"kind of an avant garde act of theatrical activism" Yes, we get that (yawn.)
Despite what the contemporary high-$$$ art Market might indicate to the contrary, there's more to Art than Transgression. Dada and Fluxus were avant-garde art movements. But while they were always assertive- sometimes boldly so- their performance stunts never inv…
"kind of an avant garde act of theatrical activism" Yes, we get that (yawn.)
Despite what the contemporary high-$$$ art Market might indicate to the contrary, there's more to Art than Transgression. Dada and Fluxus were avant-garde art movements. But while they were always assertive- sometimes boldly so- their performance stunts never involved outright crapping on the work of other artists. That sort of stunt isn't avant-garde; it's stale, unimaginative, nihilistic. And also ugly. It's bad optics. It's also politically incoherent: having as yet seen only the story headlines accompanying photos of the act, I still have no idea what sort of message the "activists" intended to send.
A skeptical critic might venture that the intent was to sabotage their own movement. Yes, that's really how inept it looks. A movement of would-be neo-Situationists might at least consider that if they're all about leveraging symbolism and subverting images, a Van Gogh painting was a spectacularly idiotic choice for their attack.
"kind of an avant garde act of theatrical activism" Yes, we get that (yawn.)
Despite what the contemporary high-$$$ art Market might indicate to the contrary, there's more to Art than Transgression. Dada and Fluxus were avant-garde art movements. But while they were always assertive- sometimes boldly so- their performance stunts never involved outright crapping on the work of other artists. That sort of stunt isn't avant-garde; it's stale, unimaginative, nihilistic. And also ugly. It's bad optics. It's also politically incoherent: having as yet seen only the story headlines accompanying photos of the act, I still have no idea what sort of message the "activists" intended to send.
A skeptical critic might venture that the intent was to sabotage their own movement. Yes, that's really how inept it looks. A movement of would-be neo-Situationists might at least consider that if they're all about leveraging symbolism and subverting images, a Van Gogh painting was a spectacularly idiotic choice for their attack.