May 12, 2017

"[T]wo students jokingly placed a store-bought pineapple on an empty table at an art exhibition this month at Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen..."

"When they returned a few days later to the exhibition... they were shocked to discover their pineapple protected by a glass display case, instantly and mysteriously transformed into a work of art."
After one of the students, Lloyd Jack, 22, who studies business, put a photograph of the pineapple on Twitter, along with the words, “I made art,” the image was shared widely on social media, turning the fruit, fairly or not, into a cultural sensation....

Before long, the work, which the two students titled “Pineapple,” had been deconstructed on art blogs and social media worldwide; parsed in Paris, Texas and Tokyo; and even featured on Canadian television. Some on Twitter lauded its “genius,” while others ridiculed it as the latest example of conceptual art’s plodding banality....
There are so many stories like this. I feel as though I've read a hundred of them over the years, 200 if you include the cases of actual art that was regarded as not art and thrown away. Well, maybe that's how the glass case got there. Somebody thought it was part of the artwork and feared that some custodian would throw it out. The case is like a sign saying: "This is art."*

I'm not convinced the whole thing was not a PR stunt. I just need to say that so I'm not roped into being part of someone else's artwork. 
________________________

* Like Duchamp signing the urinal. 

33 comments:

Sebastian said...

"The case is like a sign saying: "This is art."" Only thing missing: "Ceci n'est pas un ananas." Perhaps too obvious - the silent reference may be more artistic, in the postmod sense of artistic.

traditionalguy said...

Yes, Pineapples are works of art. God is the artist. And they tenderize meat too.

Fernandinande said...

the image was shared widely on social media, turning the fruit, fairly or not, into a cultural sensation....

Lemme guess: the fruit is the person who put the pineapple in the display case.

Paddy O said...

Art is a lot like a really old joke that was funny the first time, but then got told again and again, found it's way into joke books, and then is told by people who aren't funny themselves but have heard that being funny is a thing other people do to be liked.

JohnAnnArbor said...

Detroit Institute of Arts once had an exhibit of a bunch of stones on the floor of one room.

Guess what happened.

gspencer said...

"When you don't know where you're going in life, any train will take you there."

If you don't understand beauty, anything can be considered the best.

John Stossel, way back in 2005,

On ABCNews.com, we showed four reproductions of art works that are considered masterpieces of modern art along with six pieces that will never make it into any museum. We asked viewers to decide which work was art and which was not.

I assumed the famous art would get the most votes if only because art lovers would recognize them, but they didn't. Most got far fewer votes than the winner.

The one that received the most votes as a "real" artwork was a piece of framed fabric "20/20" bought at a thrift store for $5.

http://abcnews.go.com/2020/GiveMeABreak/story?id=563146

Carter Wood said...

Marcel Duchamp, eh? But can the students play as good of game as chess as he did?

After becoming an established and successful artist, Marcel Duchamp, one of the father’s of Dadaism, turned his focus to playing chess, a game that enthralled him. He once famously remarked that “while all artists are not chess players, all chess players are artists.” The merits of such a statement, particularly in light of the ability of computers to play chess so well, are debatable. But Duchamp, the creator of such works as “Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2” (1912) and “The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass)” (1915-23), spent a large part of his life as a serious player.

Etienne said...

One thing that amuses me, is these scientists who try to "bring out" the painting below the painting.

Canvas was expensive in the old days. If you decided a painting was crap you just painted over it.

So now we have millions of dollars being spent on seeing what the artist painted over.

This is why printed money is evil. If a person had to hand their children over as slaves, they would think twice about the expense.

Freeman Hunt said...

Pineapples do have a nice look.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

LONDON — How did a pineapple become a postmodern masterpiece?

And I stopped reading right there, convinced that the claim is false and that the question will not be answered.

Jupiter said...

I have no problem with idiots being idiotic. It annoys me that I am expected to finance the idiocy.

Larry J said...

Yet more proof that what passes for modern art is bunk.

BN said...

Fake art, fake news, fake science, fake love based on fake commitment, fake identity, fake reality. We are living in "The Fake Age."

