What is art in a commercial context? The Tate Modern was absolutely heaving, which is great, slides are a great thing, but are they art?
There's a lovely story about Leo Burnett in Sydney who kept inflated the emergency evacuation slide in the building's atrium, just for the fun of it. Good for them.
Should advertising be more arty or more fun - or are they not mutually exclusive concepts?
4 comments:
The primary aesthtic now is the expolitation of the existence of the meme withing it's surrounding context. As such it is drawing a false distinction betwen commercial and 'art' as the one is just part of the other and versa
Look at work of the YBA's and there is little in the way of traditional skills inherently in the artefact but there is a tremendously vital exploration of the mediated landscape in which they exist and to me therin lies the art.
It's time like this I wish I had a Babel Fish.
Richard - clearly you haven't been to the trashola Turner prize this year then? Along with lots of other people who haven't been.
Honestly, the more modern (YBA) type stuff I see the more I yearn for something other than a pithy explanation (and I make a living from writing pithy explanations).
I really think Holler's intent is just fun, and having a more ludic landscape might be a good thing.
I would refer to another "sliding" artwork, this one by Chinese artist, Wang Du (see: http://www.palaisdetokyo.com/fr/prog/expo/wangdu.html).
His work focuses on the impact of media on our society: TV, press, billboards, etc.
One of his creation consists in a media tunnel that leads you in a information-cluttered environment and ends up with a (emergency?) slide.
So beyond the aesthetic, slides can be vehicles of messages. Loophole, fun, and now art...
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