Anyway, we learned that when asked, the artist said that the fact that it disrupted foot traffic was something that he liked about the piece. This obviously raises questions about what art actually is. I know it's a kind of a cliched question, but this particular debate over the presence of the "Tilted Arc" really made me think about it...
Generally, the every-day person seems to bade the value of art more on the concept of beauty than on anything else. Honestly, until now, I've been thinking in the same terms, except I've been constantly re-evaluating my definition of beauty. Instead, I now find myself asking why I even feel that beauty should be the standard by which we are tempted judge art.
The Tilted Arc completely changed the flow of that particular courtyard, and it seems like perhaps that was part of the artist's intention.
Maybe this is another case of there being a gap between the general public and the art world. I feel like people who are serious artists (and by "serious" I mean serious about art, not necessarily super successful or famous), and people with a bit more of an education in art seem to value art work for more of a variety of reasons than simply "beauty".
Maybe Tilted Arc's inconvenience to the pedestrians of the area should be viewed as contributing to what might make it art. I don't know--can inconvenience be a characteristic that can make art good? If a piece of writing was inconveniencing large numbers of people it might be more likely to be valued...although I don't know what would equate physically forcing people to walk around a large object to get to work, in writing...I feel like this blog post has been all over the place. Maybe I shouldn't have tried to answer such a big question...it's a collection of thoughts anyhow.
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