"Art" in front of the arena?

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For the record, you all should know that in general I view people who don't appreciate art to be dangerous, untrustworthy folk.
 
The stupid thing is growing on me tbh, but the price point is so offensive - it just seems like the most crooked racket in the world... siphoning public money to that guy's pocket when really a random kid with fingerpaints can make something just as stunning.

I'm over it - I won't picket that council meeting after all. But I think that artist sucks. Guess he knows the right people though.
 
The Hammer said:
I pretty much like all art.

Nothing against your metal horses (unoriginal, and frankly trite, at this point) and your bronze bears, but you and I have incredibly different taste.

They clearly don't want something conceptual. I think that's the whole point of this selection. They don't want it message based. They want abstract. Some people condescend abstract art with such smugness, as you are doing. It's almost like you are threatened by things that don't "make sense". You should listen to some Talking Heads.
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I am not "threatened" by anything. I just don't see the attraction of this colored mirror as an art centerpiece to a new city crown jewel in the middle of downtown. And the price for it is just absolutely mind-boggling. Insane.

I like the huge bull in New York. I think the lion monument in Lucerne, Switzerland was awesome to see first-hand. I've visited England, France, Germany, Italy, and other European countries and marveled at the works of art by true masters in museums and in public areas.

Sorry, a pastel mirror just doesn't cut it for me. I'd prefer something better.
 
On the bright side, for many years, this space on the board was about the long odds of pie in the sky arena plans working. We are now having an art debate about what will go in front of our amazing arena that is currently being constructed. It's basically kids arguing over whether the cherry that will go on a massive sundae looks like the perfect cherry.
 
It's not even really about the art piece itself, it's the cost. If I lived in Sacramento I would be pissed if I found out my tax dollars were going to an $8,000,000 piece of acrylic, or stone, or whatever. If the Kings are paying for it, who gives a crap?
 
macadocious said:
It's not even really about the art piece itself, it's the cost. If I lived in Sacramento I would be pissed if I found out my tax dollars were going to an $8,000,000 piece of acrylic, or stone, or whatever. If the Kings are paying for it, who gives a poopoo?
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The money has to be spent on art. Read the article linked above describing that. The money is part of the building budget, always has been. Part Kings money, part city money, virtually zero "tax payer" money, since the project itself is generating the revenue through parking proceeds. Come on people.

It's a city ordinance. 2% of construction budgets for major publicly owned projects must be spent on public art. 447 mil x .02 roughly equals 9.5 mil. They are getting one main centerpiece (yes, and paying for the name, the most famous living artist probably), and then lots of other little pieces with the remaining 1.5 mil.
 
I gave this a lot of thought (for about 30 seconds) and decided I really don't care. I hope the people who like it enjoy looking at it; I hope it helps promote Sacramento in a positive manner: I hope I don't trip over it going into the new arena once or twice a year. Other than that, I realized it's just not even close to making my list of 100 things I care about. :p
 
The Hammer said:
The money has to be spent on art. Read the article linked above describing that. The money is part of the building budget, always has been. Part Kings money, part city money, virtually zero "tax payer" money, since the project itself is generating the revenue through parking proceeds. Come on people.

It's a city ordinance. 2% of construction budgets for major publicly owned projects must be spent on public art. 447 mil x .02 roughly equals 9.5 mil. They are getting one main centerpiece (yes, and paying for the name, the most famous living artist probably), and then lots of other little pieces with the remaining 1.5 mil.
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Well I did not know most of that, so thank you for sharing. It's still a ridiculous sum of money. I would rather it be spread around more since is HAS to be spent.

I find it interesting that you say this guy is the most famous living artist and most of us have never ever heard of him.
 
The Hammer said:
The money has to be spent on art.

...

They are getting one main centerpiece (yes, and paying for the name, the most famous living artist probably), and then lots of other little pieces with the remaining 1.5 mil.
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That's a fair enough start. The money has to be spent on public art. Still, they're spending over 80% of their budget on something that 1) Doesn't look very special to me, and 2) Would appear to be vastly overpriced.

