someidiot
Well-Known Dismemberer
I'm all for public art, but generally feel that banal, mundane art isn't worth doing, let alone paying for. Yes, I get the concept that the German "artists" who did it (for about $500K) were arguing; I just think it's stupid. It's a circle that you're supposed to think, I gather, is a kind of "portal" that encloses a great variety of views, depending on what angle you're looking through it from, and that's supposed to represent Calgary's diverse character.
Bollocks.
I can make the same argument for my glasses (or the windshield of my car), and that either is a much more successful piece of art because the range of views taken in through them has been so much broader than this one exhibits.
In fact, try this on for size: I got this pair of Art Glasses (iIrc, $250 from Ollie Quinn, covered by my insurance, .05% of the cost of Traveling Light - which is a paltry and undistinguished single circle, whereas my Art Glasses are two) shortly before going to Paris for a couple of days to see Christo's wrapped Arc de Triomphe. So I immeasurably bettered Calgary's expensive piece by viewing a truly great piece of public art through my Art Glasses, an act that I now declare to itself have been a performance piece. So just try to count up all the art that took place during that trip - Christo's work, my glasses, my viewing of the Arc through my glasses. Makes that thing on the overpass seem pretty lame by comparison.
Honestly, if you're going to bother making "art", how about making sure it's "value added"? Give us something we can argue about (other than the price, of course). Make it funny. Make it offensive, or scary, or loud and hot and greasy, just something - anything - other than a thing you can mistake for a drain. I mean, Duchamp already gave us one of those, but at least he had the wit to surround it with a urinal.
So screw that thing.
On the other hand, how many people around Calgary are familiar with Dennis Oppenheim's "Device to Root Out Evil", which is installed in the East Village? If you don't know about it, please make a point of visiting it, because it's pretty good for a piece of sculpture. And I'm saying that despite the fact that the artist behind my old group, Mark Pauline, once publicly challenged Oppenheim to a duel of machines after, I think, the latter had the temerity to build some mechanized piece that Mark considered an affront to what we were doing at SRL. (I can't find anything on it online at the moment, but I can dig up the copy of the letter if anyone's interested.) Mark, in typical fashion, declared himself the winner after Oppenheim failed to rise to the challenge.
Anyway, if you like big dumb circles, I recommend "The Hudsucker Proxy".
Bollocks.
I can make the same argument for my glasses (or the windshield of my car), and that either is a much more successful piece of art because the range of views taken in through them has been so much broader than this one exhibits.
In fact, try this on for size: I got this pair of Art Glasses (iIrc, $250 from Ollie Quinn, covered by my insurance, .05% of the cost of Traveling Light - which is a paltry and undistinguished single circle, whereas my Art Glasses are two) shortly before going to Paris for a couple of days to see Christo's wrapped Arc de Triomphe. So I immeasurably bettered Calgary's expensive piece by viewing a truly great piece of public art through my Art Glasses, an act that I now declare to itself have been a performance piece. So just try to count up all the art that took place during that trip - Christo's work, my glasses, my viewing of the Arc through my glasses. Makes that thing on the overpass seem pretty lame by comparison.
Honestly, if you're going to bother making "art", how about making sure it's "value added"? Give us something we can argue about (other than the price, of course). Make it funny. Make it offensive, or scary, or loud and hot and greasy, just something - anything - other than a thing you can mistake for a drain. I mean, Duchamp already gave us one of those, but at least he had the wit to surround it with a urinal.
So screw that thing.
On the other hand, how many people around Calgary are familiar with Dennis Oppenheim's "Device to Root Out Evil", which is installed in the East Village? If you don't know about it, please make a point of visiting it, because it's pretty good for a piece of sculpture. And I'm saying that despite the fact that the artist behind my old group, Mark Pauline, once publicly challenged Oppenheim to a duel of machines after, I think, the latter had the temerity to build some mechanized piece that Mark considered an affront to what we were doing at SRL. (I can't find anything on it online at the moment, but I can dig up the copy of the letter if anyone's interested.) Mark, in typical fashion, declared himself the winner after Oppenheim failed to rise to the challenge.
Anyway, if you like big dumb circles, I recommend "The Hudsucker Proxy".
Last edited:
