2025, animals, Art, Uncategorized

Theft Of The Golden Toilet

38 Comments

I was rather amused to read the account from March of the conviction of some British guys for the theft of an 18 carat gold toilet from Blenheim Palace.

The 6 million dollar toilet was part of an art installation titled America by an Italian conceptual artist Maurizio Cattelan poking fun at excessive wealth. The Guggenheim Museum, where the installation started out, had reportedly offered the work to 47 during his first term after he asked to borrow a painting by Van Gogh. The toilet has presumably been melted down and sold. The artist suggested, using the Clue game, that the chief suspects should have been the Butler, the Chef, or a family friend.

I am an Impressionist sort of art person, but I also like Renaissance art and Aboriginal art.

Ok. Help me understand modern art. I don’t understand Brillo boxes as art. What is your favorite art?

38 thoughts on “Theft Of The Golden Toilet”

  1. I would have to say impasto oil paintings, perhaps influenced by the work of either my mom or her art teacher. See the book cover for silken thread. By Gabriel Custodio. We have that painting in our bedroom. I always loved it.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

    1. A gold-painted toilet would be commentary. A solid gold toilet is tone deaf self-parody. Where, after all, did the 6 million come from? Surely the value of this piece is in the materials and not the invention or esthetic.

      Liked by 5 people

      Reply

      1. I looked it up – it was indeeed made of gold. 228 pounds of it. I think this says a lot more about the artist than about America.

        Liked by 1 person

        Reply

  3. I prefer art that is representational. So if by looking at it, I can discern the concept or discern what the art is supposed to represent, that’s better for me. And if there’s a title that doesn’t hurt either.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  4. Currently in the college Art Gallery, is the student juried exhibit. It’s a mix of photography, sculpture, mixed media, paintings and drawings. There is a large pot with wings attached that makes me chuckle, there are some really nice photographs. There’s a couple things I don’t understand, and many things that I’m not really sure what they are. It’s fun to read the titles. Sometimes they’re called “untitled”.

    Liked by 5 people

    Reply

  6. Abstract or modern art (what i would call art that doesn’t seem to have talent or inspiration behind it) bewilders me. Think the banana nailed to the wall, the blank white canvas, even Andy Warhol’s soup cans. Or paint splashed all over a canvas like a Jackson Pollack. If that’s what the artist feels like doing, fine, but why do those pieces fetch such ridiculous prices? Millions? And don’t get me started on NFTs! (non-fungible tokens).

    Visual art is the least interesting to me of all the creative and performing arts. Yes, I understand the talent needed to even create a still life painting or sculpt a human form, but I’d rather read, listen to music, watch a play or movie, even sit through a dance recital (which I did a lot when my sister took ballet lessons when we were kids).

    That said, certain artists appeal to me, like Van Gogh, some of the Impressionists, and even Picasso. At least with him, I sort of “get it” that he saw the world through very angular, sharp-cornered lenses, perhaps while under the influence of the popular psychedelic drugs of the day. 😉

    Chris in Owatonna

    Liked by 6 people

    Reply

    2. Those pieces fetch astronomical prices because someone is willing to pay it. The art has no intrinsic value, it’s purely subjective. But that’s true of a lot of things. We can marvel but it isn’t really about us.

      Liked by 3 people

      Reply

  7. Andy Warhol presented the Brillo boxes as art in 1964—over 60 years ago and a world away from what we would consider modernity today. Hardly what one would call “modern” except, perhaps, as compared to renaissance art. At the time it was a statement about society and consumer culture, a thin and ephemeral one in my opinion, and not to be seriously regarded as art unless you wish to. Gallery curators control a space where, by spurious definition, anything can be designated “art”. That doesn’t make it so.

    I like art that I consider art whether it’s in a gallery or hanging on my wall. A banana duct-taped to the wall may be “art” in a gallery space if a curator deems it so, but a banana duct taped to your wall at home would just be stupid. So, too, would the pile of Brillo boxes.

    The duct-taped banana, incidentally by the same Italian conceptual artist, sold for 6.2 million. Now that’s a commentary on excessive wealth and not as flat-footed as the gold toilet. But it’s not art.

    I confess I don’t understand that part of the art world except in terms of boredom and too much money. It seems to be like “fame”, where certain individuals are famous for being famous.

    Art is broader than “things you can hang on the wall”. Art takes myriad forms—ceramics, sculpture, textile, illustration, architecture. I don’t pick “favorites” because I find it impossible to construct hierarchies but I surround myself with objects I treasure—pottery, prints, paintings, photographs, fiber arts, curious objects that for me add richness to my environment.

    Art is not outside of you. It’s not imposed on you. There’s nothing you have to understand that you don’t implicitly understand. Don’t make it foreign to you.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

    2. I like to stay far from the “business” of art–the selling, marketing side. The pure self-expression of how an artist views the object or how a musician artist hears, then reproduces the experience is what matters to me. I know the agents, galleries, and concert halls are necessary, but what they value may not be what speaks to me.

      Best concerts ever: Lyle Lovett.
      Best Gallery: Accademia in Florence, Italy that houses Michelangelo’s David, my favorite sculpture ever. How?
      Best Garden: Keukenhof Gardens, now in full display of seasonal tulips.

      Liked by 3 people

      Reply

      1. My b-i-l- and s-i-l were just in Keukenhof Gardens the other day. Sent a few pics, but similar to seeing impressive natural wonders like the Grand Canyon, photos don’t do justice to something like that.