And for all the complaints about what it looks like, the price tag is really what galls me. I don't know how much the original piece cost to create, but I'll bet that it's less than 1/20 the price of the piece. There's no way that the materials to create the piece could have cost over $500K, right? Which would mean that we're paying over $7.5M because of the name of the artist - an artist I had never heard of before this announcement and somehow became famous for making statues of balloon animals. The vast majority of the price is paying for the name on the work and not the work itself. I'd much rather pay out eight true "no-name" artists to see what they could do with $1M and get eight pieces than only get one piece because it was by "allegedly famous artist nobody has actually heard of". But I'm a codger when it comes to "modern art".
 
macadocious said:
Well I did not know most of that, so thank you for sharing. It's still a ridiculous sum of money. I would rather it be spread around more since is HAS to be spent.

I find it interesting that you say this guy is the most famous living artist and most of us have never ever heard of him.
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I do too. And I hadn't really know of him before now too, but that seems to be the word in art circles. His name kind of only rang a bell.
 
Capt. Factorial said:
That's a fair enough start. The money has to be spent on public art. Still, they're spending over 80% of their budget on something that 1) Doesn't look very special to me, and 2) Would appear to be vastly overpriced.

And for all the complaints about what it looks like, the price tag is really what galls me. I don't know how much the original piece cost to create, but I'll bet that it's less than 1/20 the price of the piece. There's no way that the materials to create the piece could have cost over $500K, right? Which would mean that we're paying over $7.5M because of the name of the artist - an artist I had never heard of before this announcement and somehow became famous for making statues of balloon animals. The vast majority of the price is paying for the name on the work and not the work itself. I'd much rather pay out eight true "no-name" artists to see what they could do with $1M and get eight pieces than only get one piece because it was by "allegedly famous artist nobody has actually heard of". But I'm a codger when it comes to "modern art".
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Not sure cost of materials should really be a factor when valuing art.

But I think it's legitimate to question whether one expensive piece or several moderately priced pieces is the best allocation of the arts funds.
 
macadocious said:
I find it interesting that you say this guy is the most famous living artist and most of us have never ever heard of him.
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i think that says a lot more about the lack of value our country places on the arts than it does about the quality of jeff koons' work, no matter what one's opinion may be of koons' work. art programs are gutted in our public schools. art history and formality are given little emphasis in the classroom. an education in the arts is cynically frowned upon as a worthy field of study. humanities and the arts are always the first areas of study to be set upon by budget cuts within our higher education systems. and the popular culture we consume on a daily basis is often devoid of any artistic merit. its no wonder art is viewed as an elitist venture in america; it has been wrested from the hands of the people by the staunch pragmatism of our country's efficiency-obsessed, post-industrialist mindset. [/end rant]
 
LPKingsFan said:
Not sure cost of materials should really be a factor when valuing art.
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Well, I mention it as a starting point. Obviously you can't expect to get a work of art for LESS than the cost of materials. Kennadog has mentioned the cost of the metallic blob in Chicago (forgot the name) as a $23M piece of art. But I looked it up and it was originally intended to be $6M and major cost overruns brought it to the final total. Apparently the thing actually cost an extra $17M in materials and direct labor than expected. But, of course, it's freaking huge. Much, much bigger than the piece in question for Sacramento. And those overruns are presumably NOT a "name fee". The thing cost that much to build.

I doubt that's the case with ours. We're paying a very large "name fee" - something that I guess approaches or exceeds 95% of the total cost. Maybe I'm wrong, but if that's the case it seems like an outrageous markup. Perhaps that $8M is a real market price - if Sac turned the piece down another collector or city would be in line to buy it for $7.5M or something. But maybe it just sits in a warehouse because there's nobody else willing to pony up even $1M for it. I don't know. But I do feel we could get a lot more art value for $8M.
 
