<body leftmargin="0" topmargin="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0"><script type="text/javascript"> function setAttributeOnload(object, attribute, val) { if(window.addEventListener) { window.addEventListener('load', function(){ object[attribute] = val; }, false); } else { window.attachEvent('onload', function(){ object[attribute] = val; }); } } </script> <div id="navbar-iframe-container"></div> <script type="text/javascript" src="https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> gapi.load("iframes-styles-bubble", function() { if (window.iframes && iframes.open) { iframes.open( '//www.blogger.com/navbar.g?targetBlogID\0755020370\46blogName\75Church+of+the+Masses\46publishMode\75PUBLISH_MODE_BLOGSPOT\46navbarType\75SILVER\46layoutType\75CLASSIC\46searchRoot\75http://churchofthemasses.blogspot.com/search\46blogLocale\75en_US\46v\0752\46homepageUrl\75http://churchofthemasses.blogspot.com/\46vt\0753896393502832686868', { container: "navbar-iframe-container", id: "navbar-iframe" }, { }); } }); </script>
Monday, June 12, 2006
What I'm talkin' about!

I snapped this on the grounds of Montserrat. I call it, "How Art as Political or Egalitarian Statement is Always Ugly and Sometimes Really, Really, Really Ugly."

This was one of several "statues" (it doesn't feel right to use the same word that defines the Pieta and the David as this monstrosity) around Montserrat that are efforts by the contemporary keepers of the shrine to bring in a touch of modern art.

HORRID! My friend asked me how to describe it. I said, "It reminds me of that old joke about why Nikita Kruschev's mother named him Nikita. ...Because she couldn't spell 'bleeeeeccccccckkkkk!'"

More than anything, this kind of work manifests a lack of craft. If you had any talent at all, you wouldn't be satisfied to stop in your work and call this thing done.

We saw this kind of thing in several places in Europe. In every place the old stuff made the new stuff look cheap and inadequate. I was embarrassed for my age.