Your Tax Dollars At Work

Tell me it was donated....I mean, they didn't actually pay for that, right?

Well at least I got that it was a tree. Not hard to guess though, if you were to walk through my property @ Princeton BC, you see a hell of a lot of these sculptures, mostly though made of dead birch.

Oh-yeah, my sculptures though at least feed the bugs/birds and keep us warm during the winter. Let's see Roxies do that!

Not only supporting the arts -- supporting the American arts.

Up from the depths
Thirty meters high
Sucking all your cash
Pointing to the sky
Artzilla!

What a first class bunch of crap. But, now that we have a new majority Government that will change...well, won't it?

psst - don't let the Beavers know it's whereabouts.

Despite the breathless introduction -about as innovative as the Fire painting a few years ago. What a waste of taxpayer $$$ and if Harper has any guts, he will slowly strangle the National Gallery funding.

It tells you the height, the width ,the material it was made out of ,and how much it wiegh's....but there is one thing missing .....................HOW MUCH DID IT COST?

I am sorry if your an artist and you can't live off of your work or creations or what ever it may be your talent and i use that term loosly . then you should not be an artist for a living you should get a jobby to support your artistry as a hobby and if it catches on and you makei t big great you deserve every penny you make from your art but other than that your a waste of time , skin and my money!!

"It looks exactly like a giant dried bulls penis."

What else do you expect from Ottawa steers?

The LS from SK and paul in calgary - so, is cost the final artbiter of value? Remember, everyone was lambasting "Voice of Fire" by Barnett Newman, purchased a while ago for $1.8M. Its value has appreciated significantly since then (but we would only know its true open market value by putting it up for auction). Newman has a Canadian connection as well, he spent some time at Emma Lake SK in the artist's circle there.

Art is all about context. Remember the upside down church - "Device to Root Out Evil" by Dennis Oppenheim? It caused tons of controversy when it was in Vancouver, but now sits quietly beside near a Chinese restaurant close to where I live.

If it's about value - and investment - that's one thing, if it's about a cultural statement it's another. Cheers!

Its about spending MY money!
If you like it you buy it.
If I like it and can afford it I will buy it, maybe.
Keep these entitlement scum out of my wallet.

I could just cry.

And not because the "art" in any way touched my soul. Can't believe we fund this stuff.

Next time I limb a tree I'm going to demand an arts grant.

Will there be a fine or anything for not calling it the 30.48 metre line?

Or you can see them for free.

Walk This Way

Where I live, they send around trucks to pick this sort of thing up about once a week.

It would make an awesome lightning rod.

What an eloquent and beautiful sculpture, so keenly depicting the sodomising of the taxpayer!

Kate, can you twig Kory Teneycke at SUN TV to the "giant dried bull penis" and shed some light on this "ART"?

I don't give a $Hitif the piece was the creation of an Irish garden gnome FAERY, but how much are we Canadian taxpayers on the hook for the "dried bull penis"?

Get busy SUN TV!

Erik Larsen - (but we would only know its true open market value by putting it up for auction)
____________

Good point. But open market means no government or government agency of any kind involved in the bidding.

Methinks without government funding, most of these "artists" would make their living at Burger King.

And just to clarify, I am a member of the local arts community and I sell my works to the public, not the government. But I can't make a living at it so I work in the transportation industry.

Not only supporting the arts -- supporting the American arts.
Posted by: Gobi desert at July 6, 2011 10:46 AM

That was my thought too - the very least they could do if they're going to spend our tax dollars on public art is make sure it get spent on a Canadian artist.

Right now it's a self fulfilling prophecy, its presence is to foretell the regions future.

Ottawa is the home of our huge useless overly mature socialist suffocating crown.
This ugly eternal dead metal tree skeleton is what happens when forests are allowed to mature without harvesting, tending or managing and the inevitable but unexpected crown fire that rages through, burning up the overly thick duff layer allowed to accumulate for far to long and everything else, leaving nothing but the odd stark and useless monuments to stupidity, inaction and waste. There's your freakin plaque.
Leave it!

Dirtman - thanks for your interesting and important comment. I'm always struggling with how much the taxpayer should support the arts - there is an argument for national identity etc.

I really admire creative people like you - who are driven to do their thing no matter what - and who take on "paid work" so that you can explore your gifts. (I am allergic to talentless people spongeing off arts grants and smoking dope all day.)

The truly driven Canadian artists a century ago nearly starved (Goodridge Roberts could barely stand after laying in fields sketching, and lost teeth due to malnutrition) so that's clearly not great - but I've seen many people funded that shouldn't be. Cheers.

My life is complete that I now know what a " a giant dried bulls penis." looks like.

Jaysuss.. what a lot of frothy self-aggrandizing word salad:

"Made from unyielding, stainless steel pipes used in manufacturing and heavy industry, One Hundred Foot Line is a masterful example of Paine’s intense fascination with trees and his technical ability to create sublime structures from industrial materials. For him, the Dendroids represent an attempt to observe trees as a language governed by rules and structures and reflect his thoughts on human encroachment on the environment."

Funny how people who foot the bill can't find how much it was.

Nicely stated, richfisher.

As an engineer, I wonder if the foundation design and the structural integrity of the installation has been approved by a professional engineer, as a matter of public safety. 100 foot tall free standing structures have a tremendous overturning moment in a 160 kph windstorm.

The foundation for that dead tree phalus must be pretty large. Has anyone looked at the carbon footprint of the installation?

Oh, and Eric, IMO, art has no intrinsic value greater than the scrap cost. Art only has subjective value some high brow people put on it. If artist goes out of favour for what ever reason, the art looses it's value.

I think it's pretty cool, actually.

Anyway, I once heard it said that "cutting arts funding to fix the deficit is like trimming one's toenails to reduce obesity." The amounts we are talking about are miniscule and whining about "my money" is pretty lame when one considers how little of it was spent here in the grand scheme of things.

Don't sweat the petty things, people... Lighten up.

dkjones - I think there are two things that have retained their value since the beginning of time - precious metals, and objets d'art. (I guess I should include land/property as well).

Art is a part of our shared cultural heritage, from the caves at Lascaux to well-known contemporary artists such as Joe Fafard or Charles Pachter. Cheers.

It appears this website
blogs.artinfo.com/inview/.../roxy-paines-metal-trees-are-flourishing/
thinks the price for this was around 2.5 million taxpayer dollars, but I cant seem to get to the site from the google search page. I wonder if someone from around here is trying to look at it 2?

Even if we can accept the artist's intent to make a stainless steel sculpture of a tree, why not just plant a tree?

Heck, you'd even get some green cred that way.

"Unyielding" stainless steel, huh? Is that a challenge?

I will always defend good art, but to me that stump thingy just added entitled "Northshore" is not skillfully executed. I still haven't decided about the tree thing - interesting, BUT . . . . . :-P

It's simple, really. If the public is going to pay for it, via tax dollars, then the public should have some input into what "art" is chosen for public venues.

That thing kind of looks like a stripper pole on steroids.

Brings a tear to my eye.

Dirtman, good for you.

What richfisher said is a great idea for a plaque.

melwide, don't hold your breath waiting.

Kevin Jackson, exactly.

In my view, if you have to ask what it is, it is not art. My young grandchildren create "art" all the time and sometimes we have to ask "what is it".

http://www.dphotographer.co.uk/image/222880/one_hundred_foot_line

It says here it cost 2.5 million.

Anyone know what five tonnes of stainless steel would go for at the scrap yard?

I'm thinking that 'Vette down payment......

Call it 'Mohammed Gets The Finger' snd it will be razor blades before the end of the year.

I guess if you find a twisted 30 metre metal shaft stuck in your back yard, you might as well call it art, because who's going to say it isn't?

There wouldn't seem to be any other use to be made of it, unless perhaps it points the way to an alien civilization, but as it's pointing more or less up and not north, I guess that rules out Hull.

Wonder where they got all of the nickel for the stainless? Probably Sudbury. Not very green of them!

so, is cost the final arbiter of value? Remember, everyone was lambasting "Voice of Fire" by Barnett Newman, purchased a while ago for $1.8M. Its value has appreciated significantly since then (but we would only know its true open market value by putting it up for auction). Newman has a Canadian connection as well, he spent some time at Emma Lake SK in the artist's circle there.
@Eric Larsen

"Art is all about context. Remember the upside down church - "Device to Root Out Evil" by Dennis Oppenheim? It caused tons of controversy when it was in Vancouver, but now sits quietly beside near a Chinese restaurant close to where I live.

If it's about value - and investment - that's one thing, if it's about a cultural statement it's another. Cheers!"

Well then sell the lot off. Return the $$$ of cultural statements to the taxpayers.

I have a couple old tractors that make more of a statement to the resilience of the Prairies than this tree. Actually the Vegreville egg is even more symbolic is is the Mosquito in Manitoba.

"there is an argument for national identity..."

Of what value is a national identity managed by government employees?

Margaret Trudeau could write a book about those crooked things!

If one cent of tax money is in this PMSH should be at the top. With a rope around his neck.

What Speedy said.

So that thing just standing there, that's what they call "art", eh?

And if someone came along with a big angle grinder and cut it down, would that be what they call "performance art"?

I love performance art!!!!

As long as it isn't performed by a liberano.

A darn good flagpole worthy of the Voice Of Fire fluttering at the top.

greyburr how many taxpayer dollars would that be?