'a pile of rubbish'

Sometimes it's easy to see just why the public enjoys such a hostile relationship with contemporary art. Take Dane Mitchell's wining piece in the recent Trust Waikato National Contemporary Art Award: literally a 'pile of rubbish', as Paul Henry so readily observed both last night and this morning on TVNZ. So after re-hashing Et Al's 'Braying Portaloo' for some years as an example of how art is a waste of time and money (notice how this always gets a mention at the end of Dominion Post articles on contentious art issues), they now have a new point of public reference.

It seems that contemporary art is just too easy to poke fun at, to not understand, and to twist into negative spin; resulting in people being quite content to not even want to engage, or begin to understand it.

I'm not saying that Mitchell's piece is not deserving of the award, or that contemporary art needs to satisfy on grounds of aesthetic of inherent 'value'. Only that this time I can understand where the media is coming from.

image: Collateral by Dane Mitchell. 2009 Judge, Charlotte Huddleston gives her judge's talk. Courtesy of Waikato Museum, 2009 (cheers). Posted by Jeremy