art

Art.  It is a very short word to encompass so much endless creative variety.

How do we know something is art?  Because we are told so.  For example, this is art:

But this is not:

They are both found outside, on the same property, Art Omi, an outdoor sculpture park.  They are both composed primarily of rusted metal.  They both have intriguing apertures.  And, presumably, both were placed where they are now resting intentionally.  So why is the first an art object, with a catalogue number and tag, and the second is trash?

A photograph.  It can be art (see: Man Ray), or it can be utilitarian object (see: my passport photo).  What’s the difference?  Both are taken with cameras.  Both represent something.  Both are 2-D, easily replicable in a coffee table volume or on a photocopier.

What is the intent of the artist in creating this:

and titling it “Boys Cry Too”?  It is a bunch of climbing rope, tied in a enormity of knots, arranged on the ground, and painted bright colors.  What was Orly Genger thinking in creating this?

 

 

 

 

 

My general criteria for what I consider art is two-fold:

• Did it require fine craftsmanship and careful execution?

• Does it make me stop and think?

Claude Monet – amazing brush technique, use of color, vision.  Art.

Jeff Koons – huge shiny replicas of balloon animals.  Not art.

Yet another reason I don’t watch television

At the Y there are banks of flat screen tv’s facing the equipment.  With my iPod, I can usually tune out whatever inanity is showing.  Today it was “Dr.” Phil.

But since the tv’s are Right There I couldn’t escape seeing the front cover of a book written by one of Dr. Phil’s guests:  Having an Affair?  A Handbook for the Other Woman.

I can’t imagine who would buy this.  If someone went to Barnes & Noble to purchase a copy, they’d have to 1) wear a disguise, and/or 2) shoplift in order to avoid the check-out line.  Buy it online?  Then there is a trail in the interwebs leading straight back to the purchaser.

The sad thing is that I don’t even need to ask the question of why someone would write this.

To get on Dr. Phil’s show for their 15 minutes of undeserved fame.

 

Musings along the Dan Ryan

On our way back from Goshen, IN, we crossed the North-South continental divide.  I had never heard of this particular geographic demarcation, but it turns out that it is simply the edge of the Great Lakes Basin.  You pass over a slight rise, and then dip down a few hundred feet to the flat plains left by the receding waters of the Great Lakes.

Later, as we inched our way through Chicago on I-94, it occurred to me that there is also a Second City Divide.

This is where you are no longer driving into Chicago, but are leaving Chicago, and therefore traffic starts moving again at a reasonable pace.  On the opposite side of the highway, you can see your compatriots slowing to a standstill as you pick up speed.  This divide I envision more as a dip than a rise – you drive down into the logjam of the city, and then begin climbing your way back up out.  It occurs at about Cortland Street.