Public art ... valid or a waste of taxpayer's money?

Public art ... valid or a waste of taxpayer's money?

  • I like it, don't always understand it but agree it should be there.

    Votes: 88 75.2%

  • I think it's a waste of money that could be spent on more important infrastructures.

    Votes: 20 17.1%

  • I'm indifferent and have no opinion.

    Votes: 9 7.7%
  • Total voters
    117
bojanfurst said:
And so we get Thomas Kinkade. Vincent should have just become a minister and paint on the side and Gauguin should have remind stockbroker- much more honorable position than a lowly painter ;) Mass market is not the best way to support the arts.

Bojan
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I people want hamburgers why force them to eat steak? Thomas K. amounts to a very tiny part of the art market. Anyway no one is forced to buy his work but people are forced to pay taxes that go to grants for "art" they may be offended by or dislike.

If I remember correctly Vincent V. sold very few paintings in his life. The ones that sold were purchased by individuals not grants from the government. I'm not up on Gauguin but I would guess individuals purchased his work and few government grants were given at the time if any.

Many of the Italian masters received commissions from the Catholic Church which I would equate with corporate commissions and not government grants. Huge difference IMO.
 
alan davus said:
Roger, State Opera here in South Australia has put on two Wagner Ring Cycles in the last 10 years. For those who don't know opera Wagner's Ring is the biggest thing in opera. Our local company has 6 full time employees so for Adelaide to stage the Ring would be tantamount to Botswana hosting the Olympic Games. There's no way we could do it with out Govt. subsidy More than 75% of all people who saw the productions came from interstate or overseas and they pumped a huge amount into the local economy. I don't buy the argument that the proleteriat are subsidising the rich. The wealthy subsidise the poor (and rightly so) through the tax system and not the other way around. And most people who bag opera do so out of ignorance as they have never been to see a production. So to opera I say "VINCERA,VINCERA".
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Dear Alan,

Wagner's music is well known to be better than it sounds.

How much were tickets to the individual operas? Because unless at least some were under (say) $25 Australian, the poor were indeed subsidizing the rich.

Cheers,

R.
 
Roger Hicks said:
Dear Alan,

Wagner's music is well known to be better than it sounds.

How much were tickets to the individual operas? Because unless at least some were under (say) $25 Australian, the poor were indeed subsidizing the rich.

Cheers,

R.
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Roger, tickets were expensive sure. But "POOR" people pay heaps more to see a Brittany Spears concert so it's all a matter of priorities. In Australia if family income is less than $A40,000 you are actually tax negative, that is you get more back from the Govt. through various benefits than you pay out so I don't buy your argument about the poor subsidising the rich. But Roger I don't really believe you are against Govt. subsidy for the arts. I've just come to the conclusion based on your Wagner remark you don't like opera. So we'll just have to agree to disagree. Cheers Alan
P.S. I'm neither wealthy or elitist, I'm just a plumber who loves opera.
 
Hard to believe that someone who wears a monical doesn't like opera ... now come on Roger, you look like an opera fan to me! :D
 

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MickH said:
Hah, you picked on a piece I particularly like.

If I remember correctly the locals didn't/don't like it much.
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I could pretend I did on purpose … but it was just by chance, I heard the artist talking about it on the radio and came to dislike it before I ever saw it :rolleyes:
 
Sparrow said:
I could pretend I did on purpose … but it was just by chance, I heard the artist talking about it on the radio and came to dislike it before I ever saw it :rolleyes:
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Now you're taking this in a whole new direction.... artists talking about their work. I often think it's unfair sticking a microphone under the noses of people who 'do' things and expect sense to come out.

Sportsmen and footballers in particular are a prime examples, without tutoring they all come across like Wayne Slob. Then considerhow Beckham has developed with media training. He still talks bollocks, but with much more panache!
 
Richard Serra

Richard Serra

They put one of his giant pieces in a downtown NYC plaza years ago (Tilted Arch?), splitting the plaza in half. It cut off access to the subway and street grid - the public hated it. Not only did the taxpayer pay for it, they had to then pay to have it removed when the powers that be realized it was the wrong piece in the wrong place. I'm not sure what happened to it - it may have been destroyed in the process of removing it.
 
MickH said:
Now you're taking this in a whole new direction.... artists talking about their work. I often think it's unfair sticking a microphone under the noses of people who 'do' things and expect sense to come out.

Sportsmen and footballers in particular are a prime examples, without tutoring they all come across like Wayne Slob. Then considerhow Beckham has developed with media training. He still talks bollocks, but with much more panache!
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Trust me, this was bollocks of the highest order ... twaddle personified

I’ll go and dislike it more personally if I’m ever in the area
 
x-ray said:
I people want hamburgers why force them to eat steak? Thomas K. amounts to a very tiny part of the art market. Anyway no one is forced to buy his work but people are forced to pay taxes that go to grants for "art" they may be offended by or dislike.
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I'm not sure the Hamburger/Steak analogy really fits but let's stick with it for a minute. I think there are good reasons why a government should encourage (maybe not force) people to rather eat a steak every now and then instead of eating hamburgers every day.
I wouldn't go as far as including Thomas K. in the institution that we call "the art market" or "the art world" today and I strongly believe that anyone who has even the slightest knowledge of art history would think that his work is anything but utter crap. I suspect that the success of his work primarily stems from its ideological background.

But back to the topic. I actually do think that it's ok if people are forced to pay taxes that go to grants for art they may be offended by or dislike.
Some years ago a well known installation artist from my country who's on a government grant put on a show in which a dog (not a real dog but a person playing a dog) pretended to urinate (i.e. lifted his leg) onto the picture of one of our then ministers (who's part of a conservative/right wing party). Of course there was an outcry by this party that this grant should immediately be taken away and that the government should not be funding such art projects. Now of course, that same party is the biggest proponent of agriculture subsidies.
Personally, I have no problem with said politicians face getting symbolically (or literally for that matter) urinated on. I do have a problem, however, with billions of dollars of the taxpayer's money going to farmers who refuse to adapt to the 21st century while at the same time funds for education are being constantly reduced.
My point is that in a democratic society the individual taxpayer will agree with some programs that he pays for and disagree with others.
 
x-ray said:
I people want hamburgers why force them to eat steak? Thomas K. amounts to a very tiny part of the art market. Anyway no one is forced to buy his work but people are forced to pay taxes that go to grants for "art" they may be offended by or dislike.
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I think a more accurate analogy would be "if people want beer, why should the government subsidize milk?" :)
 
If government is going to use my tax dollars to start wars, invade other countries, give checks to corporations, banks and investment firms, every nickel artists can keep from those efforts, whether I like their work or not, is money much better spent in my humble opinion.
 
There was a post that if the "object of art" is placed in a public area, that it should be nice is quite reasonable I think. But also the total amount should not be overdone. I do not need caviar every day.

I do not really enjoy the extreme modern, rusty pieces of steel welded together that carry some very deep idea, or objects that suffer after short time from the weather and such.

We have one "piece of art" in front of our university building - it is a white concrete hole in the ground in a shape of shallow pyramid - with a square base of about 12 x 12 m and about 1 m deep. I still miss the point ...

Art is a way to express ones feelings and opinions - and let's be honest - not all of them need a statue ;) Some of them need no attention at all, some should be even closely inspected by a physician :D

But still - for all those unhappy about where their taxes end - imagine that all the money spent for nonsense [you name it] would be spent for public art - there would not be place left to park your car
 
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