inclination was to throw it up altogether, and only his parents' counsel turned that into a deferal) and is now spending a year dossing (he's good at that!) around trying to make a go of his band in the music business.

Now, I freely admit that I wasn't there when "art appreciation" was being handed out: there was a thread here about 18 months (?) ago (was it originated by Peter T?) with a link to a picture - a picture with content, not just squiggles - and lots of learned discussion in the postings that followed it and I couldn't understand a word they said! I felt like a man blind from birth listening to people trying to describe colour. I only tell this story so that you know that this posting, apart from paragraph 1, is written from complete ignorance.

So, here's the $64,000 question: What is the purpose of art? Please feel free to comment on any branch, not just visual art. I offer some initial possibilities:

One purpose of art is for the viewer/listener/reader to enjoy it (this is the only purpose that I admit, but I'm sure others will disagree here). I won't ask the question as to whether Pollock's squiggles can be enjoyed, for reasons I've given above; I can't enjoy a Michelangelo, either.

One purpose of art is to convey a philosophical point of view. I'm thinking here of Munch's (is it?) screaming head in a box, or Camus' "The Plague". Usually, I can't spot the philosophy, but after it's pointed out to me I'll admit there may be something there.

One purpose of art is to elucidate or comment upon the human condition. This is closely connected to the above point, and, again, I usually need to have it pointed out to me.

So you can see the level of my illiteracy as an art critic. But I'd value your comments.

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: JulieF
Date: 09 Jul 01 - 10:14 AM

Its such a wide area to dismiss entirely. I admit there is lots that I don't appreciate, although I think you have to see something face to face to say that you really don't like something as a lot of its impact is now things are displayed.

Most of the modern stuff that I like are more sculpture based such as Anthony Gormley's field for the British Isles and Rachel Whitbred's stuff. ( think that's the right person - she makes casts of the inside of things, did the Holocaust memorial in Vienna.

I haven't been down to the Tate Modern yet - want to sometime. Mum and my summer trip this year is the Vemeer and the American Glass artist at the V&A.

All the best

Julie

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: GeorgeH
Date: 09 Jul 01 - 12:08 PM

jih (hey, that almost makes "jihad" . . sorry, I'm getting paranoid . . ) . . some are, some aren't . . and the best way to get media coverage is to be controversial - and, I guess, the best way to get column inches is to be pretentious. That accounts for some of the art and (imo) much of what passes for art criticism. (Why should criticism be exempt from the general decline in publishing standards ???)

With Art in all forms (inc. visual arts but not IMO imaginary art) what counts is your personal reaction to it, although that reaction may be enhanced by the insights of scholarship . . .

As for the Tate Modern, my strongest impressions of it were of philistinism on the part of its curators - in hanging a massive banner (promoting the "Cities of the Century" exhibition) so as to obscure the strongest view of the Turbine Hall, and in lighting circutlation spaces in such a way that it's impossible to view the illustrations hung there without the image being spoilt by reflections of the lights . . (ok, perhaps the mistake is in putting those illustrations there in the first place . . )

G.

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Linda Kelly
Date: 09 Jul 01 - 05:16 PM

I loved the Tate Modern apart from being trapped in the killer elevators!. I sympathise with Bald Eagle and her son, because 'art' is fashion and if your in your in and if your not then it's tough, but that hasn't changed from the Rennaisance onwards. I am a figurative artist who frankly doesn't want to be -I have tried to adapt my style but it hasn't worked for me -so I changed the subject matter. Art is strictly a hobby but at one time I wanted it to be more -it wasn't to be so I became a bank manager instead!. Your son should not be deterred, -let the purist dwell in the galleries, but its the rest of the world that sees the books and the adverts, the glossy magazines and the films and art is everywhere and there is a place for everyone!

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: The Shambles
Date: 09 Jul 01 - 05:39 PM

I thought the walls of the Tate's Turbine Hall a wasted opportunity to best and safely display the work of some of our finest modern artists.

The namesless ones whose best work is currently done on our railway trains, sidings and bridges. It would be interesting to see what they could produce if they did not have to keep looking over their shoulder for police and passing trains.

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Grab
Date: 09 Jul 01 - 07:19 PM

I have a friend who is a "conceptual art" teacher - he gets paid for this. As an example of his art, he went up on stage and his students shaved his head. Apparently that was art.

The problem is, working out where the boundaries are. Michelangelo didn't paint the Sistine Chapel on his own, he had a team of other lesser painters working on it with him, but it was his vision. And ppl making statues don't have to actually pour the bronze - it's enough for them to make the wax version, and then get the foundryman to make the mould and pour the metal. So this leads to the theory that the "idea" or "concept" behind the art is more important than the execution of that concept, which may (in the case of the foundryman) be no more than semi-skilled work. This is even more so the case for an architect, who will rarely place one brick on top of another in their entire career.

