A pair of glasses were left on the floor at a museum and everyone mistook it for art

[Recursion]

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/a-pair-of-glasses-were-left-on-the-floor-at-museum-and-everyone-mistook-it-for-art-a7049551.html

Several visitors to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art this week were fooled into thinking a pair of glasses set on the floor by a 17-year-old prankster was a postmodern masterpiece.

“Upon first arrival we were quite impressed with the artwork and paintings presented in the huge facility,” TJ Khayatan told BuzzFeed. “However, some of the ‘art’ wasn’t very surprising to some of us.”

“We stumbled upon a stuffed animal on a gray blanket and questioned if this was really impressive to some of the nearby people.”

To test out the theory that people will stare at, and try and artistically interpret, anything if it’s in a gallery setting, Khayatan set a pair of glasses down and walked away.

Honestly since that's intentional I would say it is art.

[pinboy3niner]

1. It lens itself to interpretation

[pinboy3niner]

2. You'll get some disagreeement on that, I especs

[pinboy3niner]

3. Oh, great--another art exhibit with focal matter

[Baitball Blogger]

6. I shutter to think that people find these puns amusing.

[whistler162]

8. I am suer pinboy3niner is glass

you like them.

[Recursion]

12. If it were optometry puns a day would be the limit

[pinboy3niner]

4. Well, it WAS framed

[Chan790]

5. ...and you'd be right.

It is art, in the same tradition as Marcel Duchamp's Fountain. Photograph below:

[whistler162]

7. Walk in and start staring at

a spot on the floor oohing and aahing about it and see how many "art" koniserwers fall in line to look at it.


Art maybe in the eye of the beholder but gullibity is a whole lot easier.

[mainer]

9. We had an art installation here consisting of items of trash

And one night the janitor swept up the art and threw it away. So you never know.

[Ron Obvious]

10. Similarly..

I read a story once that someone hung the work of elementary school children among the modern art displayed in a museum. Supposedly nobody noticed anything amiss and the artwork was praised by the critics.

Almost certainly apocryphal, but I can see why people would believe it.

On edit: ironic posting this in response to someone with a Mondriaan avatar.

[NV Whino]

11. If you have never seen the movie, I've Heard Mermaids Singing, you must see it.

It was on Netflix. Don't know if it's still there.

Won't go into the whole synopsis, but there's a wonder scene where the gallery owner spouts some wonderful artspeak describing a painting to a potential buyer. The painting is a blank canvas.

I tracked down a copy of the movie solely for that scene.

[betsuni]

13. That boy's an artistic visionary.

[Major Nikon]

14. If someone called it art, then it's art

Yoko Ono smashed a coffee cup, glued it back together, and called it art. People still talk about it today.

[baldguy]

15. So, THAT'S where they are.

I'd misplace my head if it wasn't attached.