Is Contemporary Art Going Down the Crapper?

I guess it's a permanent installation.

I peed in Robert Fultons daddy;s outhouse. They had new Johns installed in a public rest area at Monticello so that dont count.

If I was at the Alamo, Id hold it, just out of respect

Is this decadent art? Maybe it is, but it was intentionally decadent. Duchamp entered this as an intentionally insane Dadaist response to the insane Society that brought on the insanity of World War One. In other words he meant, "this is what your fucked up Society is and deserves, nothing more."

I kbow this is an old thread, but I wonder if anybody thought about the significance of creating a solid gold toilet and putting it on display in a great art museum, the Guggenheim? The artist had something in mind and the Museum peuople recoegnized it, so why treat it like it's just decadent.

Just because an artist has a sincere or earnest message behind a given work of art, doesn't mean that work of art is more valuable than the sum of its aesthetic, cultural parts.

Anybody can write a well meaning, thoughtful, activistic song criticizing society, political structures, etc.... Well meaning messages automatically don't make it a good or even a listenable song.

Art for the sake of shock value? Simply on those merits? Doesn't always work. I doubt too many 'average' museum goers would give this site installation much thought ... X number of days after they visit the museum and relieve themselves into the solid gold toilet... other than ... "I wish I had a solid gold toilet" when they themselves are sitting on their own home or work toilet ... doing their personal business.