The "idea" behind these is rarely anything interesting, though. In the case of Hirst's dead animals, I seem to remember that Hirst's stated purpose was to shock the visitor. Great. He could have achieved that just as effectively by wandering around with his pants down, or by walking up to them chewing a sandwich and hanging his mouth open. By these standards, "There's something about Mary" and "American Pie" are high art indeed.

This is very distinct from artists such as Kandinsky, whose exercises in light, shade, colour, texture and transparency are obviously beautiful (to me anyway), even though they don't represent physical images.

Graham.

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Oversoul
Date: 10 Jul 01 - 01:19 AM

Gosh, I draw and paint dead trees. I dig the quiet dignity of these things as they decompose. I sit in silence as I work, and feel lucky to portray this sacred display. Trained by modernists and exposed to the hellbroth of art history, this is what is important to me. I love music for the rules, motions of hands and fingers. There is a reason why you never see a "child prodigy" in the visual arts. Hey, at least I tried to get this across to everyone!

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Amos
Date: 10 Jul 01 - 01:29 AM

Art has only one purpose, whether high or low. That is to communicate. The reason it is so intense a field is because the very life of the soul and consciousness of humans is tied in with their powers to give and receive communication. The reason as a field it attracts criticisms from lackluster losers disguised as brainy critics is because it is characteristic of lackluster losers to try and shot down the communications of others, more or less on the rationale of "going south and taking all of them with me".

The reason the fields of art attract (in many cases) the most brilliant and visionary of our generations is that it empowers communication across any dimensions you can see, if only you can wreak the media around to capture what you are seeing. Efforts to push the envelope in this regard often produce art that is unfathomable at first, and I would put Tracy's bed and Art the cow in a fishtank in this category.

Finally, the reason the arts attract so many deadbeats is because its a good place to hide when you have no clue what the fuck you are doing, because it can be quite difficult to tell the difference!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 10 Jul 01 - 03:37 AM

Graham, if I understand you aright, you are implying that making a mould for a bronze is "semi-skilled" work ?
Far from it, let me assure you. Foundry mould-making and casting requires skill of the highest order, and always has done. It is VERY easy to screw up a pour.

Murray

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Ringer
Date: 10 Jul 01 - 04:52 AM

Good, Amos: you've introduced communication. If communication is the point, why have forms that almost deny the possibility of communication become so popular? I speak of abstract images and, eg, John Cage's "Four and a half minutes of Silence" (or however long it was). I deny that such forms can carry communication. For communication, common rules are needed between the sender (artist) and the receiver (viewer/reader/listener). That's why Wolfgang posts in English and not in German. But these common rules (that images should be representational, that poetry should scan and rhyme, that music should have rhythm and melody - I know, I know, but I'm using shorthand) have been rejected. Now, it seems, what the artist had in mind is irrelevant; what's in the eye of the beholder is all that matters. Bang goes communication.

I think that modern artists are pulling our legs.

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Grab
Date: 10 Jul 01 - 11:01 AM

Murray, I didn't mean to belittle the foundryman. But he's essentially a technician, doing the same process over and over, and for him it's just another mould. There's no creative element there, is what I'm trying to say.

Amos, the problem is, can you foresee a future in which these will be held up as examples for othe artists to aspire to? I honestly can't. To take an analogy (and I don't want to take it too far, so don't drive this off-topic! :-) jazz started as a popular music form of self-expression, but then vanished into the far distance. There still is popular jazz, but the stuff that gets held up as the epitome of modern jazz is incomprehensible to the casual listener. Modern art has headed in the same direction; from a starting point of free-form expression, it has largely lost its popular appeal by focussing on making art for art critics and other artists, rather than for the public. If you're deliberately excluding most ppl from appreciating your work, then you're not communicating effectively. And if you're not even attempting to communicate (too many cases of "art" where the "artist" just says, "it means what you want it to mean") then by the definition of communication you've not created art.

Your point about the deadbeats hiding out in art bcos no-one can tell the difference sums it all up. If it's not possible to tell between valid art and something done by someone who's faking it, then you can forget the whole thing. The communication point means that the observer has to be able to determine the artist's intent from the workpiece. If both an artist and a faker can create the same piece of work, it is impossible for this to be the case, so the communication is therefore a failure and so is the artwork (and the artist, come to that).

Graham.

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: annamill
Date: 10 Jul 01 - 11:11 AM

Honey and I went to the Museum of Modern Art to see a Van Gogh exibit, though what Van Gogh was doing in a modern art museum is beyond me, and we went to see the others as well.

