
What Happens If You Break an Artwork? - prismatic
https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-break-artwork
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BugsJustFindMe
What gets me is that in a world where artists often experiment with viewer
interactivity, sometimes you just can't tell what in a museum you're supposed
to touch and what you're not supposed to touch.

There was a huge retrospective exhibition of Yoko Ono's work at Musee d'Art
Contemporain in Lyon, France in 2016. Included were a mixture of
interactive/participatory elements (ladders you were meant to climb, a room
filled with hammers and nails that you were supposed to contribute to by
banging a nail into whatever you wanted) and other obviously not interactive
elements (videos, paintings, things protected by glass).

And I remember, in the same room as the ladders you could climb and combat
helmets suspended from the ceiling by ropes that were swinging around because
people were walking through them, was a sheet of either canvas or paper
mounted on the wall, with another piece of either canvas or paper suspended
about an inch in front of it by some string, with some holes cut into the
front sheet so that you could just see that there was something drawn or
written on the hidden layer.

Well, in a room filled with people talking and laughing and climbing ladders
and pushing helmets around, I went to peek behind the curtain and lifted up
the front layer to take a look at the one behind.

A custodian ran at me and told me to step away. I still don't know if I
damaged it or participated in it.

~~~
jansho
> sometimes you just can't tell what in a museum you're supposed to touch and
> what you're not supposed to touch.

In one pop sculpture exhibition, I stared so long at a coffee machine until an
attendant came over and asked me if there was a problem with the refreshments.

~~~
tyingq
Are there any documented studies where art experts were challenged to
differentiate between:

\- abstract paintings by someone universally regarded as "good", and something
done by a very young child?

\- a piece of new, legitimate, modern art vs maybe a pile of random things
from a junkyard

I'm aware it might just be me that's confused, but I have a suspicion much of
the abstract and/or modern art world is void of value...that is, without lots
of context about the artist and their intentions.

~~~
dpierce9
Why should context not matter for art (or anything else really)? Suppose you
come across a what appears to be a picture of Mozart in the sand on a beach.
Doesn't it matter to your understanding of what you see if it was drawn by an
artist, the happenstance by the motion of the waves, or a crawling turtle?

~~~
tyingq
The times I've seen these things, sufficient context was not provided.

A picture of Mozart (even if appearing by chance in the sand) isn't in my
definition of these abstract or modern art pieces that are confusing to me.
I'm asking about the things that I have trouble recognizing as something worth
looking at. Blobs and splatters of paint, or as shown elsewhere in the
comments, a bag of garbage.

~~~
dpierce9
That is one of the things museums do, the curators put things in the museum
because they think people should look at it (the act of which of course
becomes part of it). Suppose you picked up a book on real analysis without
understanding basic arithmetic. Would it be the fault of the author that you
didn't understand what you were looking at? Would they have done something
wrong?

One way to think about art is that each piece is made at a point in time but
is participating in a long din of conversation(s). If you don't understand the
general arc of the conversation (or at least the conversation going on right
around you), you will miss some of the aesthetic value of any piece. This is
as true of Michelangelo as it is of Barnet Newman even if you have more
context-free aesthetic/technical appreciation for Michelangelo's work.

Most museums also have docents which are usually more than happy to talk about
various pieces.

------
Pica_soO
My uncle works in art-work transportation, and some of the pieces are
basically not transportable, but are travelling from museum to museum anyway.

He remembers a charcoled doorframe, that had to be transported although it
basically could come apart any second once moved. They have vibration reducing
special boxes, with the same climate protection as humidors have it. Also
there are titanic insurance fees at work, to move art. And sometimes, somebody
in some state run museum, is forced to take the cheapest option available. One
of those haulers venturing into art, transported a artwork by a Chinese
artists (do not know the name), basically very long paperrolls with Chinese
letters on them to be hung from a halls ceiling. Those rolls they come in
cardboard boxes, sealed with tape- and the poor fellow, takes a cutter, and
systematically, cuts through the tape that seals all the boxes. Each box a
artwork, insured for 25.000€ - sliced.

