Indeed. This wasn’t intended to be too serious a comment, although I have seen some exhibits that have made me wonder a little.
Possibly my favourite occurrence of this nature was when another artist poured ink into Damien Hurst’s ‘Away From The Flock’ and re-titled it Black Sheep.
About twenty years, ago I curated an international exhibition for the South African National Festival of the Arts (Africa’s take on E’bro).One of the exhibits was rather disappointing - it was a sub-Andy Goldsworthy ring of stones from Kilamanjaro that had been shipped down at considerable expense. Nevertheless, the rocks were duly installed in the University’s main gallery according to the artist’s instructions.
Unfortunately, by the following morning the ring of stones had mysteriously disappeared and there was no indication they had ever actually been in the gallery. I found out later that a newly appointed, over enthusiastic African cleaning lady had made a great effort to have them removed -she’d phoned her husband and he’d taken them away in his bakkie to be dumped somewhere.
Fortunately, the artist wasn’t able to come down for the exhibition and it struck me from what little I’d seen of them that the missing stones were not too dissimilar to some boulders I’d recently acquired from a local farmer with the intention of strewing them around the garden.
I’m sure you can guess the rest…
Do your stones still get exhibited much? 
As expected, the artist was unwilling to cover the cost of their ‘return’ (presumably there are many more bouldersto be found around Kilamanjaro). After the expo, the stones were ‘installed’ in my ‘water wise’ garden, which contained more than twenty spectacular examples of large local succulents (aloes, euphobias and a very special cyclad). Would love to see how big they are today.
Well, I’m not saying this is art but such sensitive and sensual craftsmanship can be inspirational
The whole series, made for Japan NHK TV, ‘Zero Waste Life’ is lovely to watch. The very antithesis of mass production in China and throw away consumerism.
Yay! No plastic
Seems appropriate…
From Twitter - Michael Warburton …
In 2006 a high school English teacher asked students to write to a famous author & ask for advice.
Kurt Vonnegut was the only one to respond.
His reply was a doozy.
(If you click on it, it’s easier to read)
“Neighbors #14,” 2012, recalls Vermeer’s “Girl with a Pearl Earring” all grown up…Arne Svenson
Here is a thought provoking aspect, is it OK to ‘appropriate’ someone’s personal image without their permission? At what point is it defined as art, rather than merely voyeurism, or indeed a crime?
This collection by photographic artist, Arne Svenson, is indeed beautiful, thought provoking and to my eyes, in no way salacious. However, the ‘without permission’ aspect is troubling. There is a legal precedent for images being appropriated by artists to create new images but this does not quite apply here.
I’m wondering what others (maybe one 
) may think.
Different countries take different legal viewpoints about this. As I understand it,France has very strict laws on photography of people without permission, other places less so. This gets quite a bit of debate among toggers regarding ‘street’ work too, whether you should engage with your subject or take true candids.
My view is that it is fine to photograph people as the subject in a public place without their permission, but not if they are in a private place where they might have reasonable expectations of privacy. Based on the first photo you embedded I’d say they are definitely voyeurism in the same way that papp images shot of people in their own homes are, but in this case they might be art as well - the 2 are not exclusive. But even if they have artistic merit - by no means certain - that’s not enough to justify the invasion of privacy
A thorny issue, indeed.
France does have quite strong protections, including those regarding home CCTV cams.
For myself, especially when among foreign cultures, even in a public place, market or similar, I would always ask a subject’s permission first. There may be quite sensitive reasons, immigration status notwithstanding. Some just do not like, and I personally can empathise. May have eliminated the spontaneity of my pic but I would hate to be the ‘ugly foreigner’. In some countries it was OK but a tip was required, and trying to surreptitiously snap was not polite.
It is still possible for an artist to create the same bird’s eye view images by staging and obtaining permission
Trouble is, I can fully see why the New York residents were annoyed at the invasion of their privacy but on the other hand, Arne Svenson has created beautiful images. Problem is that it might set a precedent and some others may be much more salacious.
For me, ‘street’ needs to be candid, otherwise it’s just posed portraits with strangers. It can be a challenge in places like Morocco however.
Similarly, according to the Hitchhikers Guide, the G’Gugvuntt and Vl’hurg crossed vast reaches of space in a journey lasting thousands of years before reaching their target where they attacked the first planet they encountered, Earth. Due to a terrible miscalculation of scale the entire battle fleet was swallowed by a small dog…
Here is a wonderful collection of sports photography that captures the art of a human body
I’m always enthralled by the combination of power and grace possible, and that it can be so beautifully captured in film and essentially immortalised is pure magic. Craftsmanship!
I am still amazed at the aptly named George Silk, who used his slit-scan photographic method to render ethereal an Olympian shot putter. This should indeed inspire mire creatives.