I honestly hope this doesn't get shot down simply because some people don't like the way it looks. The price and "use money elsewhere" is an excuse. This is the going rate, then so be it. There are donations being made in order to make the purchase. There are also additional donations being made to local artists outside of this piece. So, you spend some to get some back. The complaints sound like the same argument used to keep a new arena from being built. The whole "I don't like it, so nobody should benefit from it" argument.

My understanding is that it is a piece from a world renowned artist and it will be the only one on permanent public display in the entire country. That piece in itself will bring people out to look at it. Nobody is coming to the plaza to look at a sculpture of a train or a horse. A Koon piece? You might decide to make a detour on your way from S.F. to Tahoe and see the piece in person and take a picture of your family by it.

I'm not a big fan artistically of the giant red rabbit in the airport. However, when you land and walk into the terminal you say, ah yes, I'm in Sacramento. It's unique and it signifies where you are. And yet, it has nothing to do with the gold rush or trains. It is just unique to airports, and it's wonderful that everyone who see's it remembers where they saw it.
 
Capt. Factorial said:
Well, I mention it as a starting point. Obviously you can't expect to get a work of art for LESS than the cost of materials. Kennadog has mentioned the cost of the metallic blob in Chicago (forgot the name) as a $23M piece of art. But I looked it up and it was originally intended to be $6M and major cost overruns brought it to the final total. Apparently the thing actually cost an extra $17M in materials and direct labor than expected. But, of course, it's freaking huge. Much, much bigger than the piece in question for Sacramento. And those overruns are presumably NOT a "name fee". The thing cost that much to build.

I doubt that's the case with ours. We're paying a very large "name fee" - something that I guess approaches or exceeds 95% of the total cost. Maybe I'm wrong, but if that's the case it seems like an outrageous markup. Perhaps that $8M is a real market price - if Sac turned the piece down another collector or city would be in line to buy it for $7.5M or something. But maybe it just sits in a warehouse because there's nobody else willing to pony up even $1M for it. I don't know. But I do feel we could get a lot more art value for $8M.
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Art work has value based on who creates it. Material cost is irrelevant. A famous artist could spend $50 on paint and a canvas and sell it for thousands. Another artist could spend a thousand on a sculpture and not be able to give it away. So, while you could spend less on other art pieces for the arena, THAT would be where you could end up overspending for less valuable art. Koons pieces sell for millions. That is it's value.
 
Livinthedream said:
Art work has value based on who creates it. Material cost is irrelevant. A famous artist could spend $50 on paint and a canvas and sell it for thousands. Another artist could spend a thousand on a sculpture and not be able to give it away. So, while you could spend less on other art pieces for the arena, THAT would be where you could end up overspending for less valuable art. Koons pieces sell for millions. That is it's value.
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I don't think anyone is arguing that art's value isn't intrinsic. I think the argument is should this combined effort spend THAT much money on a single art piece. It just happens that this piece is polarizing.
 
Livinthedream said:
My understanding is that it is a piece from a world renowned artist and it will be the only one on permanent public display in the entire country. That piece in itself will bring people out to look at it. Nobody is coming to the plaza to look at a sculpture of a train or a horse. A Koon piece? You might decide to make a detour on your way from S.F. to Tahoe and see the piece in person and take a picture of your family by it.

I'm not a big fan artistically of the giant red rabbit in the airport. However, when you land and walk into the terminal you say, ah yes, I'm in Sacramento. It's unique and it signifies where you are. And yet, it has nothing to do with the gold rush or trains. It is just unique to airports, and it's wonderful that everyone who see's it remembers where they saw it.
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A) Who cares how famous the guy is in art circles? Have you looked at his website and seen his work? A vacuum cleaner. A balloon dog. Pornographic glass statues. I don't give two flips for what his name is, I look at the works and decide for myself. His work ain't ****. It's nothing. Use your own mind and make your own decisions (instead of relying on what other "artists" also hoping to get paid $8 million for something like this are saying).

And, news flash, this isn't the first one of these. He's made several. It's a derivative work that we are buying.

