From England, we now have definitive proof of something I have long suspected. Modern art isn't really art at all. The Royal Academy put a work of art consisting of a block of slate topped by a small, bone shaped piece of wood.
The problem is, the chunk of stone was supposed to be a plinth to display a sculpture of a human head. The wood was just a brace to help prop up the head. The gallery lost it's head.
The Royal Academy included the chunk of stone and the small bone-shaped wooden stick in its summer exhibition in London.
But the slate was actually a plinth and the stick was designed to prop up a sculpture. The sculpture itself — of a human head — was nowhere to be seen.
"I think the things got separated in the selection process and the selectors presented the plinth as a complete sculpture," the work's artist David Hensel told BBC radio.
The academy explained the error by saying the plinth and the head were sent to the exhibitors separately.
"Given their separate submission, the two parts were judged independently," it said in a statement. "The head was rejected. The base was thought to have merit and accepted.
Got that? The sculpture was no good to the gallery, but the chunk of rock with a stick had "merit". Although it is not reported, one assumes that some art critic swooned over the rock and stick and even now is writing a glowing review.
Best book on Modern Art is Tom Wolf’s “The Painted Word.” Wolf explains how the theory comes first and the art is derivative. Otherwise, it’s usually silly and confusing, often little more than eye candy.
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