No tears, but similarly blown away by Rothko at the Tate in London. 1987. Still think about that. The only experience in a museum that came close was the Van Gogh at LACMA a few years ago now. Turning the corner into the final room, to see 'Wheat Field with Crows', I was destroyed.
Isn't each case negotiable though? Can a buyer purchase a copyright? With this commissioned work, the artist would have control over what replaces the piece at any time?(assuming thugs don't destroy it first) See? This stuff's all wacky!
The impressionists kill me every time. As for the vandalism, that's just sad, and the blank wall where a graphic art used to be is sadder.
Well, you might be already (paying for [LAA's] art, that is.) I define thuggery as the use of violence / terrorism as a means of expression / currency.
Default is artist retains all copyright. If copyright is transferred cost is usually dramatically higher, like exponentially, as the artist is giving up future revenue potential. It is indeed a wacky date relatively recent area of law, for instance the buyer does retain inherent rights, so if they go to sell the work they are granted some reproduction rights. Murals are an additional wrinkle in terms of changing as there's property ownership involved and zoning issues involved. I can only point to specific instances I know which may be abberations, but in each case the artist lost their court case or appeal to the city.
Well, yes. I suspect Stalin / Hussein knew this explicitly, I'd guess, as did those who destroyed those monuments. I mean either certain things like life, written word, free speech etc have inherent value to us and we decide to protect them regardless of if someone arbitrarily decides to find any objectionable (and I could come up with examples for each) or we don't. A tempting philosophical rabbit hole for sure, but either way, I think it's a stretch to use the Banksy / Stalinist Europe defenses in this case.
In a spirit of full disclosure, I will say that my interests and education (both formal and self-taught) in the arts are in the fields of literature and music. I make no pretense at having either an educated palate or insight in painting, sculpture or other graphic arts (if that is the right term) I guess my quibble with the judgement that all public art has value is that it denies any discrimination between the good and bad. It denies the possibility that a given piece of public art may be destructive or that the public space would have been a better (more pleasing, more useful, more welcoming, whatever) if that particular work had never been placed there. Or maybe I just don't understand what you were trying to convey. And, again, I may just not have the education to quite grasp what you were trying to say. In the areas of lit and music I know that there are good and bad works. Why not public art? Or are you saying even "bad" public art has inherent value? If so, what is that value - what human good does it advance? Lastly, and this really is aimed at LAA's 1 in 10,000 to a nickle comment, what if that nickle could have been spent on a public work that made 1,000 people happier as opposed to the 1 in 10,000? Or what if the work that makes 1 in 10,000 ecstatic also makes 9,999 less happy?
That’s what the popular arts are for, appealing to the masses and there’s an inherent market for those works, publicly funded art is there to fill in the gaps. The romanticized view of the starving artist producing art that isn’t truly appreciated until after their death is unkind. I have always been a firm believer of the “if you don’t like turn the dial” protest. Given that public art is not the same as publicly funded art, it isn’t controversial in nature (e.g., Piss Christ). If the art truly is making others unhappy you take it to the city council and petition for its removal or relocation. Happens all the time, we had a giant bloody whale sculpture end up in an entirely different part of town because it was objected to by residents nearby.
