Please try and explain to me why this is art.

[PCPlumsTruncheon]

I don’t claim to understand art at all and I am totally not in the ‘all modern art is rubbish’ camp. I love Tracey Emin’s stuff and I try to be open minded about cultural stuff.
I went to the Tate Modern yesterday and saw this. My immediate feeling was ‘Why the fuck is in one the world’s most visited art galleries followed by ‘I could do that’.
I’m not looking to be persuaded that I should like it - there was stuff that I saw that wasn’t my thing but I could still appreciate it IYKWIM

I read once the point of all art is to create an emotional reaction. Good or bad if it has done that it has worked.

I find this work heart breaking. The hospital cot reminds me of hopes that are dashed, death, birth, illness, tragedy, intense feelings of love and grief and fear. The idea that pig intestines were used disgusts me and make me feel sick in the way kids lives ruined from the start is disgusting, ruined and destroyed like the dolls and consumed by the drug trade and their environment. The darkness and ridigity of the frame feels like a situation that's inescapable, the rules of their society and lives and it would be nigh on impossible to move or changes them. It speaks to me, I don't like it but it stirs very strong emotions in me about human suffering.

pcplum the positioning of the objects to create the shadows in your first installation was extremely reminiscent of the struggles that many face, a perfect juxtaposition to the hints of optimism in your second installations in fact.

Re the original piece, there's a better description and a closeup of one of the dolls here. It's quite haunting I find. www3.mcachicago.org/2015/salcedo/works/untitled-hospital-furniture/

I was in a book shop cafe and spotted a book about art. I cant remember the title but it’s aim was to explain why many of the art works “could not be done by my five year old”

Unfortunately the book had no effect on me other than to further convince me that in fact many modern art works, including all of the examples in the book, could have in fact be made by my 5 year old.

Everything in that book was just shitty, rubbish post-justification

I went to London so I could see the piece called The Oak Tree.
It's basically a glass of water on a glass shelf.'I bloody loved it.
I don't know why I did but I just did

This thread has had the bizarre effect of making me want to go to the Tate Modern.

If only to hear the Arty Wankspeak language as it is spoke in its natural environment.

I was very hurt by some of the negative comments about my latest work but this has only heightened my desire to create.
This is my latest work in progress

Henry and pat
It's got me feeling all funny inside

mycat your post is a work of art.

This thread has had the bizarre effect of making me want to go to the Tate Modern.

Make sure you see Brancusi's Fish, if nothing else. It's beautiful.

Ha, this thread reminds me of when I was a the MONA in Tasmania.
Everything was a bit random and I spent ages studying what I thought was an exhibit. I did feel foolish when I was asked to move on as I was examining the fire exit door!!

Every year I go to Art Basel and i Love seeing what Crazy things people create each year. 😂😂😂

I'm looking at you, Yoko Ono and your "Get the public to glue smashed plates to bits of rope" exhibition room. 😏

On a more positive note some installations have stayed in my memory/consciousness for years, whether ingenious, offensive or beautiful.

Like it or not, get it or not, that installation has stayed in your memory today and probably will for a long time. It's got you talking to strangers and no doubt people in RL. So to the artist either way it's a success I think.

"Toilet brush anger" .

I love this thread. I have worked in the art world for about 15 years. I’m not an artist, I do something quite background and boring. I worked for Tate for quite a while.

I understand that the interpretive texts on the wall and how Tate gets people to engage is under review. They do know that Arty wankspeak (or was it wanky artspeak?!) referred to above is not helpful for most people.

Someone up there referred to Brancusi’s fish - one of my favourite works in Tate’s collection. I don’t think it is currently on display though.

I think there is so much to see and do at all of Tate’s galleries that it’s ok to be left cold or bemused by something. Walk on. Find something else.

You need to watch adam ruins everyhing fine art and it explains this stuff greatly.

I walk into places like the tate and always think how much will this sell for in the future just because someone has bigged up this piece of art so much. If it was actually explained and had thought provoking questions I'm sure many people would actually engage more rather then thinking this is crap i could do.

My most memorable degree art show experience was this -
Room 1 - a row of headless and armless naked dolls nailed to blocks of wood🤔
Room 2 - a pedestal with an old fashioned black and white portable tv playing a video of a guy jumping up and down on the roof of a white transit van. The 'artist' on this occasion lay on his side on the floor looking at himself on the tv as part of the exhibition.🤔
Room 3 - an oven made out of white chocolate - I kind of got this one as the artist had had an eating disorder.
Just when I considered leaving - I entered Room 4 where I saw the most beautiful fine ink black and white etchings of the male torso set against vivid coloured backgrounds. 4 rooms 4 totally different artists. I learned that I love fine art but dislike headless, armless plastic dolls with 6 inch nails through their bodies😬

I suppose its art but I didn't know I was an artist until I saw the unmade bed. I can make a forgery of this every day of the week. Whether anyone would pay me for it, well that's another matter 😄

notacooldad isn’t MONA something? I love it - not everything in it - but overall it’s brilliant.

That's crap. It looks like someone tried to put a bed frame together backwards and gave up.

I love the Tate modern. Love the big swings.

LahLahsBigBand
Agreed! I'm hoping to go back to Taz later this year so I'll be making sure I get another visit it in ( not sure about the poo making machine though, I don't need to see that again!)

Nobody is forced to like anything, or to find it interesting. I'm an artist and that kind of thing bores the arse off me, I find it very self-indulgent - "I have these wonderful deep thoughts, but I'm not going to make them accessible to hoi polloi, they'll damn well have to work to figure out what I mean". But...I have a sculptor friend who works in steel, and every so often he thrusts his phone under my nose and swipes through hundreds of photos of similar stuff he's found online, expecting me to be as orgasmic about them as he is :(

It's the Mandarin complex - by appreciating something that's so esoteric you signal that your appreciation of art and your sensibilities area very refined.

'are', not 'area'

Now I want to take DD to Tate Modern on a day out. I think it might be a barrel of laughs.

If the person who created it thinks its art; its art. Whether people are interested in seeing it, or buying it is another matter.