I love Andy Rooney for his straightforward honest opinions. In this Youtube video Andy critiques modern art for being “pretentious nonsense.” However, the thing Andy has to understand about modern art is that it’s meant to be simple. Don’t overthink it.
The sculpture “Two Indeterminate Lines” is about two lines. And what can two lines do? Here you have two lines forming a tunnel. Rather simple. Andy is a man who can enjoy the simple things in life. So you’d think he’d understand simple artwork.
I think perhaps he has a very high expectation for art. He wants art to simply show talent and craft. And so be it. I’d rather someone have a high expectation for art than none. Or at the very least he wants to know the artist has some talent. He asks that artists be able to produce something tradition first before making some crazy stuff. Good point. You should be able to master your tools before showing some crap to the public.
What do you think of Andy Rooney’s comments on modern public art?
[full disclosure, I work for Tribune Media Services where we syndicate Andy Rooney’s column. BTW, I love reading his column. I do. As I said before, I like his honest, simple insights. Plus the man is just really funny.]
Everyone’s a critic, but not everyone has Andy’s access to the 60 Minutes audience, so unfortunately this curmudgeonly tastemaker has a great deal of influence. I’d like to take him on a tour of public art that means something beyond its surface appearance and see if he can learn to appreciate the finer points of public art. True, there’s lots of bad public art and it sticks out like a sore thumb, whereas some of the best goes unnoticed. Deal with it.
It’s unfortunate that our culture demands craft to be a requirement for good art. It is a direct reflection on how our society places a low priority on the creativity of concept and thinking.
Jack, that would be fun to walk with Andy Rooney and explain to him the finer points of public art. And Jack, it’s an honor that you would find my blog post and comment on this. I’ve been meaning to subscribe to PublicArtReview. In fact, I’m going to do so now. For anyone wanting to subscribe to PublicArtReview, their individual subscription page is at: http://forecastpublicart.pinnaclecart.com/index.php?p=catalog&parent=5&pg=1 Moose, you captured my thoughts exactly and succinctly.
To be fair, the art that A.R. highlights is exceptionally pointless and uncraftsmanly. There are/were many other temporary displays in NYC this summer that are much better and more interesting, such as this one: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/08/arts/design/08gilmore.html?pagewanted=all And he descends into the way-back machine to talk about the Chicago “cow parade”, which was actually fairly good because it was new and fun and intended to be a one-off. It is its imitators that have killed that particular genre of public “art”. Despite going back in time, he is absolutely correct about that. But as long as he was turning back the time dial, he could have talked about this one: http://manhattan.about.com/od/artsandculture/a/nycwaterfalls.htm Too bad that Mr. Rooney has chosen to use his bully pulpit to destroy an industry wholesale rather than to point out the difference between good and bad public art, and argue for more of the former.