They actually had a small piece about 8" X 11" in a wooden frame. It was a piece of paper with a smudge where someone had tried to erace something and caused the paper to tear. It was called "Tear in Paper".

I actually stood there and gazed at it in wonder for about 5 minutes.

Amazing!

Starry, starry night was wonderful and I gazed at that a lot longer.

Love, Annamill

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: GeorgeH
Date: 10 Jul 01 - 11:29 AM

Well said, Amos . .

And, Shambles, the best Graffiti Art we ever saw was on a canal bank in Leipzig . . . some of it was stunning; we meant to return in daylight to photograph some of it, but time ran out (and our friend who was living there has now moved elsewhere . . )

As for Cage's "four and a half minutes of silence" . . . well, it led to a wonderful sketch based around the idea of Margaret Thatcher trying to perform it, so I'll forgive it a lot.

(Actually, provided you don't take it too seriously I think it's a worthwhile piece; how often do you experience silence? How many sounds are impacting on you as you read this?)

G.

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Angie
Date: 10 Jul 01 - 11:47 AM

There are several serious 'Artistes' in the pub where I work, some of their exhibitions are inspired.

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: M.Ted
Date: 10 Jul 01 - 01:55 PM

I like "My Bed", it is a wonderful execution of a concept, though it is not exactly a new medium--who can forget what John and Yoko did with a bed? It satisfied the definition that Bald Eagle gave us, about communication(though I sort if think he meant to exclude things like that from his definition of art)--

John Cage's piece is called "4'33", and it is a wonderful thing to hear--It is a mind transforming experience for any musician, because is a basic statement of what music is, which is a contrast of sound and silence over time--of course, this sounds a bit silly, but, like some much art, what sounds silly in a brief description, can have a really powerful emotional impact, and, though it may seem improbable, "4'33" really does.

Real art has an emotional impact that transcends any literal description of it's content--It is very easy for someone to give a disparaging desription of a work of art, and then a simple matter for others to pass judgement on the description and not the thing itself. There is even an predisposition for many people to do this, simply because they are not able to see anything but the most superficial aspects of a work of art.

You can blow off the Sistine Chapel easily enough," a picture of a guy with a beard touching fingers with a guy without a beard". The Last Supper is "Twelve guys eating on one side of a table, with one guy on the other side".

Kandinsky is one of the easiest to dismiss, with "My five year old slap paint on a canvass like that"

Unfortunately, there aren't many people around who care much about art of any kind (be it folk music or abstract expressionist painting), and people typically evaluate art on it's decorative merits ("I like it, it goes with the sofa") so they are not inclined to think about whether the artist made good use of his cow parts.

The think that makes me think that the exhibit with nothing in it is a stong concept is that it is able to evoke both a strong emotional response, and a conceptual understanding from people who have not even seen it--it should really be worth seeing-- Meanwhile, here is a quote that is particularly relevant to those of us who spend hours, days, weeks, months and years practicing away on the same licks and the same three chords: "If something is boring after two minutes, try it for four. If still boring, then eight. Then sixteen. Then thirty-two. Eventually one discovers that it is not boring at all." --John Cage.

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Grab
Date: 10 Jul 01 - 03:52 PM

The thing is, Kandinsky isn't easy to dismiss when you look at it more closely - the work with colour and transparency is technically very difficult. It's the same way that figure-skating looks effortless but in fact is very hard to do. Now Pollock and similar stuff is a different matter - I've yet to be convinced by that, but anyway.

Maybe you know different ppl, but my experience is that we evaluate art as to whether it says something to us, whether the artist's made us feel something. But an empty exhibit just evokes the feeling "why am I bothering". Sorry if I'm too literal-minded. I just hope Cage isn't going to try and sell CDs of it! Certainly some artists have shocked with the content of their creations, however this does actually require a creation!

To divert briefly to music: Clinton Hammond has a great talking-blues song about an alternative rock band whose alternative was to refuse to play. Very, very funny, and sums up the pretentious attitudes of some artists/musicians brilliantly. And the first Dire Straits album has the song "In the gallery".

Graham.

