In the case of your local museum, I find it easier to believe that the money figure on the info tag was part of some kind of psychological experiment.

I lived in two places where there was serious controversy about the cost of a couple outdoor art installations, so I know that the reality might be exactly as you describe…but 10 or so cup lids with straws ??

@CB…Super-talented artists sell. Undoubtedly, this is often true.
However, for a variety of reasons, in many cases they do not sell.
I’m no guru on the art scene or history, but Van Gogh comes to mind.

Sometimes people in government purchasing jobs buy inferior goods
with public funds and often they receive kickbacks from the vendors.

I identify my peers as artists, because they make art. Most of them sell it, at standard ‘professional’ rates. But most of them also hold more than one day job.

Analysts say it’s this crap economy, and use the old ‘art is a luxury’ argument. The economy has been crap my whole life. It will be crap when the earth is eaten by the sun, or the sun burns out whichever comes first.

Point: Government sponsored art is insane. Since the twits aren’t spending their own money, you get them stumbling along, thinking art is anything ‘edgy’, and you get the cup lids. The same exhibit also had another ‘installation: dollar store fake vomit glued to the floor, the ceiling, the walls.

And outside, we have government sponsored sculptures, that look like a random heap of metal fell off the recycling truck, and rather than pick it back up, they just bolted it down to rust.

So,it’s not just the insult to honed skills and creativity, it’s giving a huge whack of tax dollars to scan artists.

And those? I think most can agree it’s not the type of art they want to support…

Only myself, my wife and my doctor are allowed to touch my stuff. I was arrested the time I made it a public exhibit.

Braille art: Art constructed using braille.

Not quite the same as the VI access you describe. GOD, HOW I HATE EXPLAINING JOKES, especially to those who think that failing artists are “super talented”.

Super-talented artists sell. “Artists” need to find real jobs.

Some museums have alarms that sound when someone steps closer than arm’s length towards a work. Brilliant.

*stretch stretch stretching to drag the serious hat out of the far back corner of the chaos closet*

*begins violent coughing and sneezing fit*

Whew! This thing is dusty! And grimy. I’m getting hives–and at least one infection–just from holding it…

Some museums / galleries /studios will arrange special tours for the visually impaired. With the aid (and strict guidance) of staff, while wearing the same special pristine white cotton gloves said staff uses to handle the art, the VI, basically, get to grope the art. This gives them a way to share in certain types of art, like sculpture and paintings (with elaborate raised textures of detailed brushwork, which many less impaired people have to fight NOT to touch. Or maybe that’s just us art geeks.)

This does nothing for ‘modern’ ‘installations’, such as a random deliberately blurry slideshow, or an actual pile of garbage.

I stopped visiting my local museum when one of the ‘works’ was a pile of, hmmm, maybe ten or so fast food cup tops, with straws still skewering them. The info tag reported it’s name as ‘Untitled’. Of course. In my view, if you can’t / didn’t name it, you aren’t even pretending to be fucking trying. The tag also revealed it had been bought by the government for 75k.Or 100k. It might have been more. I was literally almost blacking out with rage at that point, so…

As a professional writer and artist, I have so many of my peers, who are super talented, and can’t place their work. Or sell it for almost nothing. In fact, they don’t make enough to buy the fast food to ‘make’ the scam crap, and yet they were forced to buy *taxes) this ridic garbage.

Major rage.

I did get some comfort. After making the loop of the room, I discovered someone had–surely accidentally–kicked the ‘installation’ to the four winds. And they, or perhaps the next patron, had picked up {most of) the ones near the waste bin and tossed them in.

No one appreciates litter. Or garbage.

I wonder how many times per day the twits who had bought this crap–with not-their-own-money, natch–had to scrape it out of the trash.

Whatever, it wasn’t enough. Even if the trash included diapers and worse.

Annnnnyway, clearly, they don’t make / let the blind touch that. They probably got tired of being punched afterwards.

(Note: If you made it through, this frickin essay has met your mreading quota for the day. Congrats!)

3.2
Desiderrida (apologies to Porter, Monroe, et al)
While stripping away text’s underclothes
My trousseau just might seem to falter
But don’t worry Steve…I know all about Eve
And I’m constructed like the Jacques of Rib-altar

I may wind through some Richter scales
My Aeolian ‘Arp strumming “Ta Da!”
But my seismic shifts will weather the gales
Cause my heart belongs to Dada