Today the husband and I took a day trip to Nuernberg. We visited two very polar things: the oldest bratwurst restaurant in the world (dating back to 1419) and the Neues Museum, a museum of modern art. The bratwursts were awesome, and we intend to visit that restaurant again. The museum...well, I often think modern art should be called "weirdo art".

Back in the day, artists were praised for how closely their art could ressemble reality. Art was good if the shading was correct, the proportion was in perspective, and the figures actually looked like human beings. I'm no art connoisseur, but I figure that's the gist. Art was supposed to be beautiful. The Coronation of Napoleon is beautiful. George Washington Crossing the Delaware, though wrong, is beautiful. And I can even get a bit more modern. Some van Gogh is nice. I like La Grande Jatte. One time in college there was a student exhibit and one person had put together this sculpture with all different clear glass cubes filled with things: buttons, cotton, twigs, fireants, flower petals, string, etc. I was fascinated with that piece, and I even went and got my husband from his dorm room and dragged him back to see it. I loved that thing, even if it was weird. But what I saw today took weird to eleven.

If you zip-tie a bunch of old blankets together, is it art? If you spraypaint the body of a VW Bug silver, is it art? If you paint a giant canvas only green, is it art? Is a display of cell phones? When you enter a museum, you're supposed to be able to tell if something is a bench to sit on or a piece of art. But the straw that broke Andy Warhol's back for me was art by Gabrijel Stupica. I just don't understand.

Old timey classic art was art because it took extreme talent and skill. I can't draw a Rembrandt. But this? Who decided that this was art? How did Stupica become famous? I don't understand modern art because I don't understand who decides that it's good. There were perhaps three things that I liked in the Neues Museum, and the rest was just weird or lame. The ones I liked, I wanted to stare at. But I still don't understand why they're art.

And then we went to a restaurant that people have been eating at since they thought the earth was flat...

Posted by: Sarah at 02:09 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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