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: M.Ted
Date: 10 Jul 01 - 05:19 PM

I am not saying anything against Kandinsky, whose work I have loved for years (incidentally, his work *is* representational--sort of a step beyond impressionism--he takes figures down to primary elements, or he took them there, in the way that Brancusi did with sculpture),

As per the non-existant art--first, technical difficulty-- it will be most interesting to see how the artist manages to create an installation that conveys the space that works should be in without having anything in the space. When it comes down to it, this is actually a very old idea, the function of the cathedral having been to create the sense of a vast emptiness that was a directly experiencable representation of God, and lastly, since you haven't been in the empty exhibit hall(if that's what it will be) you have to remember that you will have no idea what feelings the exhibit will evoke until you actually see the exhibit--

As far as Cage goes, 4'33" has been available for quite a while on CD, and there is a video of a performance that is part of a program on Cage that turns up on Public Television periodically--quite a remarkable piece--

Anyway, literal mindedness is actually a good thing when looking at, watching,or listening to art--at lot of people aren't, though, they don't really see what is there at all, they tend to see what they think ought to be there--

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Angie
Date: 10 Jul 01 - 06:31 PM

Personally I know very little about 'proper' art. I do have eyes though (and ears). I think if you see something that makes you stop and take notice it is or becomes 'art'. This unfortunately includes Damian Hurst's curious cows!

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: The Shambles
Date: 11 Jul 01 - 02:19 AM

A Little Titian

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: GUEST,Vanessa
Date: 11 Jul 01 - 04:28 AM

I was swept in from a friend's bookmark page and was surprised to find this excellent discussion going on.

My background: A couple of years ago I got a Master's in art (specifically performance and installation art), but I also live in the outside world.

Now, I don't want to get off on a rant here, but...

Part of the problem, I think, is that modern art is like jazz, or folk music, anywhere else where participants and fans are steeped in symbols and references that you don't see much in mainstream culture. But it's worse for art because with music you can at least go into a nearby store and buy a CD or tape. Looking at art in a tiny picture in a book or on a website Just Is Not The Same.

Also, we're exposed to a lot more music than we are to art. We've got a fighting chance to catch the symbols. (This sound means "sad," this sound probably means "something's funny," and so forth. We can hear it in movie music if nowhere else.) But for visual symbolism, how many people see art anywhere but in a college classroom or in a poster on their dorm wall? I live in California, where they butchered school arts programs decades ago -- I'll bet $10 more kids hear about classical, jazz, and hip-hop than they do about any different classifications of art.

At home we're fortunate/foolish enough to have a mini-dish. We get music channels via satellite, 20-30 channels of different kinds of music. There is no mini-dish broadcast of 20-30 different channels of visual fine art.

I saw a show at the local museum of modern art a few years ago where the artist did nothing but paint with white paint on white canvas & paper. Sounds bogus to you? It did to me when I went in. But I left the exhibit thinking about different shades of white, texture, technique, what the color white might "mean" if you thought about it, and what you can see when you really look closely. "Wow, I never thought about that before," I said when I walked home. Some of that artist's work made references to other artists' works, too.

Another thing: for performances or installations (besides that being where the big money is, har har), you kinda have to be in the same room to experience what the artist is trying to do. Otherwise it's like reading someone's review of a concert as opposed to hearing it yourself. And how many places are there where you can experience these things directly? I live in a major metropolitan area, but I could still count the places where I can see an art performance or installation on my fingers (might have to use the big toes every once in a while, but not often).

It's not that much better for paintings. Commercial galleries aren't common, and when you find them they're probably selling the equivalent of a McDonald's Happy Meal. Because that's what people are familiar with. Hey, the gallery owner is trying to make a living.

Nowadays most people get their art filtered through images from TV or advertising. Because the ad folks probably went to art school, so they're familiar with the images, plus they have the cash to have fun with gorgeous special effects. Most TV viewers have seen more Saturday Night Live sketch comedy about Van Gogh or Picasso than they've ever read about those two artists, let alone any other artist.

And finally -- a lot of the art that's out there is trying to communicate about (thanks Amos and M.Ted, among others) commercialism, or the merchandising of images, or the way advertising has even crept into public bathroom stalls, or how PR can create an event out of thin air. Maybe that was one point of the "empty exhibit" that began this thread (I don't know anything more than I've read here, so I could be wrong). A lot of artists *are* taking the piss...but you the gallery viewer aren't the target.

I have a whole other rant about how people often do art and don't know it, because they've been told capital-A "Art" is something separate and forever beyond them. But this might be enough ranting for now.

Thanks for the space to rattle on a bit.

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Ringer
Date: 11 Jul 01 - 04:30 AM

Nobody seems to have addressed my point: Amos said that (one of) the purpose(s) of art is communication; how is communication possible, I asked, in a structureless medium? Don't I remember having heard that Picasso, when he wanted to show his love for his woman, had to paint her face representationally in the midst of an abstract background because otherwise nobody would have known what he wanted to say?

