This demonstrates that creepy art is not confined to Denver International Airport. This particular piece is near apartments and condos in Sion, Switzerland. Children walk by it every day on their way to school.
Take note, if you are an adult, of the genetalia. This creature obviously just arrived on a space craft. Have a nice school day, kiddies! Try to get that image out of your mind!
Has anyone else noticed how much bad art is around us? It is not just creepy statements like this piece, but landscapes that have no depth or definition, cityscapes that are nothing more than vague impressions, and sculptures that seem to be yelling out at us “Look at me! I am confused!” I understand that some art is impressionist, and even admire much of that work – it imparts warmth. But so much of what I see is a step beyond, the artist full baloney notions that he does not have to communicate anything, that it is up to the viewer to impart meaning. That is nonsense.
I used to go to art exhibits when we lived in Bozeman, where bored and over-moneyed men and women had their own studios and painted the many expressions of the fruit bowl or cabin in the woods. That is just practice, I realize, and they might well be on their way to doing quality work. The stuff I am talking about, like this piece above from Union Station in Denver, is finished art. Our RTD people probably paid dearly for it, and all who walk in that building pay dearly too.
I think of it as “A Study in Bottle Openers.”
Piece of Mindful 
Reblogged this on Matthews' Blog.
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Patronage reflect the needs of the patron. Who pays, who benefits? Creepy cities and states usually get creepy art. Neoliberals, now in charge of nearly everything, including public art, aren’t really sure what to make of art, so they form a committee composed of lawyers, architects, businessmen, Chamber of Commerce types, art wannabe’s and political hacks to vet the selection process. Usually the “winner” — the person, not the art — is selected before the process begins. Slavish loyalty to the patron is key. Sound familiar? Like committee-produced blogs, or “the news,” the final products makes no sense, except to the puppeteer/patron. More often than not, the patron is primarily interested in controlling art and artists and culture. Just more “weaponized anthropology.” It is well-known that artists can be troublesome, anti-establishment influences in society. We don’t want that, so the prefiltered message goes out across the land, through the selection and installation of “creepy” art; usually with no social message, no soul, and no beauty. Voila, what you are seeing — ubiquitous, no? — is our technocratic, bureaucratic, insane world in a nutshell.
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Spoken like an artist married to an artist!
Some time, Steve, if you are ever caught up on your reading, get hold of “The Cultural Cold War” by Frances Stonor Saunders, a Brit. It came out in the 70s but was repressed*, and is about how after WWII and formation of CIA, that agency, using 2% of Marshall Fund moneys kicked back to it by European recipients, set out to and succeeded in undermining art and literary discussion. The agency promoted the likes of Pollard, Warhol (Sutcliffe) and others, the Museum of Modern Art. It backed the literary journals of the time here and abroad including TNR, the Nation, most likely National Review and, as lately learned, Ramparts. The object, of course,was to control the dialogue and limit dissent while making it appear that such activities flourish. Consequently, art is mostly crap and is no longer a vehicle for dissent, and the high brow discussion forums are nothing more than gatekeepers. CIA are our modern era Philistines!
Music would suffer the same fate, becoming what it is today, devoid of political expression. (I walked into a grocery store in Champex where an English language song was playing, and the guy was singing about how he is going to punish his girlfriend by committing suicide. What ugly, bleak trash!)
*Meaning that it was edited and tamed, but it is still explosive.
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Merci. Timely. Just finished my last book this morning.
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