NEWS: Water and Art Don't Mix

CULTURE: Water and Art Don't Mix

An artist who installed a running tap as a display has turned the tap off after the water company threatened to cut off the galleries water supply and take legal action. The tap had poured 800,000 litres down the drain, during one of the biggest droughts in years.

Meanwhile, a display in Devon was stolen, presumed drunk:

I really like the second half of this article. I wish more people ruined art exhibits by taking them literally.

I never got why the "artist" didnt just recirculate a gallon or so of water through the tap.

It still would have looked like a running tap....



[Edited on Jul 28, 2005 by JohnFM1]

thats exactly what i was thinking.

Now this is art

How about set up a system were the water is recyceled through the art work . COMMON SENSE yes/no maybe. The Gallery is most at fault for not stipulating that this is how it must be done. The artist is a fucking wanker, waste the most precious commodity's on Earth for your faux ART. FFS I have seen that trick at side shows since i was a kid .....ITS NOT ART. The artist should be charged with being stupid.

What a dumbass. The sad thing is, he now got a whole whack of publicity and become some sort bad boy artist with a following.

For the last time, Brits: Washing your teeth under a tap is not enough! You have to brush them as well. . .

But what if they're dentures?

That was my first thought. Then I remembered how crazy artists can be. Oh, and common sense is dead.

I just had to add this, although I have a hell of a lot more respect for Duchamp.

What a waste (for the first article).
Why do people always ruin stuff (for the second)?

Duchamp rocks my world. Although, this is the second version of his urinal, because some shmuk broke the original.

How in the bloody hell is a running tap a work of art?

If it is intended to be symbolic of how the world is wasting water, yet it is itself wasting water when the simplest thing in the world would be to construct a small pump, then it is not art.

Pure genious. By actually wasting water it provoked a much stronger emotional response from a lot of people. What's more is the publicity. Certainly those who might have never heard his name know it now, right?

Using recycled water as people have suggested would not have achived the same effect. What speaks louder, a man lighting himself on fire in protest, or a man who films himself standing in a room, then uses CG effects to composite a fire effect over himself...in protest. Yeah, not the same.

Of course it is also stupid. Wasting water in a drought. It's no wonder this piece was shut down, in fact one had to expect it. You don't light yourself on fire then act surprised when you get burned, right?

I'm horribly amused, myself.

How ironic. On both accounts.

People need to take a more active role in art. We should follow Banksy's idea of creating our own art, and placing it in museums, because who is the true judge of art and beauty?

Exactly...at least somebody got it. Do you think people loved Duchamp's fountain? It's now touted as a masterpiece, but sure didn't go down that way. Also, not quite sure it was broken...as far as I know most places list it as lost 'cause nobody really knows what happened to it. The idea behind the art is just as important as the piece itself...in this case even more important. You can't fake waste water....it wouldn't piss people off.

Don't forget to wipe.

You know, to cleanse the artistic soul for the next art deposit.

good thinking, dkmfc. Now that you mention it...I left some art behind the dumpster this morning.

[Edited on Jul 28, 2005 by Cash]

if you follow that link to the guardian article, it links to a guardian profile on the artist and the work, in which it says:

it's funny to read the responses in this thread ...conceptual art is just that...it makes you think..this piece has done it's job...wasteful or not

Wasting 800,000 litres of water to say "Wasting water is bad" is like randomly killing a couple hundred strangers to say "Murder is bad" heh

Or its just a big joke