        Liked by 4 people

        Reply

  8. I made art to see what my hands could accomplish to say anything about me while trying to make the bit of talent I had a bit better. It also helped my mental state. Still life is a long establish form, like a sonata or a murder mystery. It has its challenges. Painting flowers is challenging because flowers face in different directions and are in different stages of life. It is playing with form and light and shadow. The same with figure study. But it is a rare one of either that moves me any more.
    But why are you reducing modern art to absurd or passing examples. Bill’s analysis above is brilliant. Abstracts are a form of modern art which are easy to dismiss. But if you put in the time to losing yourself in some in a good museum, you may be moved by them. Turner at his best was blending abstract with representationalism.
    Clyde

    Liked by 5 people

    Reply

    2. Thank You, Clyde. You can’t possibly know how much I respect your assessment and I am hardly brilliant but I am comfortable with my opinions and I am gratified to hear you concur.

      Liked by 3 people

      Reply

    3. agreed clyde
      maybe you could try painting like monet. as he aged his eyes and hands needed help so his water lilies were painted huge, like 12 feet tall so he could see them. his brush strokes were huge as if done with a broom because his hands couldnt do fine detail.
      i was surprised while touring the dome in florence to stand nest to the paintings ob the ceiling and see that they too were huge brush strokes when you stood next to them but from ground level they were perfect and exactly right

      i have some art and appreciate many different approaches.Sargent is a marvelous talent with lighting, form and composition
      abstract stuff like pollack is my favorite but no knock on van gogh rembrandt rubens vermeer or the artists that books museums and walls outside spaces and our heads with wonder amazement joy and questions

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

  9. The Winnipeg Art Gallery has a lovely collection of Innuit art. One of my favorite pieces is a small soapstone carving of a very surprised looking Innuit man riding a narwhal.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  10. Rise and Shine, Baboons,

    Turns out I am really picky about my art. Brillo Boxes? Nope. I love sculpture, both seeing it and doing it, because it is spare with clean lines. After my second cataract surgery tomorrow, I hope to start working on things again. During the last two one-eyed weeks I have been unable to do any artwork or craft of any kind because, while I now have eagle eyed vision in the corrected left eye, that eye refuses to work with the uncorrected right eye without making me nauseous and dizzy. Ugh. I am at this moment wearing my glasses looking out of the right eye with a paper towel stuffed between the glasses and my left eye so I can type. At least then I can type without nausea.

    I love Picasso’s line drawings, and much of his work draws me into it, even if I do not like it or understand it. I do not like busy art work. For example MC Escher’s work is fascinating, but I get too overwhelmed by the repeated patterns, then I can’t look any more. I love Caravaggio’s work with the dark backgrounds of negative space. Then the main figure pops right out for me to study, unimpeded. (I suspect I have some kind of weird learning disorder because I always have needed spare presentation of material. When I was a musician I often had to memorize everything because all the black and white notes were just so much).

    I have a piece of art-a print-in the living room that I love. I found it in an Arizona second hand store for $30. The artist is Tigaro, who has his own very sad story and several tremendous visual creations. An Indian is fishing with a javeline or spear and several fish are represented just below the surface of water. The figures are unembellished and the colors are muted. And when I looked it up on line, I discovered the print sells for about $800. So I love it even more.

    PS, I still think the primary suspect for this Golden Toilet theft is the first Felon who ruins all that he touches. And I think it represents accurately his character. Every gargoyle sculpted in the future needs to have his face. Maybe I will do that….

    Liked by 5 people

    Reply

  11. “Modern Art” is a term often used to describe objects which have no resonance or appeal for that person. But if an object evokes a response from you, in your life as you experience it now, it is modern (for you) no matter when it was produced.

    Art is not the exclusive domain of artists and curators. Much of art is not made by artists. I was walking at the gym this morning. For a time I walked behind a Somali woman. She wore loose leggings gathered at the ankle, charcoal gray with a pattern of red roses. Over that she wore a light yellow dress with light blue medium sized figures of some sort. Her head was draped in a loose scarf of coarse patterned gray and yellow and blue. It was perfectly composed. Certainly not happenstance. It afforded me esthetic pleasure and I experienced it as art.

    Liked by 6 people

    Reply

  12. Having visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Vatican and The Prado in Madrid, I’m picking the work of Rollin Alm, local to Minnesota. I worked with him on flooring throughout North Dakota. He’s since done work in fresco at St.Thomas and in other media at Hennepin County Library.
    I was his boss and no doubt an inspiration to all his work.

    Liked by 6 people

    Reply

  13. I am drawn to Van Gogh’s paintings of apple orchards. Something about them, perhaps having to do with the titles of the paintings in Dutch, is irresistible for me.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  14. I’m surprised sometimes at what I am drawn to, but it’s mainly Van Gogh, and other impressionists I saw in the Musee d’Orsay, like Jean François Millet. I was surprising moved by the Rodin sculpture in the garden.

    I find art sometimes in the everyday: the five-pointed start you find when you cut an apple crosswise, a patchwork of fields you see when driving through hills and valleys. I mentioned Islamic repeating tilework earlier this week – I remember some of the train stations on my train trip had great ceramic tile-work on the walls ( esp. San Diego, if memory serves).

    I also like Native American art like this (from FB), and I’m sorry I cannot find the exact artist on this…
    https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1013374344227224&set=g.909821217543746

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

Leave a reply to Anonymous Cancel reply