Sherrie Levine

[Michael W]

Having a show with turds on a plate will make you famous, having a show with beautifully crafted work will just enable you, maybe, to pay your rent.

Sounds like everyone ends up happy.

[matthewbetcher]

There's no controversy in beauty, there's no accalim for the curator who just puts on beautiful shows

not to beat a dead horse here... but, just remember that "beauty" (again a constructed idea that shifts and changes throughout time and cultures) has always been a by-product and not an impetus in the production of a "work of art." no where, throughout art history, has a work of art just been beautiful. what we consider "beautiful" works of art now were at some point full of new cutting edge avant-garde ideas similarly discussed by those of the time as having no merit because it didn't fit the current methodologies. [from the shift to renaissance perspective to vermeer's "blurred" edges to manet's "le dejeuner..." to the impressionists call to the surface of the painting to duchamp's "r. mutt" to analytical cubism to conceptual art of the sixties... you get the point)

beauty as the sole impetus for the creation of art is pure myth... and not a very interesting one.


and how again does this relate to the original thread?... maybe, just maybe, a great photograph isn't necessarily the one that is technically superior and the most "beautiful" - and perhaps therein lies something interesting.