A very superfluous piece.
To be honest, “Float” was the running joke of the night for my group and me. In our defense, this piece is un-ironically pretentious and is somehow placed on equal footing with the intricate and beautiful pottery of Qing China. There is no problem with an abstract piece of art as long as it aspires to some sort of purpose. Even Robert Longo’s distorted images were described with a lengthy paragraph to aid the visitors in their analysis of his work. Instead, what we see here are two ill-cut pieces of cloth attached to a rumpled tarp. Entitled “Float,” this artwork symbolizes what many people see as the fault of today’s art world- it prioritizes a strangeness of form over any tangible meaning or at least technical prowess. The only skill used here is the audacity to offer up this piece to a museum for consideration. To be fair, none of the members of my group are art majors or even art lovers, but I still don’t believe we have misjudged this piece because we were completely blown away by all of Longo’s drawings on the 5th floor. He combined mind-blowing skill with a deep and multilayered possible interpretations so that his viewers could truly appreciate the new perspective he offered. Nobody would see any of his drawings and not be at least astonished by their beauty, if not moved to a more profound state of mind. In contrast, I told a few groups that “Float” was not actually a piece, but tarp covering a hole in the wall. Were it not for one of my more prudent group members, these other Macaulay students would have believed me. Not because they weren’t able to appreciate true art, but because this piece is not worth that designation.
The market determines the worth of every style of art. But if museums cannot see past these trends, regular people like me will always see art as a tool of the rich to remind us that they are exceedingly wealthy and convince us that their wealth imparts them with aesthetic sensibilities not available to us plebeians.
P.S.: Of course, I’m open to other interpretations of this piece and any others like it that you found. Leave a comment if you want to discuss!
