Some background on Brian Haw, the subject of Wallinger's piece, for those not familiar with him or his protest.

I did see this article an wondered why Brian Haw's camp site is a camp site whereas an exact reproduction of it is a prize-winning piece of art.

In the end I decided it was just the usual bit of Turner Prize cobblers and dismissed the story from the serious-thought part of my brain.

Sometimes, I just can't help myself...


How is it different to a statue of Winston Churchill being art while Winston himself was not?

PS

Bet you were impressed with the artist dressing as a bear and wandering around an empty art gallery with the lights on while someone filmed the reactions of passers-by.

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Originally posted by BobHale:
Sometimes, I just can't help myself...


How is it different to a statue of Winston Churchill being art while Winston himself was not?

Winnie may not have been a work of art, but he was an artist.

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Sometimes, I just can't help myself...

We see that, Bob. Our art discussions have been interesting, that's for sure.

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How is it different to a statue of Winston Churchill being art while Winston himself was not?

Because it wasn't a sculpture, or a painting or even a photograph - it was an exact copy.

If WC had been standing in Parliament square he'd still have been WC, not a work of art. But his statue is a sculpture and sculptures are normally considered to be art (although there are many such that I wouldn't give that credit to).

So far as the artist is concerned, I very much suspect that he thought of it far more as a good way to con a few thousand out of the gullible "art experts" who sit on the Turner Prize committee, rather than a great work of art. Not that he'd admit it, that's for sure.

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Originally posted by Richard English:

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How is it different to a statue of Winston Churchill being art while Winston himself was not?

Because it wasn't a sculpture, or a painting or even a photograph - it was an exact copy.

Which presumably means that a really good sculpture, that looks just exactly like the original and is painted to have perfect skin tone and look, feel and smell just exactly like the original, therefore isn't art it's just a copy.
The more accurate and "better" it is, the less it is art.

As I said, sometimes, I just can't help myself.

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But his statue is a sculpture and sculptures are normally considered to be art

And, if I recall, we have a definition of art posted somewhere here that all of us agree with...

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Which presumably means that a really good sculpture, that looks just exactly like the original and is painted to have perfect skin tone and look, feel and smell just exactly like the original, therefore isn't art it's just a copy.

If it's a perfect copy of someone else's work of art then it's a copy. If it's simply a pefect model of something then it is probably not a work of art - it's a model.

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And, if I recall, we have a definition of art posted somewhere here that all of us agree with...

If there is I have never seen it. If there were then we could judge all art against a proper definition and would not need to resort to opinion.

I did post the criteria to which I believe all art should conform - but that is not the same thing as a definition.

Richard, did you see the wink?

Sometimes we have to agree to disagree...which we have done with this subject.