Oh hey, my parents have one of those in their attic! Might pop it on ebay.
Sold: €15k invisible sculpture that's a must-see for art lovers
Readers of El Reg are nothing if not cultured and frequent dabblers of the avant-garde. Which is why it will come as no surprise that an artist has recently sold an "invisible" sculpture for a reported €15,000 (£13,000). Salvatore Garau - an Italian artist from the Mediterranean island of Sardinia – was a drummer for prog rock …
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Monday 7th June 2021 12:08 GMT Chris G
Re: "to see him walk across said bricks"
Art in action; walking across the bricks adds an active element to the installation, thereby validating their existence and giving them context.
I can write bollocks too.
I would just like to make clear that no self respecting brickie will get out of bed for a pie and pint.
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Monday 7th June 2021 11:56 GMT Aaiieeee
From the tate page on the bricks
"Each of Andre’s Equivalent series consists of a rectangular arrangement of 120 firebricks. Although the shape of each sculpture is different, they all have the same height, mass and volume, and are therefore ‘equivalent’ to each other. "
I mean what the hell!?! He doesn't even attempt to recreate the work in a consistent fashion and has some story as to how him not doing anything has special cosmic significance?
Something deep down tells me I will never be wealthy..
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Monday 7th June 2021 14:55 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: I don't think I'm psychologically capable of spouting that much bullshit with a straight face.
Some people are born with it, I suppose, but majority just practice. And with each 'success', their confidence level goes up one notch on the bullshitter scale. Probably to the point that they soon start believing it themselves. But it's sad times anyway.
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Monday 7th June 2021 13:18 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Should get a better dictionary
Your rule of thumb is a little naive. First of all there are two very different aspects of "Art".
Let's take a rather famous and extreme example of something that not only someone else could make, but actually had made: Marcel Duchamp's famous dadaist "Fountain" (Wikipedia), featuring a (literally) bog-standard urinal bought at a plumbing supplies store... Well, that's really not art, isn't it, anybody could buy (and had indeed bought) that specific model of urinal before and after Duchamp. So, was Duchamp just taking the piss?
Actually Duchamp's point was exactly that: Making people think about what is actually "Art". Is Art some intangible quality an artist can magically bestow upon about anything, like in this extreme case? It's true we don't really know what "Art" is, and there are probably as many wildly different definitions as people you ask about it. So Marcel Duchamp's urinal, while not "Art" in the noble sense, was nevertheless a fundamental milestone in Art History.
The second aspect are the "art collectors". Most of the time they don't care or understand anything about Art, except for the potential for profit: Buy some poor promising artist's works for cheap, wait till he croaks (ideally soon and dramatically), profit! Marcel Duchamp's urinal was never intended for sale (and was never sold), but put yourself in his situation, if some crazy rich guy had come and offered you tens of thousands for that stupid thing, would you say no? Artists need to eat too...
Art is not just defined by technical perfection and brilliance of execution, it is also defined by the very special impression it makes upon the spectator, the stroke of genius, the certain something which makes you go "wow". Saying "I can make that" is rather silly, with a little training you could indeed do about anything, but did you?...
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Tuesday 8th June 2021 07:13 GMT LybsterRoy
Re: Should get a better dictionary
Sorry, I'm both old and old fashioned. Art is not taking the piss out of the punters. Art is not a room with lights going on and off. Nor is it smelting a meteorite, recasting it as itself and sending it back to space.
I may not know just what art is but I'm positive what it is not!
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Wednesday 9th June 2021 12:30 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Should get a better dictionary
(Original AC here)
"You can create any old arse and call it art"
Yes, and that's precisely the whole point of Duchamp's urinal: To demonstrate just that!
"Calling a urinal art only makes the point that if you have no talent"
OMG, you didn't read, did you...
I'll give it a second try: Duchamp made that willingly outrageous "piece of art" (note the quotes) just and specifically to show the problem that there is no definition of "Art", and that you can declare about anything as "Art", if you are credible enough as an expert.
His point was a philosophical one, and obviously went way over the heads of most people back then (and apparently here in this forum too. Seriously, you disappoint me, people).
