Thought Provoking Art

Following on the “This is America” thread and video what is the most thought provoking art you have seen and why?

This is Tim

IMG_0595.jpg by Mike Smith[/url], on Flickr

The first time I saw him was about 6 years ago, walking through the gallery there were some incredible Pig Skins with intricate tattoos on them mounted in frames

https://wimdelvoye.be/work/tattoo-works/tattooed-pigs/

After looking at the detail you moved into the next room and there was Tim looking out of the window, sat perfectly still listening to music through his headphones. As you read the description

Tim has agreed to carry the tattoo and after he dies it belongs to a collector as a piece of art. He has sold his skin.

Boom – it started to hit all sorts of thoughts about our attachment and sentimentality over out bodies after death, weather that be organ donation, medical science, art or simply how what is left is disposed of. How does 80kg or human meat differ from 80kg of Pork?

I’ve seen Tim exhibited for want of a better phrase off and on over the last 6 years, always just sat there staring into space.

The other is Sidney Nolan’s the Snake

IMG_1041 by Mike Smith[/url], on Flickr

IMG_1037 by Mike Smith[/url], on Flickr

Simple, beautiful and carrying so much depth, it’s has an effect on me every time I see it, partly with the scale and impact it has from a distance but the details and subject up close are moving

http://www.sidneynolantrust.org/nolan-100/18-snake-david-walsh

Whats yours?

http://jomcallister.co.uk

Art from the river.

South Gloucestershire A403 road work team at work. Still life more like😃

Edouard Manet

At first glance it’s just a sculpture of a whale, nice enough. Then you realise it’s made of bits of plastic collected from the ocean. It’s at the Monterey sea place.

How does 80kg or human meat differ from 80kg of Pork?

In weight, no different; taste, however…

Sorry it’s probably a bit ‘easy access’ for this thread, but I still find Gormley’s Angel of the North one of the most startlingly moving pieces I have ever seen.

SaxonRider it’s had a big impact on my as it was the sight that I associate with returning home, was on the wrong side of the plane last time. coupled with Another Place at Crosby http://www.antonygormley.com/sculpture/item-view/id/230 they are both powerful pieces just to be absorbed by

Mrs Stoner and I always wanted a Prentice having seen his work in a gallery in Malvern years ago. Unfortunately at the time, starting a family and working on the new house we couldnt stretch to it. Some years later he passed away and his works became even more expensive. But a final retrospective by his gallery a few years ago was an opportunity we couldnt miss. We finally could get hold of one.

My five year old daughter could of done better.

Well post some of her art then….

Is it a crab sitting on the seabed, eating some lettuce, whilst looking at a broken Rubix cube?

If so, I love it! It really speaks to me.

Well post some of her art then….

My five year old daughter could of (sic) done better

But she didn’t.

But she didn’t.

No, I don’t even have a daughter. It was a conceit. A conceptual piece, if you will.

Some of the most physically affecting paintings/artworks I know.

My kid could definitely have done this.

well in that case post something that provokes a reaction from you and tell us why. It’s good to see why things mean something to people – no wrong answers in art really.

I’ve spent many years musing on what dogs would actually talk about whilst they were relaxing together and enjoying a game of pool.

Why are they all smoking? Is this the recreation room of a medical reserch laboratory?

Why does the Basset appear so surprised? The Spaniel behind him seems a cheeky sort with his hat at a jaunty angle. Cano-erotic subtext perhaps?

Also, how would they be able to bridge over a colour if the cue ball was tucked in tight against it? Dogs don’t even have thumbs.

It’s a thought provoking image on so many levels. It asks more questions than it answers.

Gernika is quite humbling to stand in front of.

‘Work’ by Ford Maddox Brown MAG

”Isabella’ by Holman Hunt, Laing Gallery

”Wheel of Fortune’ Burne-Jones, Musee D’Orsay

I saw Piero Manzoni’s ‘Artist’s Shit’ in an exhibition in the early 70s but it didn’t move me in quite the same way.

Quite a few for me… a couple spring straight to mind. One at the Tate – photos of a year in confinement. Artist took a photo a day –  displayed them on a wall… er the whole thing from the performance art of the confinement to the display of the photos.. pretty special and stuck with me. Just looked it up! Still there, saw it ages ago..

Tehching Hsieh – “One Year Performance”.

And a small painting of a Native American at the Googenheim. Couldn’t take my eyes off it.

That Twombly[/url] thing I posted the thread about certainly got me thinking. WTF? if nothing else.

To those who say their child could’ve done whatever, check this guy out. Mind blowing 🙂

https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/3698

 It asks more questions than it answers.

Has that German Shepard actually got a thumb?

Many years ago I saw this in the flesh at the Palazza Rosso in Genoa. I was dumbstruck and sat in front of it for an hour. This is a terrible photograph of it. The reds were intense. It’s a 5′ x 8′ piece of work.

Giovan Francesco Barbieri il Guercino – Cleopatra morente

Has that German Shepard actually got a thumb?

It’s not clear. It’s left to the viewers interpretation.

He definitely has an elbow though.

‘Knife Angel’ is probably my favorite.

I wish I could post a picture of it, but for those who haven’t seen it, it’s 26ft high and  made of 100k knives which were handed in during an amnesty.

It really is something beautiful fasioned from something not so beautiful and was made for the victims of knife crime.

If someone with more knowledge than me who has a minute could post a picture of it, it would be much appreciated.

Gernika is quite humbling to stand in front of.

+1,000,000

I was in Glasgow 2 years ago and there was an exhibition with a reconstruction of the Dutch Lockerbie trial court room and some items from there. I found it very disturbing.

Fallen Leaves at the Jewish Museum in Berlin

It’s a 5′ x 8′ piece of work.

I know a lot of those.

Those dog pictures were painted by Arthur Sarnoff. Not everything he did was shite:

… but most was.

Few more of my more recent favs

IMG_0990 by Mike Smith[/url], on Flickr

this is a tunnel that you walk through

You are part of the light and the reflections

IMG_1003 by Mike Smith[/url], on Flickr

IMG_0983 by Mike Smith[/url], on Flickr

I don’t even know what the thinking behind this is, it’s just a little mesmerising, like the black oil of a old monster flick

Arthur Sarnoff. Not everything he did was shite:

Clearly should’ve stuck with dogs.

I spent hours looking at the Diego Rivera murals.

It was a conceit. A conceptual piece, if you will.

ditto. How’d you not realise?

My five year old daughter could of done better.

Yeah, well, I could produce something equally as good as this, but he did it first…

Mondrian was a data visualisation geek !!

:o)

https://flic.kr/p/26a4wGw

https://flic.kr/p/27fLkRv

I dont have a favourite, not sure if possible.  But The Stonebreaker’ by Henry Wallis provokes many thoughts.  When young I first saw it in person, assuminot to be simply a snoozing man after a hard day’s work.   I was lucky enough then to have someone explain the significance of the weasel at his foot.  Then it all came rushing in.

“Coast Life”

by Jo McAllister

Reminded me of the coastal area I’m from. Beaches, cliffs, storms, sand mud and so much more only the viewer can feel.

So I bought it 🙂  It hangs in the billiard room 🙂

http://jomcallister.co.uk/index.php/2018/05/17/sold-coast-life/