Well, no, I wasn’t aware of the Cage Trust lawsuit; a bit embarrasing for a recovering ex-Music Theory & Comp major who participated in several Cage events (”recovery”, that is, in the AA sense, ie: periods of abstinence).

My first reaction was “Well, if the Cage Trust can copyright the totality of silence, what about every musician who makes a sound? The Entertainment/Intellectual Property Lawyers must be ecstatic - this will keep them in Porches for eternity.”

But upon researching a bit, I find that the case turned on Batt’s tip-of-the-hat to Cage in his song’s title. Not quite as broad, but if acknowledging an influence is copyright infringement, the shysters must still be licking their chops.

I agree w/ Batt the Cage Trust’s suit was optimistic - the whole point of the Cage piece was that the audience provided the “music” during the 4′33″ of (non)silence. Obviously, that wouldn’t apply to a recording.

Similarly, science should be sold to willing buyers, not to unwilling taxpayers. How many $billions are shelled out on junk science every year with confiscated taxes?

Excuse me if I don’t want to pay you anything for your paint-spattered rag science. Sell it to someone who values it. Don’t rob me anymore based on some communist aesthetic or Lysenkoism. If I want it, I will buy it. If not, too bad for you. Do something else. Do something that other people value sans the extortion of taxes.

You’ll have to keep your teenage gotchas for another day.

I don’t know where have you read that this is a conceptual art. Of course, every work of art has a concept, but that’s different.

On behalf of the artist and against all the shallow hatred towards the dumb government here shown, this tiny bit at the martin creed’s work page, here, one can read:

Thanks to Puma, Professor Greg Whyte, Anthony Shaw, Ashley Gray, Dr Ahmad Alkhatib, David Southard, Mark Baldwin, Rambert Dance Company, Hauser & Wirth Z?rich London, and all of the people running.

So the “dumb” wasn’t the government, it was a private company! As teens like to say, dear governmentophobes, consider yourself PWNED.

Additionally inspired by that creation I have plans for a Digitally Interactive Performance Piece that I will soon mount. All here are invited to participate.

Using the audio and video conferencing capabilities of modern desktop computers I envision an Installation in which I and the audience will together construct The Performance Piece. We will discuss in real time the nuances of the colors available and decide amongst us which color needs, demands actually, to be applied to each of the rocks.

As each rock is then painted we will marvel over our creation and provide individual interpretations of the deepest meanings of the colors and the rocks relative to Life Experiences.

So far as I know this has not yet been done, so it must be Art.

Art is meant to convey a message and/or evoke emotions. I think in a significant portion of modern art, the artist has offloaded his responsibility of conveying the message to the viewer, ie “here it is, take from it what you will”. It’s not far from that to realizing that it doesn’t really matter what the image is, or whether the artist is even competent in his medium.

That’s the question I ask, and it’s not always possible to answer based on the work itself. My mate and I were at an art museum walking around, and she sat on a bench to rest opposite a large canvas. It was totally abstract, but she was trying to appreciate it. My comment, and I think it deflated her a bit, was: “This could just as well have been the artist’s drop cloth.”

Now, I have no way of telling from this image whether the painter is even capable of rendering something representational, but it would be enough if the image on the canvas was intentional. In other words, did the artist have this image in mind, go to a blank canvas and render it as envisioned? I’ve had one artist so much as say that she doesn’t start with an image in mind, just makes it up as she goes. I didn’t ask if she had the confidence in her own skill to make something intentional.

When Andy Warhol wanted to make his comment on pop culture, and decided to paint Marilyn Monroe, he went and painted an immediately recognizeable Marilyn Monroe, albeit in odd colors. When someone sees it, they’ll think “Marilyn Monroe”, not “Eleanor Roosevelt” or “who is this chick?”. Andy Warhol was competent in his medium.

I’ve seen auto parts and scrap metal welded together into delightful sculptures of people, animals, etc., and I’ve seen auto parts and scrap metal welded together into piles of auto parts and scrap metal welded together. The former make me wish I was that good at welding, the latter make me wonder if the artist really is. We have an “installation” which is literally a bag of garbage, which the janitor (rightly I think) threw in the dumpster overnight.

The ultimate would be a medium with no possible objective measure of competence. Then you can get away with anything. With “850″ the purpose may well be to convey the message “how easy it is to annoy the public by confronting it with some spectacle and asserting it’s art and making them pay for it, AND get paid for doing it.” in which case competence is measured by how many articles and comments it generates.

Luis, I am not sure that you have to actually see the runners in order to judge whether or not they are art. Surely the whole point of conceptual art is that it is the concept that is important not the acutualisation. A Jackson Pollock or a Leonardo is a physical entity which can only be appreciated fully by seeing the real thing.

Martin Creed’s “850″ is a concept which can be fully appreciated by anyone who has seen an art gallery and a jogger, and has the imagination to put the two together in the way Creed has described. The physical appearance of the joggers or the gallery do not matter, whereas the physical appearance of a painting is essential.

Now we are getting somewhere

The problem is that for at least one set of people having people run through a gallery is clearly art, while probably for many it is not.

Personally, I doubt that it is. I just would never post a dismissive post about it without even knowing first hand about the experience of it, and take the advantage and make blows against all art in general that is obviously “decaying” and has lost any sense, etc.