January 06, 2006
The Art World is Going Down the Toilet
Via Breitbart:
A 76-year-old performance artist was arrested after attacking Marcel Duchamp's "Fountain" _ a porcelain urinal _ with a hammer, police said.
Duchamp's 1917 piece _ an ordinary white, porcelain urinal that's been called one of the most influential works of modern art _ was slightly chipped in the attack at the Pompidou Center in Paris, the museum said Thursday. It was removed from the exhibit for repair.
The suspect, a Provence resident whose identity was not released, already vandalized the work in 1993 _ urinating into the piece when it was on display in Nimes, in southern France, police said.
During questioning, the man claimed his hammer attack on Wednesday was a work of performance art that might have pleased Dada artists. The early 20th-century avant-garde movement was the focus of the exhibit that ends Monday, police said.
A 2004 poll of 500 arts figures ranked "Fountain" as the most influential work of modern art - ahead of Pablo Picasso's "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon," Andy Warhol's screen prints of Marilyn Monroe and "Guernica," Picasso's depiction of war's devastation.
"Fountain" is estimated at $3.6 million.
I have a couple of questions:
1. How is a plain old urinal considered art?
2. How is bashing it with a hammer considered performance art?
These days, a rotten tomato on a cutting board could be mounted on a pedestal with the name "Cultural Decay" and be called art. And performance art is probably one of the biggest scams going. How about the woman who pours melted chocolate all over her naked body onstage? That's just an excuse to get naked in my book. Call me a philistine if you will, but I just don't get it.
That doesn't excuse the idiot who wielded the hammer, however, for his damaging of private property.
Show Comments »
Oh honey, you should sell that! YOu could make some serious cash. Start a whole line of decaying veggies . . .
:)
Posted by: oddybobo at January 6, 2006 10:56 AM