B) Folks are going to go to the area for the events, not for a pastel blob from an artist nobody heard of until some fool decided to fork over $8 million for this.

C) The red rabbit is an order of magnitude better of an art piece than this.
 
Livinthedream said:
Art work has value based on who creates it. Material cost is irrelevant. A famous artist could spend $50 on paint and a canvas and sell it for thousands. Another artist could spend a thousand on a sculpture and not be able to give it away. So, while you could spend less on other art pieces for the arena, THAT would be where you could end up overspending for less valuable art. Koons pieces sell for millions. That is it's value.
Click to expand...

I don't care who makes it. If it isn't good, it isn't worth it. If another artist could make the same thing and it isn't worth anything, then it really isn't worth anything. It's only a fool spending money on a name, not on something that has "intrinsic" value.
 
Warhawk said:
I don't care who makes it. If it isn't good, it isn't worth it. If another artist could make the same thing and it isn't worth anything, then it really isn't worth anything. It's only a fool spending money on a name, not on something that has "intrinsic" value.
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A steel sculpture like one of the balloon pieces or Coloring Book probably takes a team of highly skilled craftsmen months to finish. Whether or not another artist can recreate a work is irrelevant. When a musician plays a piece another musician wrote, it doesn't diminish the composition. The same applies to painting or sculpting. There are plenty of talented sculptors and painters who could recreate any number of famous works, but without the originals they would not come up with the compositions on their own.
 
whitechocolate said:
A steel sculpture like one of the balloon pieces or Coloring Book probably takes a team of highly skilled craftsmen months to finish. Whether or not another artist can recreate a work is irrelevant. When a musician plays a piece another musician wrote, it doesn't diminish the composition. The same applies to painting or sculpting. There are plenty of talented sculptors and painters who could recreate any number of famous works, but without the originals they would not come up with the compositions on their own.
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I'm trying not to get dragged back into this but it continues to get more and more flabbergasting. He has "a team of highly skilled craftsmen"? You mean, he doesn't even make his own artwork himself?

Capt. Factorial is officially now a sculpt-free sculptor. My first - and only - piece of artwork is as follows: A giant brass bell (15 feet high, what ever the circumference comes out to) of similar shape to the Liberty Bell. However, it will be mounted in place upside-down. One half of the bell (the western facing side) will be highly polished, but the other half will be of a dull matte finish. There will be a stark border between polished and matte on the south side but a gradual border on the north side. The clapper of the bell will be shaped like an exclamation point. It will not function, but will be permanently attached 10 degrees south of due east (that is, on the matte side of the bell). The name of the piece is "Undercooked Romance". I will not construct Undercooked Romance, but I will hire a team of highly skilled craftsmen to do it for me. Now, since this piece is a one-of-a-kind Capt. Factorial (in fact the ONLY Capt. Factorial sculpture that will ever exist EVER because I vow to never make another it is a rarity amongst all rarities. Purchasing Undercooked Romance is literally a once in a lifetime opportunity. I will start the bidding at $10M. ($10M is not ****ing bad for five minutes of work, if I do say so myself.)
 
Warhawk said:
A) Who cares how famous the guy is in art circles? Have you looked at his website and seen his work? A vacuum cleaner. A balloon dog. Pornographic glass statues. I don't give two flips for what his name is, I look at the works and decide for myself. His work ain't ****. It's nothing. Use your own mind and make your own decisions (instead of relying on what other "artists" also hoping to get paid $8 million for something like this are saying).

And, news flash, this isn't the first one of these. He's made several. It's a derivative work that we are buying.

B) Folks are going to go to the area for the events, not for a pastel blob from an artist nobody heard of until some fool decided to fork over $8 million for this.

C) The red rabbit is an order of magnitude better of an art piece than this.
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That's some serious art hate dude. Wow. If his work "ain't crap"... then you're an idiot for not being able to go out there and make art that'll sell for over 50 million or whatever his highest selling piece is.

There's plenty to satirize about world of high end art... but a market is a market. The market determines the price of his things... you think he should be on hourly by the state art department, comrade?

