The court documents may, in fact, stand as a quintessential work of conceptual work, displacing the physical presence of the sculpture with the far more intriguing discourse it inspired. Had an artist of Duchamp’s wit and perception been the creator of Tilted Arc, he would have seized on the potency of this irony by declaring the court proceedings the art, and the clippings the exhibition catalogue. But Richard Serra is not an artist given to spontaneous reversals of trenchant humor.
— James Wines re: Richard Serra’s Tilted Arc. My mind is being boggled by this. Our friend here— haaay @keyholez— is basically saying “If Serra was funnier he would have come up with this funny joke that I came up with.” He is basically saying “the controversy was cool and interesting but it’d be even MORE cool and interesting if we treated it as conceptual art.” Why would it be? There’s nothing magical about calling a thing “art” that makes that thing better or more interesting. The controversy WAS interesting. It is fun and enlightening to read the clippings and essays and court documents that came out of it. They wouldn’t be more fun or enlightening if Serra had put them in a box and sold the box for a million dollars. Get real
This gigantic strip of rust is, in my opinion, an arrogant, nose-thumbing gesture at the government and those who serve the government… It is bad enough for government and civil servants to be perennial targets of the public and the press alike, but for us to be degraded by an artist as well is, to say the least, compounding the insult.
— Federal Building employee testifying against Richard Serra’s Tilted Arc. I agree with her, being degraded by an artist would suuuuuuck
The question I ask is:
How can I explain this?
How can I swing this, in English language?
If I switch to slang and turn “man” to “mane”
Do I do it in vein, or simply to entertain?
Am I being real or am I being fake?
Am I just a fraud or am I truly genuine?
Or am I caught up in this hot water?
Whodie on my daughter, I told you, I love this culture!
A fire broke out backstage in a theatre. The clown came out to warn the public; they thought it was a joke and applauded. He repeated it; the acclaim was even greater. I think that’s just how the world will come to an end: to general applause from wits who believe it’s a joke.
—
Kierkegaard, Either/Or (via keyholez)
Who is this guy, a stand-up comedian?
