Two Tenured Professors Resign From UCLA

[Kire]

Two Tenured Professors Resign From UCLA
Sat Jan 22,12:35 PM ET

LOS ANGELES - Two tenured art professors have resigned from the University of California, Los Angeles, because the school refused to suspend a graduate student who may have used a gun during a classroom performance art piece.

Chris Burden and Nancy Rubins, internationally known artists who taught at UCLA for more than two decades, filed their retirement papers Dec. 20.

"They feel this was sort of domestic terrorism. There should have been more outrage and a firmer response," said Sarah Watson, a director at a Beverly Hills gallery that represents the couple.

In the brief performance on Nov. 29, the student appeared to point a loaded handgun at his head and pull the trigger, a student and law enforcement officials told the Los Angeles Times.

The weapon didn't fire, but after the student left the room a noise that sounded like a gunshot was heard outside.

More: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&ncid=519&e=16&u=/ap/20050122/ap_on_re_us/professors_resign

[Retired AF Dem]

1. Chris Burden lets someone shoot him in the arm

and now he bitches about someone using a gun in a play? Go figure.
http://www.crownpoint.com/artists/burden/burden.html

[NorthernSpy]

2. who knew it was so easy...

... to strike a decisive blow against this kind of goddamn junk? Expel that kid, and give him a medal!

A little more about the incident here:

Some people close to the situation say the bigger story has more to do with a shrinking budget and swelling discord in a department that is now—on the strength of a faculty featuring major contemporary artists like Burden, Rubins, John Baldessari, Charles Ray, Mary Kelly, Catherine Opie, Lari Pittman, and the recently retired Paul McCarthy—one of the country's premier contemporary art programs. This year's brochure for the school describes New Genres as giving "emphasis to questioning preconceived notions of the role of art in culture."

Heh!

[MrSandman]

3. Stupid performance...

But Burden is such a hypocrite:

Burden did performance art in the 1970s and his best-known performance featured an assistant shooting him in the arm with a .22-caliber rifle. That work was different because the audience never felt in jeopardy, while the UCLA performance inspired "genuine fear," Watson said.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&ncid=519&e=16&u=/ap/20050122/ap_on_re_us/professors_resign

Anyone starts pointing a firearm at others and firing round(s), I am fearful.

It appears as if the student violated UCLA's policy against replicas and should have been expelled/suspended. But for the prof to justify his performance through Ms. Watson? :puke:

[alwynsw]

4. Do the goose and gander come to mind?

This reeks of elitism at its worst.

Why was/is it acceptable for Burden to use firearms in his "art", yet not acceptable for a 29-year-old grad student?

Call me dense. Getting shot in public isn't art. also, I've seen better junk collections than Rubins' work at my local junkyard.

[MrSandman]

5. Did I leave out...

Stupid Forest?

Maybe the $$$ problems in the department had to do with funding that beautiful work.

[NorthernSpy]

7. Silence, philistine!

Only the Truly Cultured are capable of appreciating Ms. Rubins' work for the groundbreaking statement that it surely must be.

Alas, philistines abound. Garbagemen in particular have wreaked havoc upon the art world:

You Call That Art?

Oct 1, 2004 12:00 PM
By Wendy Angel and Erin Spinka

SOME PEOPLE MAY THINK modern art is a little strange, but one London worker really thought it was rubbish. A cleaner on the night shift at London's Tate Britain gallery threw out a paper-filled clear bag of garbage that was part of an art piece by German-born artist Gustav Metzger. The artwork, “Recreation of First Public Demonstration of Auto-Destructive Art,” was displayed next to an acid-splattered nylon sheet and a metal sculpture on a table. The gallery said that the mistake was made the day before the exhibit's opening. Although the art was recovered, Metzger had to replace the trash bag because of damage. Now, the exhibit is covered nightly so that the vital garbage bag won't end up in the trash again. What do they do about all the other exhibits, though?

http://www.wasteage.com/mag/waste_call_art/


In the Eye of the Beholder

Dec 1, 2001 12:00 PM
Danielle Jackson

Who says trashy art isn't here to stay? At least one museum worker in London.

While cleaning the museum, Emmanuel Asare trashed an entire art exhibit because he thought it was garbage. But the tossed exhibit actually was created by London artist Damien Hirst during a launch party for a recent show of his work.

Asare, however, didn't exactly see a work of art while cleaning. All he saw was a pile of empty beer bottles, dirty ashtrays, coffee cups and candy wrappers, leftovers from the launch party and an impromptu exhibit created by Hirst.

“As soon as I clapped eyes on it, I sighed because there was so much mess … It didn't much look like art to me,” Asare told the London Sun newspaper.

http://wasteage.com/mag/waste_eye_beholder/


Back to School for Frankfurt's Garbage Men
Frankfurt's Städel Museum has decided that some ignorant citizens need to hone their art-appreciation skills. Garbage men, who accidentally burnt an artwork which they mistook for trash, have to attend art lessons.

Frankfurt's sanitation department was contrite this week after some of its over-zealous workers lugged off a yellow plastic object to the garbage depot and promptly chucked it in the incinerator.

What sounds like a well-meaning cleanliness drive turned out to be a case of mistaken identity after it emerged that the object in question was a sculpture and part of an ongoing art exhibition by Michael Beutler, a graduate of the city's prestigious Städel Museum. The show involved a total of ten sculptures made of yellow wood and cement that were distributed over the city.

Peter Postleb, head of the city's "Clean Frankfurt" initiative took personal responsibility and said he had mistaken the plastic components of the sculpture for rubbish and had ordered it to be destroyed. "There was no sign on it and the individual parts were totally tattered and swaying in the wind," Postled apologized.

http://www.deutsche-welle.de/dw/article/0,1564,1456129,00.html

What a loss for Civilization!

:cry:

[alwynsw]

8. Here's some real art (or at least a good laugh)

Take a minute to see it all.

http://www.tamponhenge.co.uk/

[Buster43]

6. At least

two more moonbats won't be polluting young minds.