# One man's art is another man's WTF????



## SquarePeg

WTF2 by SharonCat..., on Flickr


This is a floating art exhibit in Boston Harbor called _SOS (Safety Orange Swimmers)  _"Meant to evoke the global refugee crisis amid unrest abroad, the featureless swimmers of _SOS _will all be painted “safety orange,” the same hue used in life vests."  I thought it was very interesting and different but in the short time I was there taking photos I had to explain what it was to at least 10 people.  One ditzy young woman actually asked us if they were real!!!  I had read about it in advance of going so not sure if I would have got it myself if I had not expected it.  I did think the lack of women and children refugees kept it from being even more impactful.


----------



## Peeb

Ha!  Gotta admit that this was, ummmm, unique.


----------



## PersistentNomad

SquarePeg said:


> I did think the lack of women and children refugees kept it from being even more impactful.


Well on your way to being the next Jerry Saltz! That really is a very thoughtful critique of the work and I'm surprised the artist and exhibit producers didn't do something about that before installation. 

Overall your capture is pretty good, but I am distracted by the yacht tip near the top left. I would say you could crop the image down to take it and the swimmer beneath it out.


----------



## SquarePeg

Peeb said:


> Ha!  Gotta admit that this was, ummmm, unique.



Ha ha!  Unique. That's almost as damning as "interesting".  



PersistentNomad said:


> SquarePeg said:
> 
> 
> 
> I did think the lack of women and children refugees kept it from being even more impactful.
> 
> 
> 
> Well on your way to being the next Jerry Saltz! That really is a very thoughtful critique of the work and I'm surprised the artist and exhibit producers didn't do something about that before installation.
> 
> Overall your capture is pretty good, but I am distracted by the yacht tip near the top left. I would say you could crop the image down to take it and the swimmer beneath it out.
Click to expand...


Thanks for your comments.  Yes, it's definitely not the best photo - I just ran it through ACR and created a jpeg.  The "uniqueness" of the art exhibit was really what I wanted to share - probably should have put this in the Off Topic forum. 

I do have a few more creative views of the exhibit which I'll probably post later.


----------



## jcdeboever

Cool


----------



## pixmedic

my first thought was...
dang, a bunch of spider man cosplayers went for a ride in the lazy river!

photography wise, the shot is pretty cool.
as far as its message....
meh. very meh. I think they missed the mark there.
to me, it does nothing to say anything about anything.
if you had not spelled it out for me, i would never have guessed in 1000 years.

nice shot though. might consider cloning out the front of that boat on the left side.


----------



## smoke665

Was this another of those tax dollar funded art projects? LOL


----------



## Gary A.

This is interesting (lol). I find everything but the little red guys to be distracting.  I'd crop down to the edge of the pier shadow and clone out the nose of the boat. I put those little red guys in the middle of the image.


----------



## Designer

SquarePeg said:


> "Meant to evoke the global refugee crisis amid unrest abroad,


I call BS with a capital BS! 

This "artist" needs to find a job that doesn't involve making up a totally BS theme.  No "intent" at all would have been better than the one he grabbed on his way out the door.


----------



## SquarePeg

pixmedic said:


> my first thought was...
> dang, a bunch of spider man cosplayers went for a ride in the lazy river!
> 
> photography wise, the shot is pretty cool.
> as far as its message....
> meh. very meh. I think they missed the mark there.
> to me, it does nothing to say anything about anything.
> if you had not spelled it out for me, i would never have guessed in 1000 years.
> 
> nice shot though. might consider cloning out the front of that boat on the left side though.



Agree that it was pretty incomprehensible unless you had read about it in advance.  There was no sign explaining the exhibit (that I saw anyway).    Here's a crappy edit on the photo:




WTF2_edited-1 by SharonCat..., on Flickr


----------



## SquarePeg

smoke665 said:


> Was this another of those tax dollar funded art projects? LOL



I would love to know the answer to that!  I'm going to see if I can find out.


----------



## Designer

smoke665 said:


> Was this another of those tax dollar funded art projects? LOL


I'll lay dollars to doughnuts.  

