Would You Like Art with that?
Tonight I had the good fortune of being able to peruse a small art gallery in Taylorsville, UT that I didn't even know existed.
The number of pieces were few and they weren't signed. That didn't matter, however, I recognized the photographs immediately as being the work of Michael Kenna, one of my favorite black and white photographers. My wonder and bemusement only grew as I realized that any one of these prints would cost $3000 and up. How in the world did seven of his prints make it here to this little Gallery? I wasn't complaining. Any chance to see Kenna's work is a chance worth taking.
Then the lady behind the counter looked at me in my daze, and said "Sir, your nuggets are ready" and in an instant I was snapped back out of that mystical land that Kenna had Created on that black and white paper. It was then that I remembered that I was standing in the McDonald's inside Wal-Mart on Redwood Road and 5400 south and those great prints were only cheap knockoffs that they probably got at "Posters Are Us" somewhere in Middle America.
As I became aware of my surroundings, and picked up my nuggets, I was thinking to myself how absolutely American it was of McDonald's to try and disguise the fact that it is a fast food Restaurant. I must admit, for a McDonald's in a Wal-Mart, it is one of the nicer ones, but it is still a Wal-Mart McDonald's. No matter how nice the décor, you are still going to get cheap hamburgers and greasy french-fries. But just like anyone else McDonald's has its obligation to keep up appearances to keep people coming back. Honestly can you fault them for that?
The thing I felt was sad is that countless people will sit and eat beneath these masterpieces from one of the greatest fine artists this side if the millennium and they will have no idea who he is. Nor will they even care. Sadder still, if and when they do find out who he is, if they bothered to look at the prints at all, they will think, somewhere in the recesses of their mind "isn't he the McDonald's picture guy?"
Since I can't change the fact that many people will not appreciate fine art, and photography, and since I still like cheap hamburgers and greasy fries, I will see you around my new favorite art gallery in Taylorsville.
posted by The Precarious Obviologist @ 6:22 PM
1 comments
1 Comments:
mark rothko was once commissioned to do a painting--and was promised a wonderful price. but when he found out the painting was going to be hung in a restaurant, he turned it down. he couldn't stand the thought of his painting being nothing more than a piece of decorative furnishing in the background to all of the conversation and indulgence of a restaurant.
photos are a bit stickier, though. paintings can be and are regularly reproduced. i've got two rothko's hanging in my room--posters adhered to foamboard, because i can't even afford to frame them properly. but photos--they're the ultimate in easy reproducibility. even if someone doesn't have the rights to them, it's not too tough to knock them off. and there's not the aura to an original print that there is to an original painting.
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