Cleaner Tosses ('Modern') Art Out with the Garbage

[Endangered Specie]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=573&e=2&u=/nm/odd_garbage_dc

LONDON (Reuters) - A cleaner at London's Tate Britain modern art gallery threw out a bag of garbage that was part of an artwork because it was thought to be trash, British newspapers reported Friday.

The transparent bag of garbage -- full of newspaper, cardboard and other bits of paper -- formed part of a work by German-born artist Gustav Metzger called "Recreation Of First Public Demonstration Of Auto-Destructive Art."

It was on display next to a sheet of nylon that had been spattered with acid, and a metal sculpture on a table when a cleaner tossed it out with the other trash.

[ClassWarrior]

1. Auto-destructive indeed!

[1monster]

2. Sounds like the cleaner got it right...

Sometimes, what passes for "modern art" is just trash. I think the artist of those pieces are laughing themselves silly all the way to the bank when art critics and collectors take their artistic "voice" and "style" seriously.

[SoDesuKa]

3. Ceci N'est Pas Une Pipe

Well, we've come full circle. The line between art and garbage is so blurred that museum employees can't tell the difference.


This is not a pipe

[Inland]

4. Hah! Not janitor at all, but conceptual artist demonstrating the

alienation of the average man from art by intentionally throwing away the piece while cleaning out wastepaper baskets. Kudos!

[DemBones DemBones]

5. This is the kind of story that RWers love. They'll

use it to support their next campaign to kill the NEA, get art and "other frills" out of the public school curriculum, etc.

Why the Tate would release this story is beyond me.

[Atlas Mugged]

6. Now it qualifies....

...as 'Performance Art'.