Would You Consider This Art?

and this one


link to site

Nobody said you had to be any good to be an artist. He didn't create anything, so he's not a craftsman. My money is on either bad artist or professional attention whore.

Cristo created the great divide waterfall in my home town. The world tallest waterfall from a bridge.
He also wrapped islands in pink plastic.

I remember Cristo's giant umbrellas in California from when I was a kid. He hadn't taken high winds into consideration...

I thought his best idea, artistically speaking was to light strategically placed bonfires, in the shape of a dove, across north america ,at the same time and take photos from space. I believe weather played apart in the demise of this idea too.

I have to say I don't really view this as art. This looks more like pollution than anything else. As long as he is using something non-toxic I really can't say much. Everyone has their own opinion about what art is.

The Houston Chronicle has an article in todays paper about this and it really is what Evaristti is quoted to have said that really makes me clench my teeth. When asked why he did this he says "We all have a need to decorate mother nature because it belongs to all of us."

Maybe I am just being snitty but I am a firm believer that WE belong to mother nature not the other way around and that we in no way should try to decorate her because she is all beautiful the way she is. Besides I can't possibly see how he thinks dumping red paint on a once pristine pure white iceberg is an improvement on nature. It looks like a slaughter happened there and I for one think we see enough of that in the world.

Just a little rant...sorry. No I can definitely say that I don't like it. As for it being considered art...well...the eye of the beholder I guess.

That quote got me too Al. As if mother nature needs our help, respect would be more like it.

Re: Would You Consider This Art?
Looks to me like the guy is trying to make more of an activist statement than a work of art. But art is whatever someone calls are. All it needs is an audience. Like they say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But to me it's just a bunch of spilled paint, not art.

I haven't read the responses, will talk off the cuff here.

When I first heard of Christo I scoffed and I now think a lot of his work. Think there is a recent, as in this week, article on him in the NYTimes, with some gorgeous photo links.

Some of my friends do environmental related art and I have told them face to face that I think it is all about the artist and is using the environment (my take on a few glances at Andy Goldsworthy, Michael Heizer) in most cases.

But... I have heard AG had done more interesting work than I saw and I actually liked what my friend did, at least the piece he showed me photos of when I dumped on Goldsworthy. And I have since then gotten a book on Heizer and will give him some room.

My own piquant point of view is that I think nature is art by itself, and I get all consternated about constructions of it as art, say the lining up of leaves...

This particular piece, the red dye on the ice, I find really annoying. Check me in ten years, maybe I'll love it. Right now it seems at the least derivative and possibly exploitative. But then I haven't read about the context. Let's say I am not sure.

On the goldfish, I remember a thread on that and modifying my view as I began to understand his point. Unfortunately I forget that point right this minute, but I won't just join in and say he is an idiot.

Hah, I see you have already talked about Goldsworthy. Jury out on my part about him. Mary Miss, Nancy Holt, Siah Armajiani, Christo, Heizer, I have liked some works. I am always aware of ego writing large first, even if the scale is small.

My problem with Goldworthy is I was soooo very irritated in the beginning I can hardly bear to hear more. Maybe tomorrow.

Oh, yeah, the article about Christo this week is about his curtains in New York's Central Park. One hell of a feat, to say the least, with gates at what my design partner figured out to be at every sixteen feet, in contrast to whatever the article said.. one presumes they were right, but, a lot of gates, the printed math wrong, she said. Well, there were probably trees and large shrubs in the way, I said. Anyway, it looks good in plan view, illustrating the complexity of the design dreamt real, the park as jewel by Olmstead and Vaux. When they did it, parks were just really beginning, as far as public access.

Me, I think Central Park's design was and is art, and even ART. But, eh, I'm biased.

Edit to say I'm wrong, it was in this week's New Yorker....

give goldsworthy another look osso? I put a link on my last comment on this thread - his work does no damage to the environment but uses it in interesting ways and is often ephemeral. I really like it.

why did he irritate you?

i think his way about what he does may be irritating. "this is my iceberg" and "nature belongs to us so we have to beautify it" approach seems arrogant to me. i don't care that much when it is safe. but dying the sea red is over the top methinks. i am no artist, but i prefer looking on rather than invading and interfering. just look at yann arthur-bernard's photos from around the globe (the 365 photos from the plane), there is so much out there that just needs appreciation and staying out.
i did like, however, when czech students painted the soviet army tank, elevated on a pedestal in one of the prague's main squares, pink in protest from soviet troops staying in czechoslovakia for decades after WWII. but that ain't art, just a political statement. even though they were art students.

this item is decidedly 'art', as proven here by all your comments;

he has communicated 'emotionally' with everyone aware of his work:

http://www.galleristen.dk/Billeder/Galleri/Kan%20kopieres.jpg

and as for the comments; they are what they are with every ego statement, promotional invention, to be taken lightly!

Now i wonder how much yellow die it would take to dye the world's oceans a lasting 'yellow' ...............?

i sincerely hope nobody will ever try that - what will we ever do with all the yellow fish then?

A pink tank? That's art. I think it's almost exactly the inverse of this, uh, statement. Threatening thing painted an extremely unthreatening color vs. unthreatening thing painted a threatening color.

A white iceberg amidst many white icebergs is serene, scenic, lovely -- that blood-red iceberg is scary.

I like the tank better, though.

truth
He could have got the same visual effect by doctoring photos of the same scene.

How about as a safety/warning measure? Paint'em all red, no more Titanics.

Re: truth


all the ocean's residents are doing their part; emptying their little bladders, to accomplish this goal!





showing the photo around to reach the same audience would have been a bit tedious; and jl, to me the 'art' is in the 'bizaarity of the activity, not the actual result; notwithstanding they are one and the same thing.