Last but not least, Duchamp did not intend to sell that urinal. His goal was totally different from the article's "emperor's new sculpture" artist, so don't mix them up. Two different people, with different goals.
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Monday 7th June 2021 12:37 GMT Anonymous Coward
Imagine trying to insure sell or ship the "artwork"
Try and describe it's appearance (white cat in a snowstorm or a black cat in a coal mine with no lights)
Approximate dimensions (somewhere between infinitely small and infinitely big)
Approximate weight (think of a number, triple it or divide it by zero if it's a friday then decide whether you just worked out the weight in milligrams or megatons)
On a positive note I think I am about to be very rich as I have just discovered I am the proud owner of at least 5000 artworks similar to the one just sold (it's amazing what you find under the sofa)
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Monday 7th June 2021 13:02 GMT sabroni
It's art
If it also happens to be a con trick that doesn't invalidate it as an artwork. In fact, isn't that part of the work?
All works of art are objectively pointless, or at least the art bit of them is. A picture of a haywain can cover a stain on the wall but not because it's a picture of a haywain, because it's a square of canvas.
And the disbelieving comments are a lovely extension of the work, nudging it slightly towards reality.
Smashing!
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Monday 7th June 2021 13:32 GMT Anonymous Coward
There's nothing new here
I've seen this done before. At least 20 years ago I was in one of the London museums - I think it was Tate Modern soon after it first opened - and I saw something very similar. There was an empty space with a knee-height rope barrier around it to stop people walking through it. I'm really struggling to remember the name of the artist but I'm pretty sure the title of the work on the information card was "Exhibit removed for cleaning".
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Monday 7th June 2021 14:20 GMT tiggity
Conning mugs (AKA some (not all) aspects of conceptual art) has long been part of art
So I'm used to seeing dubious art descriptions, its the shoddy "science" in his explanation that irritates me, at least do a proper job of your BS spiel, a schoolkid could have written a more coherent description.
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Monday 7th June 2021 15:40 GMT John Brown (no body)
In the void there is a container of positive and negative possibilities
Surely by definition there is nothing in a void. A void needs something around it for there be a void in. In this case the "void" can't exists because void has air in it, exactly the same as is surrounding it, ergo there is no void.
Since his "void" is a "container of positive and negative possibilities" it can't be a void because it contains something. But the "somethings" in the void are only possibilities and therefore may not exist, it could be a void. Or not.
Is your head hurting now too?
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Monday 7th June 2021 18:32 GMT Dr.Flay
Invisible artwork stolen
Reports are now coming in that 3 Mime artists used their powers of distraction to perpetrate an audacious daylight robbery.
While amusing the crowd with invisible ropes and sheets of glass, they cunningly hid the artwork from view.
Once hidden it was swapped it for an almost identical work they had knocked up in the shed last night.
Police are looking for 3 men wearing black clothes and eye-masks, last seen struggling in an amusing way to carry a large invisible object from the area, and loading it onto an invisible flatbed truck.
The public are warned not to approach them due to the risk of unsolicited miming.
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Monday 7th June 2021 22:04 GMT John Brown (no body)
Re: Invisible artwork stolen
And mime artists. It was a strange aversion, but there you are. Anyone in baggy trousers and a white face who tried to ply their art anywhere within Ankh's crumbling walls would very quickly find themselves in a scorpion pit, on one wall of which was painted the advice: Learn The Words.”
― Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!
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Monday 7th June 2021 23:21 GMT Whiskers
upcoming "Fake or Fortune?"
I look forward to the episode of this BBC4 TV series where experts discuss whether ot not the intangible artwork is genuine (which so far in the series has effectively been defined as 'made by the/a person whose other works have fetched silly high prices', rather than the far more reasonable 'is it any good as art?), and what difference this makes to the estimated price it might fetch if the present owners ever try to sell it.
Will costly or rare intangible artworks be used as currency to launder the proceeds of intangible crime? Will cheap intangible works be sold in newsagents and gift shops?
Biting the hand that feeds IT