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: GUEST,Vanessa
Date: 11 Jul 01 - 06:52 AM

It depends on the artist, and whom the artist wants to communicate with. Some artists create for themselves and don't care what the audience thinks. They label the work "Untitled," and say things like, "The piece speaks for itself." Some artists create with other artists or the art crowd as their intended audience; if the broader public gets it, all well and good. Some artists want to reach everyone. (And the funny thing is, you might work with a particular audience in mind and reach someone entirely different.)

It's not really a structureless medium (media), though. The structures are there. That most people don't learn enough to see them is largely the fault of Art Fear in public education. Or so I declare.

P.S. - Bald Eagle, can your son transfer to another school? Different schools have different philosophies.

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: M.Ted
Date: 11 Jul 01 - 10:59 AM

Vanessa,

Thanks for popping in with your excellent perspectives--You give us a bit of perspective on where the artist is coming from, what the artist is reacting to, and what kind of things that the artist is talking about--and you are right, this is a good thread. I just read it again--

Bald Eagle,

I think that you listen too much to what people say about art--the thing to remember is, a work of art speaks directly from the artist to the viewer, that is, you--the artist creates it, and you look at it and react to what you see--to read a bit into John Cage (who I quoted above) the longer you look, the more you see--You can't make rules for what artists will say, what they will use to say it, any more that you can set standards for what people will say in conversation..of course, you don't have to like or agree with everything(or anything that is said), and people tend to forget this, and think, if they don't "appreciate" a work of art, then something is wrong--

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 11 Jul 01 - 05:51 PM

Thanks Vannesa, your post was very interesting, it made me think.john

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Donuel
Date: 11 Jul 01 - 09:01 PM

Modern Art only compares well to previous centuries if Fabrege' made gem encrusted turds instead of eggs, or if Titian only painted autopsied cadavers. Here is my contribution to modern art that I just made today form my own photos. don't worry the kids will love it too

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: M.Ted
Date: 11 Jul 01 - 11:28 PM

Leonardo Da Vinci was the one who did drawings and paintings of cadavers, and, as it so happens, autopsied them himself. Thomas Eakins, who classifies as a a painter from another century, worked a lot with cadavers, and got into a lot of trouble because he made his students work with them, as well--

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: The Shambles
Date: 12 Jul 01 - 02:28 AM

Unlike music, the visual arts, well painting in particular have had most of their purpose and value taken away by new technology such as photography, film and video.

Visual artists have struggled with this to find a role.

The role of music is exactly the same even if the technology changes?

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Amos
Date: 12 Jul 01 - 02:30 AM

Wow, this has taken a loverly turn!

There are all kinds of grades of communication, and they involve both the recipient and the creator of the communication.

Even in ordinary oral discussion it is not unusual to find a listener cannot begin to imagine what you are on about, because h/she is missing terms, has no common experience, or has a much different set oif emotional values, or is just plain dull and literal, for example, when you are trying to be funny or poetic.

The layers of human communication are much more complex and far far more subtle than trying to get a codec to handshake with a UART and then get the bits shifted out through a TCP I/P protocol. (OK, I did that on purpose, sorry.)

Some of the things artists try to wrestle with are ordinary, aned some are not. There is an entire spectrum, for example, of emotional contact which artists try to master. Some can do no better than the kind of cheap Zapp provided by a dime novel. Others find more subtle or more gentle or more spiritual ways to move, touch, scintillate or shiver the viewer.

There is another whole spectrum involving the intellectual framing and cross linking we humans are so fond of, and here again you can find the really shoddy at one end of the scale -- concepts opresented to impose knee-jerk reactions like a fascist peptalk -- up to the amazing but somewhat overbuilt intellectual harmonics laced through a chapter of Ulysses and the remarkable experiences that can be caused intellectually by confront unexpected silences. In many ways, an artist's effort can go further -- into intentionally trying to break the viewer clear OUT of his intellectual processes and into an experience for wqhich he HAS no pre-built associations?

Why would that be valuable? Doesn't it break the fundamentals of communication? No, it does not. It breaks the rules of conventions and leaves the viewer on his own naked mettle as a Knower. As such it is perfectly possible, and perhaps highly desireable, to break the pattern of expected symbols as a communication that occurs in spite of symbol and signal violations. What sort of communication would that be? Hard to imagine....except when it happens, and the craft of the artist pays off with the sudden loss of breath or the unexpected tear, or the filling of a busy mind with some understanding never before seen by it....

Because that is the Higher Power of communication, which transcends all codes, out-reaches all agreements of vocabulary, and aspires to the unthinkable direct channel from one soul to another. Now THAT is Communication. And that is what the best of Art can be about.