Ceci n'est pas un decadence.

Paddy O said...

"I assumed the famous art would get the most votes if only because art lovers would recognize them, but they didn't. Most got far fewer votes than the winner."

A better test would have been to list the names of the artist.

People now care about artists, not art. Duchamp wins.

And I find Pineapples far too aggressive, a sweet interior that must be found by a willingness to endure a sharp and difficult exterior. It cannot be peeled by hand but must be sliced, incorporating an act of violence into the pursuit of desire. In this way, pineapples reflect the modern dilemma in establishing relationships in our post-trust age.

Fernandinande said...

My opposite sex life partner's sibling of gender stayed last night, and this morning she forgot her pineapple when she left.

True story!

Bay Area Guy said...

As Rudy Giuliani once said,"If I can do it, it ain't art"

Fernandinande said...

Oops, I forgot the point of the True Story, which was "Pineapples are forgettable".

George Leroy Tirebiter said...

Generally speaking, post-Duchamp "art" is boring. Go see his collection at the Philadelphia Museum of Art instead.

Bob Boyd said...

'Pineapple' is a problematic appropriation of Polynesian culture...init?

Fernandinande said...

My favorite fake artist is Roy Lichtenstein.
Scroll down and observe how the mass-produced no-name originals are often better than his copies.

'TreHammer said...

Up until I saw the photo, I was going to declare this an "urban myth".

Unknown said...

The Roy Lechtenstien was fun. He knows how to present beautiful woman.

Fernandinande said...

This Nikon 6mm fisheye lens is a work of art

Snark said...

How transparently absurd and self indulgent. Let's contort stupid justifications for a dumb president and box it up under glass as provocative thought. Oh sorry...my goodness...pineapple. I meant pineapple, not president.

Floris said...

When I read the beginning of this story, my first thought was: A native Hawaiian is going to accuse the artist of cultural appropriation. Instead, someone turned a statement about the nothingness of culture into a statement viewed as pregnant with meaning.

Why does the cultural left do so many things that I (who am not of the cultural left) find ridiculous? Does the cultural left find many of the things I do ridiculous?

Fernandinande said...

Bob Boyd said...
'Pineapple' is a problematic appropriation of Polynesian culture...init?


No!

Wiki:
The word "pineapple" in English was first recorded to describe the reproductive organs of conifer trees (now termed pine cones).

Back then people put pine cones on their pizzas.

Bob Boyd said...

I'm talking about 'Pineapple' the work of art, not the word "pineapple"

Rusty said...

Now if they made a video of the whole process THAT would be art.

Etienne said...

"Cottage Cheese with pineapple chunks" - Richard Nixon's last meal at the White House

Sorry, it just popped into my mind. Mmmph.. Mmmph..

Sigivald said...

"Conceptual art" is excrement.

(And I say this as an art history student, and someone who is perfectly capable of appreciating non-representative and abstract art, not some "only traditional representation is good!" sort.

But, no, never seen an example of conceptual art that qualified as "art", just like "performance art" is also bollocks.

Ref. above, if you mock Lichtenstein as "fake art", you're a sucker.

You can not like it, you can think it's banal, or boring, or derivative, but there's no plausible definition of "art" that "painting his works" doesn't fit.)

Infinite Monkeys said...

Psy (Gangnam Style) has a new video for a song called "I Luv It". The video has subtitles and the English lyrics mention Duchamp - it's part of a potty joke. I think the Korean lyrics are different, though.

It also has a cameo by the Pen-Pineapple-Apple-Pen guy (Daimaou Kosaka/Pikotaro).

The tags for this post would work as well for that video.

Steven said...

"Conceptual art" is excrement.

The problem, of course, is that everybody got so mystical-insane about what "art" is.

If you simply go to the oldest definition in the OED -- "Skill; its display or application" -- you get rid of all the excrement. Then you can narrow what fields you care about, or debate taste and aesthetics about what remains.

mockturtle said...

200 if you include the cases of actual art that was regarded as not art and thrown away.

If something looks like it should be thrown out, it probably should be thrown out.