RE: The ‘sculpture’ in the photo….Exactly what am I looking at? What’s it supposed to be? If it’s a pile of empty boxes with lots of strings attatched, I’d say its the Tasmanian ALP!

Seeing that Tasmanian Times is supposed to be a “forum of discussion and dissent — a cheeky, irreverent challenge”, here’s one to dissent from how the arty-farty consensus would probably have us interpret this installation of old boxes and wire and stuff.

So to take up the challenge hinted at in Comment 1 -

It’s rubbish.

It may be ‘Art’ or even ‘art’, but it’s still rubbish.

Many of these sorts of installations -  which is the term they often go by -  need a dozen or so A4 sheets of earnest preaching to ‘explain’ them, particularly for us poor dumb ‘bourgeois’ types who still cling, sadly and pathetically according to the arty-farty set, to that good old saying about “I don’t know much about Art, but I know what I like”.

This lot look to be, as far as one can tell from the TT pics, some of those ‘challenging’, ‘worthy’ and ‘edgy’ installations which are supposed to undermine our ‘bourgeois’ complacency (Is anyone really ‘bourgeois’ any more?) and shock us out of our white-picket-fence comfort zones.

You can imagine the earnest faces, furrowed brows and heads slightly tilted (like Fido’s, but with less comprehension) in front of, beside and behind each example, as the viewers desperately try to not betray any hint that they reckon it’s all a heap of old rubbish -  can’t have anyone thinking we are philistines^, can we!!

There will be plenty of gulls who, in utter fear that they might appear bourgeois or philistine, let alone normal, will flash their plastic for such rubbish.

Still, this installation could have (i) helped in the cleaning-out of someone’s old junk,  (ii) stimulated some more generally useful re-cycling, and (iii), best of all, kept its constructors off the streets.

PS1: would like to be here in 400 years time to see if the crowds are still rolling in, you know, like they continue to do for the painted and sculpted installations by all those Dead White (or Slightly Olive) Males in Renaissance Italy.

PS2:  as far as can be told from the pics, no-one ‘installed’ their used turds, tampons or condoms for our complacency’s sake. For this, much thanks.

^ actually, the poor old Philistines, who were quite a cultured lot, got a bad press, with the Hebrews/Israelites writing the history from the winners PoV.

Geez…...Lighten up a bit Leonard! These sculptures were made by high school kids just learning to unfurl their creative wings. Give them a break!

Fair point, Valleywatcher (Comment 3); it did come across forcefully, didn’t it.

But it is directed at the mindset which deprives these kids of chances to excel, a mindset which downgrades the crafts and the skills of the painterly and sculpturing arts, which disses the Michelangelos and Raphaels as merely Dead (off-)White Dagoes.

It is an attitude that only creativity counts, and that learning the crafts is just, like, so 19th century. In its sphere, it is as seductively beguiling and as ultimately devaluating as that drippily sentimental ‘All you need is Love’.

We’ve seen the results in the ‘Creative Writing’ approach to teaching English, where being ‘creative’ is code for ignorance about the very basics of language and literature.

It is also an easy Out for those in charge of schools and teacher-preparation: if curriculums are devoid of specific skills and defined fields of learning, then it doesn’t matter much if the unfortunate teachers don’t know nuffink. And a lot cheaper.

Our airline pilots and brain surgeons are not prepared along these lines -  well, I hope they’re not -  and neither should any other area of learning. (And, yes, there are significant differences between these two fields of endeavour and the Arts.)

‘Just Be Creative’ is absolutely no substitute for breadth and depth of learning. Creative people are those who have a sufficiently high quality knowledge and appreciation of their fields to realise their creative insights. Einstein didn’t get his insight about Relativity from a wide chasm of ignorance, but from a deep well of knowledge.

Last point: these sorts of problems spring mainly from a bipolar attitude to Life, the Universe and the Everything. That rote learning and being creative are opposites; that, say, whole-word and phonics in learning to read are incompatible; that pupil-centred discovery learning and teacher-based direct instruction are inimical.

It is a closed Either-Or mindset versus a flexible Both-And approach.

Given the spread of talents in every generation, many of these artists-in-waiting will succeed despite their Art Education.

You didn’t actually lighten up all that much, Leonard. Have another crack at it.