~~~
rabboRubble
So like how was he supposed to open the boxes if not by cutting the tape? Or
were the boxes intended to never be opened?

~~~
strictnein
Cut the sides, peel off the tape? Or maybe he used a box cutter with a long
blade? Either way, it's not his fault

~~~
pavel_lishin
> _Either way, it 's not his fault_

I don't know about that. If you take a job transporting art, it's your job to
understand what you're transporting.

And at no point are you supposed to open boxes like that, anyway, no matter
what you're transporting - when I unloaded the truck at a department store,
they drilled into us that that's a very good way to slice through a rack of
t-shirts or pants or whatnot.

~~~
rabboRubble
If the tape on the boxes was not meant to be cut open under any circumstance,
and the tape was not a part of the art itself, doesn't the blame fall upon the
person who put the tape on in the first place?

~~~
pavel_lishin
You can cut tape from a packed box without jamming the blade into the box and
its contents.

~~~
rabboRubble
I didn't read it that way. The issue was with the handling of the boxes and
not the contents. The box itself was the artwork _in addition_ to the
contents. Slicing the tape sliced the box and the box was insured for EUR25k.

"cuts through the tape that seals all the boxes. Each box a artwork, insured
for 25.000€ - sliced."

~~~
pavel_lishin
> The box itself was the artwork in addition to the contents.

That's not how I read it (emphasis mine):

> One of those haulers venturing into art, transported a artwork by a Chinese
> artists (do not know the name), basically very long paperrolls with Chinese
> letters on them _to be hung from a halls ceiling_

~~~
rabboRubble
I love this! I initially assumed your understanding was what s/he meant too
but the wording in the last sentence caused me to think the boxes were also
art. We are having the exact problem described in the article. Is the bench a
bench or an art? Is the gigantic crossword puzzle a puzzle to be completed, or
a work that should never be written on?

Is the box a box, or an art? Regardless of the answer, tape never should be
used or cut carelessly :-)

~~~
pavel_lishin
I want to print out this thread, put it in a frame, and tack it onto a museum
wall.

(Hello, museum visitor. You are now part of this art exhibit. Please refrain
from touching yourself.)

------
markbnj
I suppose if you're going to make an artwork look like a bench and not
surround it with protection, then you'd best make it function as a bench too.

~~~
nkrisc
Yes, I would have thought that would be entirely predictable. I love art but
seriously some art museums are UX nightmares. Looks like a bench, something
present in nearly _every museum ever_ but this one is actually art and you
can't sit on it.

~~~
cbhl
The SFMOMA actually has a bench that is also art that is fine for sitting on,
but has a nearby sign warning people to not stand on it.

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melling
On a slight tangent, does flash photography damage paintings?

I see always people using flash in museums. I assume it's because they don't
know how to turn it off.

~~~
4ad
Where are you from? Most museums I visited specifically banned flash
photography. In fact, most banned all photography.

Yes, flash definitely damages paintings.

~~~
pharrington
Museums that ban photography do so for copyright reasons. The radiant energy
of the camera flash is minuscule compared to the energy of the other photons
lighting whatever you're looking at.

Don't leave canvas paintings out in the sun.

~~~
4ad
> Museums that ban photography do so for copyright reasons.

Of course, I wasn't implying otherwise.

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nsxwolf
That traveling gaming museum that used to show up at E3... one year I was
looking at a table covered in handhelds, and I saw a Sega Nomad in its box.
I'd never seen one in person, so I opened the box and took it out. I was
promptly yelled at "Hey! We'd like to keep that in the box!"

Well why didn't you just bring the empty box then?

~~~
StavrosK
Because... they wanted to keep the Nomad _in_ the box.

~~~
nsxwolf
Odd to put it on a table with many other handhelds you were encouraged to pick
up and look at.

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elastic_church
Clicked the link on my iphone, turns out I had artsys app installed and got
deep linked into it, then was greeted with a login screen, no way to skip and
not the article.

Hunted and pecked for it on my home screen, and uninstalled it

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cosinetau
Move fast and break shit!

~~~
nkrisc
Children have been doing that for ages.