Regards,

A

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Ringer
Date: 12 Jul 01 - 04:49 AM

I suspect, Amos, that a communication that occurs in spite of symbol and signal violations is probably no communication, and we're back to "Art" being what the viewer wants it to be. But, as I've said above, I'm artistically illiterate. Seriously, though, your post above is evidently thoughtful, and I'm grateful; I shall re-read it and attempt to digest it. I may be back...

Vanessa: welcome and thanks for your insights. Re my kid: he's finished this 1-year foundation course, and the course he's chosen (but deferred) is a combination of least corrupted by "modernism" and most amenable to combining visual with audio that he could find.

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: English Jon
Date: 12 Jul 01 - 05:29 AM

Out of interest, what do you think "Modern Art" should be saying? I think a lot of the best work shows us what we already know, but never really notice.

EJ

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Donuel
Date: 12 Jul 01 - 08:53 AM

You can keep/shove your excuses for ugly shock art. Compelling beauty is finer than shock jock art in any age.

Although simple, these took D.Hakman 4 years to do , modifying the violins and cellos and then bending perspectives.Adults under the mental age of 13 do not click here

PICTURED ARE : Bombs and mushroom cloud, Leonardo D'Vinci's self portrait rendered to show more him smirking, disembodied genitals, the modern paradigm for an alien, endangered tiger at various stages in his life span, growing organic fractal images expanding and withdrawing in its travels down the helix of time. - ALL COMPOSED OF VIOLIN WOOD - with no overlay to the final image . Only a bending and blending of perspective is employed. What you see is what there is but there is something more for the inquisitive. Then one can always play these instruments which is an unseen dimension compared to their image.

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Amos
Date: 12 Jul 01 - 09:40 AM

/shove your excuses for ugly shock art -- Sonuel

I wasn't making excuses, if it was I to whom you were speaking.

I concur that compelling beauty is far more powerful than shocking ugliness. But that doesn't mean that ugliness doesn't communicate.

Bald Eagle, breaking up the expected patterns of symbols does not lead to a "no-communication". Ordinary puns do it to some degree and when they sink in they produce a belly laugh because they have communicated on multiple layers by breaking an expected symbol correlation. The net effect is not the same communication as in the literary translation of the symbols.

Piccasso's works often got rejected and abused because they were bizarre and distorted; yet when sit and look at them, allowing them to show themselves without reacting, you get an inkling of a wholely different perspective on the subject. Thus, communication.

Those triangle-faced women aren't compellingly beautiful;, either!:>)

A

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: M.Ted
Date: 12 Jul 01 - 10:09 AM

Amos,

I had wanted to bring up Wittgenstein and the inherent meaninglessness of language in our thread on Atheism, but you are there--I must say I enjoy your comments immensely--

Donuel,

Talk about shock art! I'll bet this stuff is not well received by a lot of the more conventional minds in the violin making or violin playing segments of society--

Shambles,

I think that music has been marginalized by technology--In the 1890's, when phonographs and movies were novelties, there were literally thousands of theaters where singers, musicians, and entertainers of every kind performed, nearly every public place, from hotels to restaurants, to barrooms, employed musicians to provide ambience, background music, and music for dancing--A little bit at a time, this stuff has been replaced with recorded music--even in the fifties and sixties, there was a lot of paying work for small bands and even folk groups--

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: The Shambles
Date: 12 Jul 01 - 11:26 AM

The ability to record or broadcast music has not changed its essential role or that of the musician.

Painters have not been needed for some time just to record what people looked like and have had to find a new role.

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: M.Ted
Date: 12 Jul 01 - 12:08 PM

Musicians haven't been needed to provide music, either. And believe me, the ability to record, and especially the addition of sequencing, sythesizers, and sampling have totally changed the roll of the musician--The first time I went into the studio, more than twenty five years ago, if you wanted to make a recording of a band, you needed warm bodies. Several yearss ago, a band I was got a contract to record an album of material for release in a former Communist block nation--All the instrumentals and vocals ended up being done by one guy(not me) and and a producer/engineer--the rest of us weren't very happy, but that is another story--

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Donuel
Date: 12 Jul 01 - 12:32 PM

True enough about the effect of puns and symbols but whether it is a jar of urine in the museum or kids or kids defacing tombstones , they both communicate.

Picasso's work is probably best represented in his erotic drawings and etchings. Since he grew up in a brothel his insight into somatic eros is profound. His "breakthrough" work was in fact erotic. Although I have a rare reprint of his erotic genre there has yet to be an exhibit of these works. Perhaps soon this will change.

As for my work upsetting classical makers , they were most upset when I had the temerity to impune that their $14,000-$200,000 prices are a practice of an "Emporer with no Clothes".

