October 14, 2017

How to use art: Enjoy. Interact. Respect.

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I'm not sure if that's the instructions in general for what to do with art. It's on the base of this new University of Wisconsin sculpture, which I see is titled "Well Red":

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I'd interpret the sign to mean: Feel free to sit on this sculpture's lap, but no funny business.

46 comments:

Kevin said...

Respect: do not tear down.

Unknown said...

That badger isn't wearing pants.

Earnest Prole said...

Speaking of respect, Triumph the Insult Comic Dog claims Bucky's queer.

Original Mike said...

Bucky warming his Quest Bar.

Sal said...

I'm sure there are already photos with women pressing their cooch against Bucky's snout.

David Begley said...

Badgers 17
Purdue 6

tcrosse said...

This is Althouse's second post this week about this statue. How many more will we have to endure ?

Original Mike said...

"This is Althouse's second post this week about this statue. How many more will we have to endure ?"

She got a good picture. And you certainly don't have to endure anything.

tcrosse said...

She got a good picture. And you certainly don't have to endure anything.

I was trying to beat NowIKnow to it.

buwaya said...

I suspect the students at UWM are not too well read.

Original Mike said...

"I was trying to beat NowIKnow to it."

Not a good role model.

Original Mike said...

"I suspect the students at UWM are not too well read."

Yeah, I've heard that about UW-Milwaukee.

Ann Althouse said...

@tcrosse

I got the joke.

I’m a big fan of comments that use (and depend on) material from other threads.

Ann Althouse said...

It’s also true that I did post this because the other photo wasn’t very good.

Today the light was very different and the colors popped.

I didn’t notice until I uploaded this that the furry legs and the shoes aren’t the same color. I like the red brown colorof the shoes.

Paddy O said...

Sheesh, what's with all the rules. Art is supposed to evoke passions, man. Not be subject to The Man's demands. The very idea that art is something to be enjoyed is the epitome of bourgeois values. Why not just put a Kincade painting up there and tell people exactly what kind of happy, genteel thoughts we have to have? And don't get me started on the privileged notion of demanding respect. Respect what? The system that enables oppression so that some can be featured as supposed spokes-artists for the masses, meanwhile all those accepted artists are doing are bolstering the system qua system. They're tools, and we're supposed to respect tools, said the hammer to the nail.

n.n said...

A preemptive masterstroke or an invitation to a comic irony?

traditionalguy said...

At first that seemed to be from another Weinstein post saying how Harvey claims is how he treats actresses...but it then has a Madison , Wisconsin Idol instead of a Hollywood Idol , or could it be one taken from the Althouse Star on the UW Stars Walk of Fame.

Browndog said...

Next thing you know they'll place a 30 ton rock in downtown Madison with a crude carving of a deer with a stick figure of a man with a bow, and call it progressive.

Reaction will be gauged by emojis on iphones, with an occasional grunt and snort.

Henry said...

The First Amendment: Enjoy / Interact / Respect

MadisonMan said...

I haven't been down to see the statue -- but I understand it's lit from within, so it looks cool at night. Too much rain to walk down to the Union. Maybe tomorrow in the cold wind.

robother said...

One of my earliest memories is of my younger brother getting bitten by a badger he was trying to feed popcorn to. Since then, my rule for badgers is enjoy and respect, but whatever you do, don't interact.

walter said...

Badgering us about art.

Fernandinande said...

That sculpture is too ugly for it's natural habitat, namely a kindergarten playground.

Fernandinande said...

robother said...
Since then, my rule for badgers is enjoy and respect, but whatever you do, don't interact.


Our crazy dog interacted with a badger, and now it's an unneeded "stinkin' badger". I didn't want to go back to the same spot in case the dog rolled in it, but finally did and something had carried away the carcass.

Ken B said...

That statue has to come down: Weinstein ‘W’.

rehajm said...

That sign belongs at the Communist era Grand Budapest Hotel.

Did I mention Communists?

Ann Althouse said...

“I haven't been down to see the statue -- but I understand it's lit from within,...”

That’s a different sculpture.

Big Mike said...

@Ken B, just start a rumor that it commemorates a Confederate general.

rehajm said...

Everybody pees on John Harvard.

tcrosse said...

Meanwhile, does the statue of Lincoln still stand... I mean sit ? Too much to expect him to stand.

Ken B said...

Big Mike: Excellent! Winder is a good pick, because he was in charge of prisoners, but Watie would make heads explode because he wasn’t white.

Quaestor said...

Just a week ago if one to ask anyone on the left about the culture war he'd say, "It's over. We won." One supposes Napoleon said the same thing as he rode into an undefended Moscow.

Etienne said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Laslo Spatula said...

Just finished a good book, "So You've Been Publicly Shamed" by Jon Ronson.

It digs into the torches-and-pitchforks use of Twitter to shame people, and how it can destroy people for a moment's lapse in reason or taste.

NYT review here.

Justine Sacco is covered in detail, and an author gets crucified for embellishing Bob Dylan quotes. Would love Althouse to tackle that section.

If you get it, please use the Althouse Amazon Portal.

I am Laslo.

Daniel Jackson said...

Okay, with ART maybe; but, certainly NOT with Kitsch such as this.

Bix Cvvv said...

There are billions of people in the world and for some of them today was the best day of their lives. One day the sculptor figured out that badgers are not just those creatures who live in the woods and have a great time there - and although I have known lots of people who have had great times in the woods, your basic badger almost always had a better time than even the best-timing-in-the-woods people I have known have had (not that I have known that many people, sometimes in a plane I fly for hours without flying over the roof of someone I know, even when I am not flying over the ocean, whence the rains beloved of badgers so often come) - well anyway one day some good sculptor figured out how to make a badger look the way the badger in this work of art looks (kitsch or not - I would say, not that anyone asked, "comical" rather than "kitsch": the difference being between "would you and your wife laugh" and "would you and your wife feel similarly ironical"): ... The best day of my life was in May 2007. No badgers were involved, but - and I would never have believed this before it happened - well, the best day of my life, I spent several hours at the zoo. Badgers are not really zoo animals - they like to spend time in their badger holes and then burst out, hunt a little, and head home. So, that day, no badgers. But every animal I saw that day at that zoo will always be remembered - by me at least - in a haze of love and gratitude - how often does somebody, for the first time in their life, have somebody say to them, and mean it, "I love you"? That would make a fan of zoos out of anybody.

Bix Cvvv said...

how often does somebody, for the first time in their life, have somebody, holding their hand, say to them, and mean it, "I love you"? and at a zoo?

Narayanan said...

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/in-1973-i-invented-a-girly-drink-called-baileys-1.3240945?mode=amp

Ralph L said...

by Jon Ronson.
It digs into the torches-and-pitchforks

Someone named Ronson will not be in favor of torches.

Looks to me like the head is angled for funny business, if you're tall and like kissing noses. At any rate, you get plenty of sweet nothings.

Will the lap become polished--or scratched--with use?

Ralph L said...

I hope they plan to clean that thigh regularly, or, with kids today, in warm weather he could become a stinking badger, which we don't need.

Eric said...

Respect Bucky Badger? No way any clear-thinking person could respect Bucky Badger.

wildswan said...

Ralph L said
... a stinking badger, which we don't need.

Pretty good.

rhhardin said...

Badgers playing poker is art.

Unknown said...

A man of complications, I will tend to fall Down upon Nick ave as a creative individual blessed by grace.He never ceases to amaze.

Greg Hlatky said...

Art: Enjoy, Interact, Respect.

Left out for lack of room: My Authority.

Danno said...

Antifa member with Bucky mask to stay anonymous?