That’s an amazing collection of incredible sporting images.
I saw a Gursky retrospective at Istanbul Modern a few years ago and the most striking image (amongst many) was his huge panoramic shot of F1 racing teams during a pit stop.
You can view a larger version at
Reminds me of early Renaissance battle scenes, except here we have two physically discrete sets of protagonists who are teams battling against the clock with internal physical problems rather than trying to kill one another. There’s intense engagement, but not in the traditional sense.
Yes!
There is a set of 4 pit-stop large and incredibly sharp photographs in the beautiful Louis Vuitton Foundation Museum in Paris.
The set came with a collection to Hong Kong a decade (or more! I forget) and we displayed them alone on four walls in a single room. You could approach quite close to inspect or better yet, stand in the middle of the room and feel as though time and all that energy had suddenly frozen.
I like your Renaissance battle analogy. As Jonny Weeks says in the Guardian article of Mark Blinch’s World Press Photo winner NBA shot
Like a Flemish masterpiece, this image has so much going on, it’s hard to know where to start looking.
I confess, this isn’t art at all but architecture. More of a craftsmanship coming to aid a social problem. All the same, I found the article very interesting and thought some who read this thread may too
Not sure if this should be posted here under ‘what is art’ but could be, couldn’t it?
The ingenuity of man in the 18th C in the construction of a wooden battleship, and in its 21st C graphics explanation.
Both are extremely informative about human endeavour, and ‘beautiful’ in their own ways - not that war is beautiful of course.
I wouldn’t be able to say why I like art, any type of art. What attracts my attention to a particular painting, for example, is indefinable. If a painting stops me in my tracks, then it means something to me. The same with any other type of art. It’s probably an emotion, a good feel factor, that grabs me.
I came across this website and was drawn to Georgi Kolarov, a Bulgarian painter. His paintings look simple with great smudges of paint applied to the canvas. I’m drawn to them but can’t explain why.
I post this example not because it grabs me particularly, but because I recognise the building - I believe it’s in Nice.
This is how it should be. I expect that is why some artists have gone for the shock factor. Truth is, if an artwork doesn’t attract a single viewer, then it is completely useless. Except perhaps, it may be before its time and the viewers will appreciate in the future.
Your Negresco painting is evocative, and possibly nostalgic? Here is a fun read for you might enjoy with several things I didn’t know, despite having stayed there as a child
Maybe I will pay another visit. Especially, as they welcome dogs!! 
My old boss, artist and architect, living in Nice, has painted this building. His gold framed painting may still be hanging in his apartment or more likely has been donated to Nice or to a charity. I took a photo while visiting, because it caught my eye.
My appreciation of art is emotional. I stand back and look, I read or listen, and soak up what grabs me like sponge. I think an objective explanation would spoil it for me, or at least I’d consider it unimportant. I don’t feel I need to make sense of what I am looking at. I absorb pleasure and I know when I’m experiencing it. No doubt artists and sculptors themselves feel the same way while in the act of creating.
On a different note, books are accessible and a small library can be built at home, or kept in a Kindle. I have both. And books are there waiting to be read when you are in the mood. But wall & room space would always be lacking for paintings and sculptures, unless you are wealthy. The internet allows for exploration & downloading whatever you fancy to your own personal hard disk galleries.
But I’d find that boring. Appreciating a piece of art which is viewed only now and again, as in an art gallery or museum, is appreciated the more. IMO. I know that if I went back to the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square, I’d first go see Canaletto whose paintings I experienced for the first time as a teenager – he grabbed me as I passed by!
I might be open to reading about the objective appreciation of art, how to appreciate it at an intellectual level.
True, but there are several very big ‘buts’
A small digitised reproduction reproduces the image, but is often unable to convey many of an art work’s visual properties.
A couple of weeks ago, I saw the current expo at Musée Soulages in Rodez
https://musee-soulages-rodez.fr/en/
These stunning paintings were from the last ten years of the life of France’s leading non-figurative painter, who died last autumn aged 102. I’m very fond of Soulage’s work but these final paintings are absolutely stunning, they’re a distillation of many decades work and yet they looked so fresh and different. However I found them impossible to photograph satisfactorily. Even if I had been able to, it would have been hard to convey the impact of their scale. Lastly one has to move around them so really appreciate the work. Unlike a traditional perspectival figurative painting these don’t have a correct viewing point.
I lectured in art history for thirty years or so and learned that simply projecting an image copied from an art book (pre-internet and pixelated PowerPoint) was insufficient. Many large pre C20th painting need further visual contextualisation.
Géricault’s Raft of the Medusa in the Louvre is a case in point where one needs at least two images, usually I photographed the work in situ and would show the contextualisation slide first so that students had a better ubderstanding of what the work actually looked like:-
Another example, albeit for very different reasons is Photorealist painting.
