To think that this isn't art?

[MissHooliesCardigan]

I don't understand art at all. I can't draw or paint to save my life. However, I can appreciate it and be moved by it and I go to galleries reasonably regularly. I don't think that all modern art is rubbish and don't sign up to the 'I could do that' school of thought.
However...I went to the new wing of the Tate Modern today and saw this:

Bear in mind that this is the most visited modern art gallery in the world so anything in it is therefore considered to be pretty special. Can anyone convince me that this isn't just a pile of bricks and some blank canvasses? (Sorry for the weird black line, I've got a crack in my camera).

MissHoolies! I want that before the Saatchi's get it.

Seriously - I don't think anything is art if, in the even of it being knocked over, destroyed, it could be re-made with half an hour . . .

Bemore, I love that Cornelia Parker, and she talks about it so eloquently and unpretentiously

There's one in the Bilbao Guggenheim is a scruffy old wardrobe with loads of screwed up newspaper in the bottom of it. DS was and .

The Tate Liverpool had a navy blue jumper nailed to a wall a few years ago.

I said to DH 'I wasn't shit at art at school then. I was an under-appreciated modern artist'.

I'd be interested to know if people see these two pieces as art- and if not, why not?

Aebj, I see two people in your art. One on the left with wings and the on right holding a gun. It's the first thing you see out the blob.

You wanted convincing that there might be something more to the three 'blank canvases'. They are actually sheets of exquisitely crafted porcelain; not canvas at all. The purpose of art is sometimes a reward for those who taking the time to really look. I don't think artists are all trying to play a game of the Emperors New Clothes...

See I don't understand why people who don't like contemporary art visit such galleries and get pissed off? If you only like representational work, stick to the national portrait gallery or whatever. We all like different stuff and that's ok.

I feckin hate rugby but I don't turn up at Twickenham or murrayfield and protest at the lack of tennis!

'take the time' I mean

Op, your third art to me would mean clean slate, or creat your own idea on a clean canvas. Something of that sort.

Your own house objects would be interpreted as organised but dirty Morden living with too many branded products.

Mumteedum, well put.

That isn't frigging art!

I think the black crack adds to it

The three blank canvasses in the OP actually...aren't. They are three pieces of porcelain. Their surfaces and outlines have subtle undulations. They are beautiful and calming to look at. Which was the idea - the artist was saying something about Buddhist ideas.

Oops sorry flatlander already said that

They had a pile of bricks when we went too, this was years ago, mind you they were a different colour to those ones. The first picture reminds me of Minecraft. I enjoyed the actual Tate Modern building as much as some of the art in it. The other daft stuff we just had a good laugh at, which was worth the trip in itself. I would go back, really enjoyed my time in there. Have they still got the big long crack in the floor, I liked that.

We went to our local contemporary gallery to attend a function and had a look at the exhibitions whilst there. One was a scruffy chest of drawers with a bar of soap and a 5 pence piece in it!

Looks like the op has walked through B&Q.

I do like the exploding shed though.

I remember seeing an exhibit it the Tate Liverpool 20 years ago. Was a pile of clothes with an inhaler on top called "asthmatic escaped". Amused me no end as it looked like my bedroom floor.

The best thing about the Tate modern is the restaurant.

tether I quite like you second bit of screwed up paper, I can see a figure in it running through blocks of snow.

I'd much rather have the blank canvases than something like Vettriano.

Thanks buttered- if you look closely, the two pieces of paper are crumpled in exactly the same way. The artist crumpled one, then carefully folded the other by hand to match it

Every object in the second picture is carved from polystyrene and hand painted.

I made one too

Now make another exactly the same

I wonder - did the artist actually do the paper crumpling, or an unacknowledged, anonymous assistant?

It's all a bit Emperor's New Clothes to me. I can stand there looking at a lone house brick in a cabinet thinking 'Am I a twat because I don't get it, or am I a twat because I'm standing here trying to get it?'

Either way, I'm a twat