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: GUEST,Vanessa
Date: 12 Jul 01 - 07:27 PM

There are so many interesting conversations here I decided to bite the bullet and join up. It's hard to find adult-level conversation on the Internet that isn't about computer technology -- so thank you everyone!

Donuel, somehow I sense that you don't assign a high artistic level to the "jar of urine in the museum," which is understandable if that single line of information is all you know about that work.

Here's a photograph of "Piss Christ" by Serrano, to which I assume you're referring:

http://www.nyu.edu/classes/finearts/karmel/modern/m_67.html

(This is one of many pictures in a fine, fine list, which you can see all of at this URL (mind the space, it's all one line). Take a look and see some more modern art: http://www.nyu.edu/classes/finearts/karmel/modern/add.html#40 )

First, I think that this photo is beautiful. Second, the photo makes the context of the piece clearer. Several years ago I saw an exhibit of Serrano's work, part of a larger show about art and science, as I recall. While the exhibit didn't include "Piss Christ," it did include several 3ft x 4 ft extreme closeup photographs of body fluids: urine, blood, and semen. These photos were ...they were beautiful. Gracefully back-lit swirls, bubbles, and flowing broad bands of color. To my mind, the artist obviously wanted us to look at the beauty of these body fluids that we're accustomed to ignoring (even more so in the age of AIDS).

Now, with that in mind, take another look at "Piss Christ." I'm willing to bet that one of Serrano's major intents for this piece was to say, "This, too, is my body." That is, he's saying every part of our bodies is worthy of reverence.

Far as I'm concerned that artistic statement merits a place in any museum.

Now that I've signed up (I hope), a bit more background. I was raised with all kinds of music, but particularly folk music. My mother used to have a folk music radio show on KPFK many years ago. I still listen to blues & folk, and in fact I'm headed off to a folk music and dance camp next week. Just so you know I'm not an interloper or nuthin.

Vanessa

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Amos
Date: 12 Jul 01 - 09:45 PM

Hell, Vanessa, even iffn you wuz an interloper, we wouldn't mind -- we got all kinds here, even some deevorcees, and some who never got hitched at all, an a couple who wuz married by Cletus while he wuz in command of a rowboat on Shandy Creek. We promise not tuh tell yore folks where you are, if you'd druther, on account of there bein' mad at ya fer interlopin. An' whoever it was with, he shore got himself a keeper, too.

Regards,

A

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Vanessa
Date: 13 Jul 01 - 02:08 AM

Dang, Amos! You shore do know how to make a body feel welcome. Thank yew kindly!

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 13 Jul 01 - 02:27 AM

Welcome to Mudcat Vanessa

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: The Shambles
Date: 13 Jul 01 - 05:40 PM

I saw a 100 tonne piece of Portland Stone going past my door this week. It was the largest single piece of stone ever to leave the island.

It was to be an 'installation' and headed for an arts festival at Compton Verney Warwickshire. It was described as "one of the big art events of the year in terms of logistics".

The festival paid £10.000 to tranport it but was donated FOC to the artist, John Frankland who said.

"It all sounds like boys and their toys but it is a bit deeper than that". "It's like trying to visualise a peice of earth being moved from one place to the other". "The stone itself is not a piece of art but the journey and the change of context is almost making it a piece of art".

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Amos
Date: 13 Jul 01 - 05:42 PM

It is so much like visualizing a piece of the earth being moved frm one place to another that I can't notice any difference!!!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: The Shambles
Date: 13 Jul 01 - 05:56 PM

We are left with the big hole.

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Amos
Date: 13 Jul 01 - 06:07 PM

LOL!! Well, that's not _quite_ what I meant, Sham, but that sure is a difference!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: The Shambles
Date: 14 Jul 01 - 04:40 AM

'Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall'.

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Angie
Date: 14 Jul 01 - 09:29 AM

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. As is art. Music must be in the ear of the beholder.

I lump all these things into one bucket. Love, beauty, music, art, peace, contentment, poetry, I just don't know what to name this bouquet of loveliness. A collective noun for the nicer things in life. Any suggestions?

Vanessa, absolutely! Totally agree with your capital 'A' comments too. Good to have you onboard, shipmate!

Mal

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Ringer
Date: 24 Jul 01 - 04:52 AM

Well, I visited Tate Modern at the weekend (let no-one say I don't take this seriously). I got progressively crosser and crosser as I saw more and more meritless daubings and piles of junk. I am convinced it's all bollocks (and pretentious bollocks at that), and the answer to the question, "Are they taking the piss?", posed by JinH in the first posting above, must be "Yes".

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 24 Jul 01 - 12:07 PM

If you are near Hull go to the Ferens, its nice, there is lots of proper art there.

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Jim Cheydi
Date: 24 Jul 01 - 12:20 PM

I don't know what I like, but I know about art.