Without giving it a rigorous self-examination of why, I do think this thread has hit on something with public art and the rights of the individual, the rights of property, the rights of free speach, the rights of the community, the line between art and advertising, street art as a form of expression with some element of civil disobedience. If I have a piece of art that I feel obligated to display in my front yard, it might be my legal right, but no doubt if that art is sending a message that is at odds with the beliefs of my neighbors, could I expect my neighbors to accept it indefinitely? If my neighbors defaced my art would you condemn it if it was an LA Galaxy mural? A mural of Trump receiving a book from the Pope? A large Klan cross? I do think it is interesting to think how reactions might change if the graphic in question is labelled art, if it's mass-produced, or an advertising billboard. Is its purpose to entertain, inform, offend? How does it fit with its surroundings? Is it placed so that I can look the other way, or does it demand my attention? Frankly, I'm sympathetic to both the artist and the vandal. The artist's work was probably commissioned, but no doubt some spark of creativity and effort was put into it, perhaps with hopes that it would be enjoyed for some time, but nonetheless they still received some compensation. And the vandal, was sending a message that the work was not valued by him or her - If the mural was down the street from my house I'm not sure I'd want to look at it every day for years. No doubt it is easier to destroy than to create, but the vandal's actions could have consequences, if apprehended. So the actions may have been thoughtless, destructive, and illegal. Did they also take courage? Or was it done with a sense of humor? It's not within everyone's resources to take it to the city council, even if that may be the right thing to do. I don't know, but +1 to what you guys and gals bring to this forum. Of course, you all seem a bit artsy, though, shouldn't you be following LAFC ?
I remember when I watched it slowly figuring out that it wasn't a "documentary." Great film taken either way though.
I should have been clearer. I was talking about public art - stuff that you can't really avoid seeing if you need/want to use that public space. I am with you 100% on "private" art - museum, gallery, whatever. If you don't like Rothko, don't go. I do have some question as to whether public funding of "private art" is the highest and best use of public resources, but that is a discussion which takes us far afield from what I thought we were discussing. BTW: Thank you for your thoughtful response.
That kind of feels like an edge case to me. There's plenty of public art in my town I don't care for and some I find downright objectionable for reasons that are beyond the scope of discussion. I pass by one the objectionable ones everyday on my walk to the office and while I can't "turn the dial" I don't pay it much mind. Every once in a while I mutter under my breath as I walk by but that's my choice to be offended by something that really isn’t offensive – and if the worst part of my day is walking by a mural I dislike that's a pretty good day. Like I said public art is almost universally benign in subject matter simply because it has to pass so many hurdles to get approved, to me any offense taken is really something you have to actively choose to do. I'm not sure it's much different than a public building being painted a color you hate or the park planting trees you don't like.
lMO, creative types are apt to seek the hard to find or not easily accessible, rather than wait for convenience.
Yes, I agree with most of those points. I guess my point that art has inherent value was to counter the idea being put forth in the thread that no harm was done because the artist got paid and the art was crappy anyway etc. My point was, art is an end unto itself end and is not given value merely when someone decides to exchange currency for it. It also isn't robbed of value if we individually decide it's not for us. To your point, art (like speech) having inherent value (or maybe, capital is a better word?) does not imply it is an inherent good. Or even more objectively, we can analyze whom the art is valuable for and not. And we can judge some work as having more value than others.
I'm a "Turner Prize Skeptic", but am willing to be educated. Is it that Rothko's stuff has greater meaning due to how huge the canvasses are? Could any of you sum up what the meaning was of the piece that moved you?
I'm a skeptic towards a lot of famous art but I was once at the Huntington gardens and I went inside to see "Blue Boy" and I was truly struck by the painting. Size did have something to do with it but only in that it made you feel the vibrancy of the colors.
Agree with @Baysider, scale is certainly part of it, but not necessarily size, sometimes pieces are small or smaller than you expect and are just as impressive. Presentation is another, a canvas hanging in a place specifically designed to focus your attention is far more impactful than the same canvas hanging in a corporate lobby. In addition though you see the texture of the canvas, colors and transitions that are difficult if not impossible to reproduce outside of the most high-end printing processes let alone the details that get destroyed simply by taking a piece that might be 5, 10, 20 times the size of its reproduction. A poor analogy, but with regards to Rothko seeing them in person vs reproductions was like the difference watching say The Dark Knight on DVD on a 50" TV and watching it in IMAX theater; it’s scale is the most obvious difference, but it’s so much more than that.
Yes, all of that. The depth of the colors, the size of the canvas, the pieces had an amazing presence that I had never imagined a painting could have. Or, I might have been drunk.