There is no way this could be funded without taxpayer funds.


----------



## PersistentNomad

Designer said:


> smoke665 said:
> 
> 
> 
> Was this another of those tax dollar funded art projects? LOL
> 
> 
> 
> I'll lay dollars to doughnuts.
> 
> There is no way this could be funded without taxpayer funds.
Click to expand...

Okay, having worked for arts organizations that use tax dollars, the quasi-negative attitude of these two comments is a serious problem. The fact that at least one potential tourist who is interested in the arts (me) is hearing and talking about this piece means that the objective for receiving those dollars is achieved- driving culture visitors' interest to Massachusetts. Not sure how many people know this, but the cultural tourism industry is one of the biggest economic pillars in Massachusetts. Without events like this and the visitors they draw, Mass would be in even sorrier shape financially. For every dollar the MCC spends on cultural projects, the state sees $7 spent by people on food, hotels and shopping, supporting local businesses and jobs.
Not liking the art is one thing, scoffing that tax dollars paid for it is not cool.


----------



## smoke665

PersistentNomad said:


> Not liking the art is one thing, scoffing that tax dollars paid for it is not cool.



I've always believed that there are certain things that are within the scope of government, and others that should be funded by private sources. Rather than drift into the realm of a political post I'm bowing out of any further comment on this.


----------



## Otto von Chriek

Thats modern "art" for you! Complete nonsense, surrounded by the unimaginative and thoughtless.


----------



## zombiesniper

Cool pic.
Neat art display but if you have to explain what it is to every single person....seems like a fail to me.


----------



## Designer

PersistentNomad said:


> Not liking the art is one thing, scoffing that tax dollars paid for it is not cool.


Seeing as I helped pay for it, I can be as critical of how my money is spent as I want to be.  

This is terrible "art", and whatever you and I paid for it was way too much.  

I like good art, and I have gladly paid for good art, so thinking negatively of my criticism is unfounded.

I am happy to criticize the "artist" and the committee that commissioned this POS.  When public art committees become better educated, they will not waste your and my money on junk like this.  The cultural tourists will still have art to look at, it will just be better art, therefore serving to educate the tourists as well.


----------



## Advanced Photo

When normal people get in icy cold water they turn blue, when the blue man group gets in icy water... well see for yourselves.

I'd leave the original crop and just remove the bow of the boat.


----------



## vintagesnaps

That's pretty cool, and I agree it might have been better with more variety of figures (made me think blue man group too!) in representing the theme. But then maybe it would have looked too disjointed visually. I thought it looked like one mold for all of them and reading about it that's apparently what was done. The idea for that might have been to make it more representational than realistic.

You didn't help pay for it if you don't live in Massachusetts and didn't presumably donate to the nonprofit "Friends of Fort Point Channel'. It's their project so it's up to them what installation they want to fund and display. You can look these things up you know...

The description of what it represents came from the organization for the theme for this year's floating display. The art & design team that created it described it differently. I think too it's a bit of a stretch to read that much into it, but it's the work that was chosen as best representing the theme out of everything that was submitted.


----------



## smoke665

vintagesnaps said:


> You didn't help pay for it if you don't live in Massachusetts and didn't presumably donate to the nonprofit "Friends of Fort Point Channel'. It's their project so it's up to them what installation they want to fund and display. You can look these things up you know...



I took your advise and did a little research. I've served on a few community boards over the years, and learned some things about getting funding. Had do a little digging on this because like a lot of these types of organizations there's a chain of one funding another, till you get to the actual source. In this case several layers later there was the National Endowment For The Arts, a federal organization that has had more than it's fair share of dubious projects over the years. So in reality we all paid for a little toward the project. Granted these types of organizations get a few private and corporate sponsors, but the majority of the funding comes from the taxpayer, who has very little input into the projects. Not debating the art, just don't believe that taxpayers need to fund it. Just my opinion.


----------



## PersistentNomad

@smoke665   Projects like this are generally funded partially by local and state tax revenue (in many places tax revenue paid by tourists on hotel rooms, not by the people who live there) and matched by private donations/operational fundraising, just to provide a little extra elucidation on the matter. 