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 24 Jul 01 - 12:47 PM

I started reading this thread, then decided to just imagine what the rest of it might contain. By that strategem I have no doubt saved some time and aggravation.

By imagining this post, instead of typing it I might have saved a little more...

But for what? What will I do with all the "saved time"?

Hmmmmm....

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: M.Ted
Date: 24 Jul 01 - 02:07 PM

You say that you saw "meritless daubings" and "piles of junk"--But you have said that you don't know much about art, so it seems a bit presumptous for you make such pronouncements--

Maybe you didn't like or understand what you saw, but a lot of the other people who were in the galleries did get something out of it. When you make those kinds of judgements, you discount everyone else's experience but your own--maybe you were missing something--That's OK, you don't have to always get it or like it, but that doesn't mean that people who find meaning in it is wrong--

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Bert
Date: 24 Jul 01 - 03:18 PM

If you have to ask "Is it art" it probably isn't.

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: M.Ted
Date: 24 Jul 01 - 03:41 PM

Is what art?

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Jul 01 - 07:35 PM

For what its worth, good art invites people to think and connect. Seems like this exhibition has done just that. Bet for most people on this thread, this is the most they have thought about visual art in a long time.

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 08 Dec 01 - 10:39 PM

I still reckon they are taking the piss! I have just heard about the Turner Prize nominations, apparently one of them is an empty room with somebody swithcing an electric light on and off, this piece of "art" could win 20,000 pounds! It takes me a year to earn that much, I think I chose the wrong job, I should have been an artist.

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 06:54 AM

Now I know they are taking the piss! An "artist" has just won 20,000 pounds for an empty room with the light been switched on and off, his other works of art include a piece of blu tack on a wall and a crumpled up piece of paper.He says he is a minimalist, I say he is a pillock.

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Ringer
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 07:24 AM

But would a pillock be able to get £20000 in exchange for an electric timer?

"Look: the Emperor's got no clothes on!"

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: GUEST,Skipjack
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 09:31 AM

And the winner is ..................... The electric company, profiting from art. I would have entered a fridge, as mine does the same thing, but automatically. Ah, you say, but does the fridge know what it's doing? Hmmm.

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: Amos
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 10:00 AM

Well, you can argue that anyone could make a switch go on and off, but tjat is really not the point.

The point is more on the line of what occurs to a visitor -- what sort of communication or experience -- when he approaches this exhibit and has to stand observing someone dicking with the lights in an empty room. It raises some intersting questions about perception and expectation, actually, just imagining it.

If you take an experiment in this kind of transcendental communication (meaning that it jumps beyond the normal set of forms and meanings) and try to force it in to a normal context (such as "why are they wasting electricity?") then you might as well curl up with a more normal kind of communication such as a good book. It doesn't quite work that way. They guy who rigged it up IS trying to make apoint, but he is is trying to make it outside the normal rule set and some people find this offensive or irritating.

But it does communicate. This is not a no-clothes Emperor. It's an Emperor who dresses funny.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: CarolC
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 03:32 PM

(*heavy sarcasm alert*)

To me it's really all about navel lint. Some people find it more compelling than others. And for some it can be a very expansive experience. But it's still navel lint.

(I wonder if I can get some grant money for coming up with such a profound idea... )

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 03:45 PM

I suppose a conman is a kind of artist.

Some suggestions for future Turner Prize awards -

a queue with a pickpocket;

a toilet that plays God Save the Queen when you try to sit down on it. It'd work better when it gets to Ne York, and it's adjusted to play God Bless America;

karaoke for a conductor;

a dead rat on a plate for as long as it takes for it to turn into a swarm of flies and a skeleton.

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: gnomad
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 03:50 PM

No John, the artist is not the real pillock here, that would be the person allowing the entry into the contest.

Reading back up the thread I don't see the suggestion for Damien that his next work (after the animal in formaldehyde) could be a self portrait, wish I had come up with that one, I might even pay to see it.

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 05:07 PM

Here's a younger thread about this It might be better to move over there if people want to continue the discussion, since this is getting a bit long in the tooth.

Subject: RE: BS: Modern art?
From: GUEST,Wyrdsister
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 05:19 PM

Well, this is something I've always wondered about myself...I remember hearing Yoko Ono talk about the first time she met John Lennon; he'd attended one of her "exhibits" at the the-groovy Indica gallery in Soho. There was an apple on a pedestal, and he took a bite of it. Yoko was outraged and said something like "How dare you touch my piece?" She immediately put him down as a philistine, but apparently changed her opinion later. Of course, their short (!) film on the process of tumescence is another instance of art possibly taking the piss......