O Brother, Is Thou Art?

I read this a couple of days ago.

A $15,000 (presumably U.S dollars) prize was awarded to, literally, a pile of trash. Titled "Collateral," the piece by Berlin artist Dane Mitchell is composed of the wrappings and assorted leavings of the other entries vying for the Waikato National Contemporary Art Award (Which in all honesty, I have never heard of). Not knowing what any of the other entries looked like, I think it's safe to say this has likely pissed off a lot of people.

This isn't the first time I've seen work like this presented. I recall my first class in Basic Design at the University of Manitoba School of Art in (I think) '98. A young woman in the class removed all of her required course supplies from their disposable accouterments , and then as the rest of the class attempted to produce a piece of work as part of an on the spot assignment, glued the crumpled and torn packaging back together in a small heap. Naturally, our instructor was ecstatic, and propounded upon the strength of the work for about 15 minutes. At the time, I was totally disgusted, and it's no coincidence I ended up dropping out of art school later that year.













("Collateral," by Dane Mitchell... or the current contents of my jacket pockets? You decide.)

Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man.

Much like a fine jar of pickled herring though, I matured. My appreciation for art has grown and expanded greatly these 12 or so years later, and I find myself liking a lot of stuff that I would have completely dismissed as a narrow-minded, loud-mouthed 18 year old art-snob. Artists like Marcel Duchamp, Piero Manzoni, Damien Hirst, and hundreds of others, have taken everyday objects and by methods as subtle as simply adding a title or a signature, have elevated mundane items into artifacts to be contemplated, feared and revered.

Now getting back to "Collateral"...

I consider work like this to be on par with, at best, mildy clever word-play; and at worst, a pun. Also, it just seems very obvious to me. If a young woman in a first year art class can concoct essentially the same piece of work 12 years ago (and I suspect that someone before and since has probably had the same idea.) then how can this really be an important and original piece of work?

How the hell should I know? I'm parched, and it's well past gin thirty.

-J