@Designer   It being "good art" is actually near the bottom of qualifiers for tax-funded cultural projects. Usually, they look at your marketing plan, your match dollars, your fiscal accountability record, your intended impact within the community (who and how many you are serving), if the artist is a draw (some amount of recognition), if the work is interesting/engaging (notice how I didn't say good), and how you will evaluate the project's success (surveys, demo gathering, press mentions, etc).   Also, you can feel like it's terrible art all you want, somebody else might think this is amazing. Trust me, for every person who thinks this is bad art there are 4 who think its really great because it's topical, eye-catching and different from the usual perceptions of art. And equally there are plenty of people who can't stand what many consider to be the great works of art because while they may have a lot of technical ability they have very little emotion and intrigue (I'm looking at you conventional representation landscape paintings).


----------



## Designer

It sucks.  

Even after somebody attempts to explain it, people still cannot see any correlation between the installation and the stated intent.  

According to you, people will come here to see this POS and pay taxes to fund more of it, and that is somehow supposed to be a good thing.  

I've seen far too many public art installations that are crap to have any confidence in the public art committees ability to recognize anything better.  It is a never-ending cycle of public waste.


----------



## smoke665

@PersistentNomad didn't deny that community groups get donations from sponsors, and local entities, but if they are like other community boards I've been on we struggled to get 25-30% of our funding from sponsors, the remaining came from local, state, and federal tax dollars, in the form of grants, or funding requests. 

Truth be told, I'm actually not against using tax dollars in some cases to fund certain things as permanent exhibits when they appeal to  the majority of the people, but over the last few years there's been a slew of these "Temporary art" projects, that frankly test the limits of what is art and what is garbage.


----------



## SquarePeg

see title of post


----------



## PersistentNomad

I'm not going to lie and say that public art committees know where it's at (see: Sarasota has its head up its you-know-what). But, I think you're missing the point, which is that we are proving with our conversation the thing that these projects get funded for: to foster discussion and draw attention from outside the locale to the locale, generating interest in what's going on there and driving the economy through tourism.


----------



## PersistentNomad

vintagesnaps said:


> The idea for that might have been to make it more representational than realistic.


 Totally missed this the first time around. I also wish they had at least mixed it up with some pint-sized versions, but after looking at some of the close-ups, I liked their slick, androgynous anonymity. It's like they are not really people, which is a subtext of the refugee situation.



smoke665 said:


> several layers later there was the National Endowment For The Arts


 I would love to figure out your trail of breadcrumbs, because nowhere on the website for the FPAC, FFPC or BRA websites does it mention their funding sources for this project in more specific terms than FFPC or BRA. The FFPC has a membership program, which probably contributes to their operational budget not their programs budget. Also, I worked in the greater Boston area for over a year and compared to other places I worked raising money for events and projects was not that hard; so it wouldn't surprise me if they paid for this project with small donations from the area businesses who knew that it would bring people to the area. Eastern Bank will throw their money at almost anything. 
But, more ominously is the fact that nowhere does it indicate any funding from the LCC, the MCC, or any of the major Boston-area foundations who usually support this kind of thing. So, it either had a small enough budget to not need major funding and therefore they didn't use grant programs, or they are not accrediting their funding sources properly, which is a whole other hullaballoo.


----------



## Taveuni

I'm a reluctant participant on this forum (it doesn't float my boat and I don't give much of of a sh!t!) but, I happen to think that the art piece, you know, the one that everyone thinks is a piece of Shinola is actually fairly decent.
It grabbed me at first glance and made me wonder just a little bit about what the artist was trying to communicate (artist's mission no. 1).  I am also reminded of  a time when the incumbent Australian Prime Minister ( Gough Whitlam),.... you won't know him, bought a Jackson Pollack painting to hang in parliament for about 8 or 10 million bucks of tax payer's money.
There was an outrage. What a wanker, spending all our money on a piece of pure ****!!!
Anyway, long story short, Gough was ousted despite his (now well recognised brilliance) for being a pooncy do-gooder with a social conscience.... can I say, the antithesis of, say Doanld Trump?

