Tracey Emin's "My Bed" just sold for £2.2m

Obā-san

now, im not normally a fan of seeing loads of people being totally butthurt

but this is gonna be fun

Morven

I expect oodles of rage expressed in buckets of ink and pixels.

Me?  Not sure it was worth a twenty, but I have to admire her sheer chutzpah.  Like a lot of modern art, the true art is the trolling talent exhibited.

Klinotaxis

hm nope still angrier about hirst.

Obā-san

i've always seen it as a meditation on artistic effort

the bed is the way it is because she did not get out of bed for several days due to severe depression

so she has put in the time, she's poured out her soul, it literally has her (menstrual) blood in it

only instead of a masterpiece

it's a bed

she's taken the "tortured artist" cliche and sucked the stuffing right out of it, no more artifice, no more glamour. just grossness and regret, as it is for most of us.

it's beautiful and nobody can convince me otherwise.

Sredni Vashtar

I actually like a lot of Emin's conceptual pieces, particularly her tent of people that she literally slept with. I found that weirdly sweet. But My Bed is definitely more an act of chutzpah, yes, if an interesting one. None of Hirst's pieces are even close to that personal; even his most intriguing concepts are too cold and self-consciously absurd or tacky.

^ ...OK, replace "interesting" with "awesome." I love that.

Obā-san

Klinotaxis said:

hm nope still angrier about hirst.

hirst is boring

nothing is worse than conceptual art with a shoddy concept

Tachyon

if i understood art i'm sure i'd have an opinion on this

since most people i guess don't, i'm not sure why they care, but maybe i'm underestimating the art-literacy of the public

Anonus

The auction house said they couldn't immediately reveal who bought it

Sredni Vashtar

^^ Because there are still people who think that art that isn't crafted directly from a medium or performed with music or a narrative isn't real art. Which is stupid and reactionary, but still the case.

Klinotaxis

Yon Assassin said:

Klinotaxis said:

hm nope still angrier about hirst.

hirst is boring

nothing is worse than conceptual art with a shoddy concept

ye

Tachyon said:

if i understood art i'm sure i'd have an opinion on this

since most people i guess don't, i'm not sure why they care, but maybe i'm underestimating the art-literacy of the public

probably It's Not Real Art or That's Obscene or something

this thing mostly just reminds me of a hyperrealistic sculpture i saw once of a truck stop worker. walking up from behind i thought it was a person on dais

Hexartes

How much is that in miles

Obā-san

Kexruct said:

How much is that in miles

3,772,252 dollars

Hexartes

That's a lot of dollars

Sredni Vashtar

Yup.

It's an important work.

Hexartes

The anti art sentiment I see tossed around a lot when something like this happens bugs the hell out of me, mainly because the people saying it's "meaningless" don't know ANYTHING about the creative process. I don't have much interest in this kind of art but there is a craft to it. You can't do something like this without putting SOME consideration of what it means into it.

Sredni Vashtar

Exactly.

And in this case, it also requires a level of bravery that a lot of people could never muster. But that sort of defines Emin's work in general.

Salix Babylonika

I'm sure there's some convinient shorthand to express how I feel about this



ah. Thank you, Hank.

Tre

Well, whoever the new owner is, I hope they find great comfort in the bed for years to come

since I know jack shit about actual modern art, that's all I will say on the matter.

Miss Miko Mayonegg

Two performance artists, Yuan Chai and Jian Jun Xi,
jumped on the bed with bare torsos in order to improve the work, which
they thought had not gone far enough. They called their performance Two Naked Men Jump into Tracey's Bed. The men also had a pillow fight^[1]
on the bed for around fifteen minutes, to applause from the crowd,
before being removed by security guards. The artists were detained but
no further action was taken.^[2]

^ Good post.

Salix Babylonika

see

now that's conceptual art

Tachyon

defacing other people's unique artworks is scummy, regardless of their reasons for doing so

Princess Alice

I just find it kinda funny that it apparently took 15 minutes for security to intervene

Miss Miko Mayonegg

I think that whole situation is funny, if not exactly something I would encourage.

Sredni Vashtar

I can't remember what Emin's opinion on that was, but I think that's probably more important than mine.

Bee

The best part about a modern art museum is that sometimes the guards can't actually tell whether it's vandalism or part of the exhibit.

Salix Babylonika

Tachyon said:

defacing other people's unique artworks is scummy, regardless of their reasons for doing so

but if the defacement is itself a work of art, is it really?

Tachyon

regardless of their reasons for doing so, i said

i don't really care about this and i don't know what Emin thought of it, for all i know maybe she approved

still, if she did they presumably didn't know that when they messed up her artwork

Sredni Vashtar

She was apparently pretty pissed, actually, but I wanted to verify that.