Here is the “artwork” that was mistaken for trash and thrown away by some workman helping Courtney Love to move. It’s valued at $11,000 and Courtney is said to be furious.
So am I! The moving guy deserves an award of some kind. This Art looks like a dead bird in a matchbox….because that’s what it is! Christ!
The celebrated young artist is Polly Morgan, whose stuff you can see here, but only on an empty stomach. Call me a philistine, but art made from dead animals is just bullshit, with all due or undue respect to Damien Hirst. Make it go away!
On the same topic, sort of, is the Todd Selby Shop at Collete, where you can get a dead mouse that’s been died yellow for around $500, or a collection of old business cards for $154. Or how about a creepy thriftshop toy for $85?
So pretentious was The Selby Shop that I felt it my duty to find out who Todd Selby is. That’s how much I don’t know what’s hip, even though god knows I try!
Todd Selby is a photographer who has taken photos of his friends (all “Creatives,” a word that is sickening enough on its own) in their very hip Living Spaces. Among these photos, you can find the ever-present Erin Wasson, and a whole slew of arty people like this couple:
It’s stuff like this that makes me too enraged and depressed to go on living. I know I should just ignore it, but I feel like it’s crying out to be scorned and vilified! Quoting Hillel the Elder, “If not I, who? If not now, when?”
We came together, Sis, er, in the nicest possible way you understand because my last post is entitled “Art, Artistry or Artifice”. It was prompted by a discussion with one of my readers as to the nature and differences between ‘Art’ (with a capital ‘A’) and ‘art’ (without). He thinks ‘Art’ contains ‘Truth’, where-as I suggest that responses to ‘art’ are simply subjective and psychological.
I seem to remember those photos of Erin Wasson’s “space” and it was like a super self-consciously art-directed attempt at a depressing junkie den. I used to know people who lived in places which looked like hers (but obviously a lot more blood stained and stuff) and they are all pretty much dead now. Aspirational!
That is the scariest teddy bear I’ve ever seen. (Not the deepest comment in the World, but it’s early).
Someone described true art as anything that can’t be used for anything else. It’s not practical, useful, or a vehicle for a message.
The most horrifying form of “art” I’ve ever seen was in the shop for years on Melrose called the Necromancer.
All they sold/sell are skeletons. Of birds, cats, rats, monkeys, and they even sell human skulls mined from China. Apparently the Chinese need room for new corpses so they sell off old ones!
And as I stared in horror at this grisly display the Morticia-like clerk was playing Hawaiian music in the background.
She explained it was the only music weird enough for her wares!
What a fucking load of bullshit. I going to start pissing into empty wine cask bladders then screen print the faces of homeless bums on them and sell for $1000. Courtney should buy at least 10 of ’em and I’ll split the profits with chu.
Imelda, you clearly don’t understand the art world. You won’t sell your piss bladders for 1000 bucks each. If you ask for 100,000 you’ll have a better chance.
Get ready to puke:
http://www.theselby.com/7_30_08_erin_wasson/index.html
And Polly Morgan should be stopped, even if it means killing her.
Ha ha ha!! I would love to meet the savvy person that spends 500 euros on this poofball neclace!
http://www.colette.fr/#/eshop/article/67030/the-selby-shop/371/
I just don’t believe that bookshelf in that couple’s apartment is ever rummaged through. Too pristine, kids! Probably haven’t even cut the pages!
And being the wife of an artist who actually works with *gasp* oil paint, I’m reserving any comment about contemporary art for some future ranting personal blog.
My 2 cents (well, in this economy my 1/4 penny’s worth); Some people have too much time, too much money, and not enough common sense, or any kind of sense!
“Call me a philistine, but art made from dead animals is just bullshit, with all due or undue respect to Damien Hirst. Make it go away!”
I agree 100 percent. Right-on SW!
Ask Imelda Matt to put those on ebay. If my grandpa can decorate the back yard with empty cask bladders then why can’t Courtney Love?
that teddy looks like he wakes up in the night and walks around with a meat cleaver.
And Mr Hammie and his brother and sisters had a hamster that died when they were kids. They buried it and then dug it up later to see if it was a skeleton yet. They did not put it in a glass case, more’s the pity.
xx
i read a post on another blog recently about an artist who stitched together a dead cat and a dead dog, which could be flipped inside out to in turn show the cat or dog. she was making a statement of the exploitation of animals – eg they’re not accessories.
now, call me a luddite or whatevs, but i think in order for something to be art it must have some sort of artistic integrity. i think this kind of stuff, if i was going to classify it is political craft.
David – So, we’re not buying the yellow dead mouse from Colette?
Skye – Ha, Aspirational is my word of the day!
Jill – And yet you cut right to the heart of the matter.
Dexter – I remember that store!
Imelda – Remember that guy who sold cans of his feces?? A great, great artist.
Mark – Would she fit in a matchbox?
kim – There is never a shortage of buyers for that kind of shit.
fashion herald – I look forward to your rant.
Deni – YAY for us.
Hammie – Children have NO sense of what’s commercial!
reddoorread – That’s more credit than I would give it. I think it’s hucksterism at its most crass and cynical.
Elizabeth McGrath has some sick shit!! And by sick I mean brilliant.
I’ve always thought taxidermy was interesting…
(is it weird that I’ve thought about taxidermy?)
Here’s why: with a majority of art, the task is to create something from raw, static materials with little to no aesthetic depth of their own (a tube of paint, a pencil). In an everyday context, the raw materials are boring, but are used to create something that (hopefully) is not boring.
If you have a painting of a fox, and a taxidermy fox… both are imitations of life, but from different directions. The painting creates an imitation of life were there was no life before, but the taxidermy fox takes something that once possessed life (and here I am assuming a living thing is arguably a source of aesthetic interest in-and-of itself, right? with some exceptions… Erin Wasson) and attempts to re-infuse that thing with new life… as a lifelike corpse. It will always fail as an aesthetic work, because it can never achieve the aesthetic value that the body possessed when it was truly alive.
Go ahead and scorn these self-proclaimed artists while you’re taking on the “creatives” at the Selby – I’ll be scorning right there with you.
And also – a rabbit? In a HAT?! Please… like no one has ever thought of THAT before. This person needs a new schtick.
Bex – And she’s pretty too!
crocodilian – You need to be a Guest Author here. (p.s. I also think taxidermy is interesting , but mostly in a bad way.)