The Jackson Pollack, (Blue Poles) is now a national icon. It's brilliant.

Great art, doesn't always appeal to the masses. just as well.
The masses wouldn't know good art if it shat on them from a great height.  Let's keep it that way.


----------



## SquarePeg

Taveuni said:


> I'm a reluctant participant on this forum (it doesn't float my boat and I don't give much of of a sh!t!)...



Is your participation some type of court ordered community service?


----------



## Designer

PersistentNomad said:


> ..we are proving with our conversation the thing that these projects get funded for: to foster discussion ..


The conversation in this thread has been more about the art installation and/or funding, and none about what the "artist" claimed was his reason for it.  Therefore the project has failed.

If I may now draw an analogy in photography:  Like post-capture processing that is "over baked"; if the processing dominates the conversation, then it detracts from the original intent of the art.


----------



## Advanced Photo

SquarePeg said:


> Taveuni said:
> 
> 
> 
> I'm a reluctant participant on this forum (it doesn't float my boat and I don't give much of of a sh!t!)...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Is your participation some type of court ordered community service?
Click to expand...

I am rearranging the letters and looking for cryptic messages that will tell his whereabouts and the identities of his captors. No luck yet, going to run it through Fialka M-125 MN next having failed with NEMA, KL7, Enigma, T-205 WECHA, CSP-1756, TC-53, HC-9 and of course the CD-57 Hagelin-Cryptos Portable Cryptographic Device already.


----------



## vintagesnaps

There was not 'an artist', It was done by a design team of at least two people. Their description of it was different than what was mentioned about refugees, etc. - that I think came from the nonprofit that sponsored the installation. They put out a call to artists so probably selected what they thought best represented their theme for the exhibit.

I've done submissions, my description of any photo I submit is different than the theme for the entire exhibit. That may be much more broad or have a different vision for the whole show than what I would describe for just my one picture.


----------



## vintagesnaps

I didn't see any mention of Nat'l. Endowment funding related to this. Not that there wasn't any, I don't know. Seems like they fund thru grants for specific projects. I saw one mention of a 'partnership' with a Mass. Cultural Council but it didn't specify what; the NEA chair went to Boston this summer to visit programs that had received grants but nothing related to this. There was mention of Fort Point grants but that seemed local, and there was a Boston city grant for artists in residence to partner with various depts. I'm sure there's lots more for a major city, I just didn't find an NEA grant mentioned for this project.

I suppose not all art is everyone's cup of tea, and people aren't all going to like everything that uses tax dollars. I think this installation is pretty cool and kind of freaky, but I like it. I like modern art, some people don't, which is fine; some people are going to like MFA Boston better than MOMA. Or maybe both, I can appreciate art even if it isn't my favorite style.


----------



## Taveuni

[QUOTE="SquarePeg,

Is your participation some type of court ordered community service?[/QUOTE]

Sort of, more of a penance really. Self flagellation I guess. I was dumb enough to join and couldn't even get admin to boot my sorry arse off.
Sh!t. Wait! somebody spoke to me. Can't we do an impromptu tribal council and vote me off the island?
Please don't make me strangle myself with this silly idol thing I found.


----------



## maxroadrash

I think it's very cool and my first reaction was that Blue Man Group had dropped acid and gone for a swim.


----------



## vintagesnaps

Taveuni - reported it for you so one of the mods can assist  you with closing out your account if that's what you'd like to do.


----------



## Taveuni

Sure, thanks, they should shut me down, I just don't think they know how.
I'll give them 24 hours then I'll just start being a grammar/common sense Nazi and see how long I last.
Sorry for derailing the thread (even though it wasn't really me).


----------



## Fred von den Berg

The question really is what have any of us done regarding the plight of the millions of people who are fleeing their homes since seeing this exhibit? 

Shameful, isn't it?


----------



## Frank F.

They look real enough for me to affect me emotionally, which meant art is shaping reality. It made strangers talk to you, It made you take the picture, it made me and others write comments. 

Yet: Did I think of refugees? No.

The invoked image is clearly "Guantanamo in the wet" ... Head fart art?


----------

