Tim Blair on the cronyism and comedy of Australia’s taxpayer-funded art world:
The finest grant of them all occurred in 2011, when Sydney artist Denis Beaubois received $20,000 from the Australia Council. Beaubois simply piled the cash into two stacks, put a glass box around it and called the resultant piece Currency. The arts grant and the art were one and the same. Then he put the money up for sale at an auction – where someone actually paid $21,350 to buy $20,000. “The money I make will be used to finance part two of the project, which is a series of performance/video works on the division of labour, and capitalism,” Beaubois said.
There is a much easier way for Beaubois and all Australian artists to study capitalism, and that is by participating in it. The Australia Council should be shut down, along with just about all arts funding. This would save close to $700 million per year and – absolutely guaranteed – would result in better art.
Modern “art” is a con run by Lefties on government officials. If it were not for government, there would be no modern art. There would just be art.
As technology progresses and takes away most of the “go-to” jobs that keep people gainfully employed (truckdrivers, waitresses, cleaning staff, secretaries, clerks), I expect to see a lot more of this.
I really can’t get too worked up about it – yeah, the left-leaning political ideology is a pain, but I’m pretty sure that nobody with an IQ above 70 takes it seriously – because eventually, most of us (except for us hacks writing on the internet or playing folk guitar at the pub) will be out of a job and in the same sort of situation.
If they’re ripping anybody off (and I’m not sure they are – see below), the damage is spread around so that it has a minimal impact on any one person. At least they’re not selling timeshares in Honduras to my grandmonther.
And also – I think they actually do provide a service as a sort of a “moral traffic light” (as the man said in The Fisher King) – we drop a little money in the poor box for them, because they provide a living example of what happens to you if you live in your parents’ basement all your life. Pour mieux encourager les autres, and all that.
Some art is great. Some is truly spectacular. Stroll through many of the fine art galleries in Europe and you’ll see examples of true artistic brilliance.
But nowadays too many artists are just talentless hacks who act & dress weird. There is not even a spark of genius to their creations but they act the “correct” way and hang around with the well connected people in the artistic community.
Yeah….”piss Christ” comes to mind……
Neshi’s cock ring on a bridge by the airport comes to mind
700k. For a 25 metre huluhoop
Heck, you want a good laugh. In Wash state we pay for art along our freeways. Don’t have the bucks for road or bridge repairs, but darn it. You need art. We have it.
Nuts
The infamous Robert Maplethorp and Anrea Sarano paid big money by the tax payer funded National Endoment to the Arts(NEA)to produce trash art hailed as master es by the liberals and Pablo Picasso another leftists art pig
As well, I believe, the burning of a Volkswagen with rats inside on a Montreal street back a few decades.
“As well, I believe, the burning of a Volkswagen with rats inside on a Montreal street back a few decades”
Old car, vermin… I’m not worked up, but if you he’d thrown in a couple of politicians and the odd murderer, THEN it’d be art and I;d cheer at the beauty of it.
Sounds like something the National Gallery in Ottawa would do. They do have a signed ceramic urinal, a pile of carpet underlay remnants, a bungee cord run diagonally corner to corner in a small room and a white painting on a white background, as examples of ‘art’ to name only a few. Your tax dollars at work.
Theres a world of deffrence between Grant Wood who painted AMERICAN GOTHIC to Pabolo Picasso who painted trash
I say good for them!
As long as the vast majority of my fellow Conservatives simply sit on their asses whining about the state of the western world on blogs instead of noisily taking to the streets with our message(you know, do something other than bitch and mewl), we have no cause to complain.
I say good for him in finding a legal method to steal Australians’ money and then making a mockery of them with it. I thought the extra $1,350 was a nice touch worthy of any good entrepreneur. 🙂
Look, if you want the loafers and lowlifes to stop bleeding the system into oblivion then change the system. The left has used activism successfully to this end. There is no one to blame but us as the left took control on our watch and that of our parents. This is a civil war and it seems most Conservatives won’t even leave their comfy bunkers to fight.
BTW, voting doesn’t count as action, especially when the biggest difference between the LPC and CPC seems to be the letters.
Voice of Fire is a masterpiece that’s inspired a formidable movement. Without it we’d probably never enjoy parallel stripes in designs.