The guy is renowned as a master for a reason. Just because you don't have taste, doesn't take away that fact. My grandfather hated the Beatles, too. It would be hard for you to sound more curmudgeon-y or anti-culture.

Artists get paid because they make fantastic, original work. Just admit it that it's beyond your ability to appreciate. A great man once said "Don't criticize what you can't understand"
 
Big problem I have with this proposed "art" (besides being butt ugly blob stupidly misspent $8M) is likelihood it will fade, deteriorate in various ways over time. It might look bright, shiny, slick to some for few years or even decade or so, but what will it look like when new arena is no long new? Take Chicago's famous " The Picasso" iconic sculpture that went up in heart of their downtown late 1960s. Today, it still has look of new, modern, well constructed art even with bad weather that lashes Windy City almost year round. This particular Sacramento downtown "art" joke needs to go away to never see the light of day. We can do better and especially for helluva lot less $$. The Chicago Picasso was commissioned for around $350K and in todays dollars that would be about $2.5M. Get serious Sacramento, dump it, start over, and protect taxpayer dollars instead of thinking its free money just growing on trees for lazy easy pickings.chicago.jpg
 
The Hammer said:
That's some serious art hate dude. Wow. If his work "ain't poopoo"... then you're an idiot for not being able to go out there and make art that'll sell for over 50 million or whatever his highest selling piece is.

There's plenty to satirize about world of high end art... but a market is a market. The market determines the price of his things... you think he should be on hourly by the state art department, comrade?

The guy is renowned as a master for a reason. Just because you don't have taste, doesn't take away that fact. My grandfather hated the Beatles, too. It would be hard for you to sound more curmudgeon-y or anti-culture.

Artists get paid because they make fantastic, original work. Just admit it that it's beyond your ability to appreciate. A great man once said "Don't criticize what you can't understand"
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Whoa. If a person doesn't like it they don't have taste? Whose calling who comrade, comrade? Some like it and some don't. Neither side has the market cornered on "no taste." My lovely wife likes red-bricked homes and I think they're uglier than all get out. She right and me wrong? Or the opposite? The answer is neither just simply different tastes.

I fall in the category of, is this the best way to spend the money dedicated to going to the "arts?" My gut says no, but other than the few pictures here I have a hard type picturing it in it's final setting. It may be wonderful but right now I have serious doubts. Currently, I like the idea of spreading the wealth around with more less expensive pieces from different artists with a possible common theme.
 
The Hammer said:
That's some serious art hate dude. Wow. If his work "ain't poopoo"... then you're an idiot for not being able to go out there and make art that'll sell for over 50 million or whatever his highest selling piece is.

There's plenty to satirize about world of high end art... but a market is a market. The market determines the price of his things... you think he should be on hourly by the state art department, comrade?

The guy is renowned as a master for a reason. Just because you don't have taste, doesn't take away that fact. My grandfather hated the Beatles, too. It would be hard for you to sound more curmudgeon-y or anti-culture.

Artists get paid because they make fantastic, original work. Just admit it that it's beyond your ability to appreciate. A great man once said "Don't criticize what you can't understand"
Click to expand...

Like I said, I've traveled much of Europe and the US and loved much of the art I have seen. I can appreciate GREAT art just fine. I don't think this is it. This "artist" is someone who thinks a vacuum or a toaster mounted on a wall is great art. Seriously, go look at his "portfolio". Pffft.

I think the Captain's "art" idea is a heck of a lot better than ANYTHING I saw on the artist's website. Seriously. And this guy is such a "master" that nobody knew who he was until this story broke. Just because someone decides to spend that much doesn't make that the value of the item. It in many cases means that they have more money than sense.

The secret for this type of work is that there is nothing TO understand. This piece doesn't "represent" anything. There is no interpretation other than what you decide to give it, it has no intrinsic value or message. You are advocating paying $8 million, almost the entire art budget for the project, for a pastel mirror. What's the message in that?

I'm going to start a poll. Be curious to see the results.
 
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