Wednesday, April 20, 2011

"Yesterday it was a six million dollar work of art, today it's a piece of junk!"
-Bones

Yes, I have been watching Bones, and I am currently watching an episode in which a body was found in a crushed car sculpture (constructed by putting the car through a compactor).  The scientists are temporarily forbidden from taking the sculpture apart to examine the remains, on the grounds that the sculpture is "an historic piece of art."  I found this interesting, considering the nature of this class.  This episode also raises the question of what qualifies an object as art.  The director of the studio in which the other, similarly constructed car sculptures are displayed requested the injunction; she is a "member of the artworld" and therefore "qualified" to confer the status of art on an object.  In this case, the intention of the artist, the director, and the people who came to see the artist's sculptures determined that the "sculptures" were indeed art.  Apart from being an episode of a crime show, this was also a commentary on what makes art, art.

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