An End To Art Funding....PLEASE!

[Colpy]

OMG!

According to today's Globe and Mail, a certain Mr. Cesar Saez has the plan........create a 300 foot banana, fill it with helium, and float it over the state of Texas in "a statement about advertising, sex, politics and illegal immigration"

So he applies to the Federally funded Canada Council for the Arts and the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Quebec for cash money.

The Canada Council gives the guy $95,000.

The Quebec folks hand over $55,000.

Not enough. He wants $1.5 million.

All art funding done with our tax dollars needs to stop.

This is robbery, pure and simple.

 

[Risus]

That sure is asinine. It the thing is gunna float over texas, have the texas a holes pay for the thing with their money not ours.

I agree STOP THIS BS!!!

 

[iARTthere4iam]

as a professional artist I too agree. However, If we do stop funding the arts we should also stop funding failing businesses, the CBC, and all other pigs at the government trough. Let individuals choose how they want to spend their money.

 

[Praxius]

I'm not for the removal of funding.... but I am for better background checks and screening for idiots like this.

A 300ft floating Banana doesn't cost $1.5 million.... it doesn't even cost $55 thousand. Even I'm slightly pissed about this one.... many more stronger regulations are required to be in place so that idiots like this can easily be refused.

If this idiot wants to make a statement, sure, make your statement, but unless their and anybody else's art can actually do some good for the people of Canada, whom are footing the bill, or what they are doing can benifit someone besides themselves in some positive manner, they shouldn't get a dime.

 

[EagleSmack]

That sure is asinine. It the thing is gunna float over texas, have the texas a holes pay for the thing with their money not ours.

I agree STOP THIS BS!!!

Why should Texans pay for a dog gone floating Canadian banana? It is your banana...not ours. :lol:

 

[lone wolf]

Hell ... I have two novels all ready for the publisher and I can't get a Council of the Arts grant - and 9/11 pretty much puts one into the league of best-seller. Any Americans interested? Canada is wa-aa-ay too wishy-washy....

 

[missile]

I can't think of anything worthwhile ever given a grant by the Council & generally avoid looking,reading or watching anything with that tag on it.

 

[Scott Free]

Art is meant to be subversive and challenging. Without government funding it would be too subversive and too challenging. With government funding we can have the pretence of freedom of expression without actually having it. It's a win win scenario in our quest for a Utopian society. You can get paid to not make that nude statue you've been thinking about - make a giant sky banana instead.

The most creative and intelligent people end up in the commercial arts anyway so we're left with freaks like this banana guy creating our "art." It's a damn shame really.

 

[missile]

Sad. isn't it? The best part of many shows are the commercial ads.

 

[shadowshiv]

How about the fellow that place yellow flags(or something along those lines) throughout Central Park? That went over as well as finding a dead mouse in your hotdog.

There was also a person that created their art out of feces. That would have been an enjoyable exhibit for sure!:roll:8O

 

[darkbeaver]

How about the fellow that place yellow flags(or something along those lines) throughout Central Park? That went over as well as finding a dead mouse in your hotdog.

There was also a person that created their art out of feces. That would have been an enjoyable exhibit for sure!:roll:8O

I saw that piece, it was very expensive.

 

[#juan]

Oh come on, doesn't this just get you?

The Yellow Banana of Texas
(Sung to the yellow Rose of texas)

There's a yellow banana in Texas, that I am going to see,
Nobody else could miss it, its bigger than a frigging tree.
Its floating high up in the air, it broke my heart,
And when I ever find it, we nevermore will part.

(Chorus)
She's the sweetest banana of color
This darky every (sic) knew
It floats high up in the sky
Where the birdies flew
You may talk about dearest Musaceae
And sing of apples too
But the yellow banana of Texas
Beats the cherries in the tree

When the Rio Grande is flowing, the starry skies are bright,
It floats high up there in the sky in the quiet summer night:
I know that it remembers, some nut make it long ago,
I promise to return again, and watch it floating so.

(Chorus)
Oh now I'm going to find it, for my heart is full of woe,
And we'll eat banan splits together that we had so long ago
We'll eat the icecream gaily, and we'll all cry out for more,
And the yellow banana of Texas shall be mine forevermore.

 

[Kreskin]

Hands off the bananas please.

 

[shadowshiv]

I saw that piece, it was very expensive.

The dung or the flags?;-):lol:

 

[shadowshiv]

Hands off the bananas please.

 

[gopher]

"All art funding done with our tax dollars needs to stop.

This is robbery, pure and simple. "



Perhaps. But as for the USA, I would begin by dissolving the Pentagon.

 

[Machjo]

I generally don't think of myself as a Conservative; I'm extremely pro-education and believe that society does indeed have a duty to educate its population, to teach it to fish so to speak. But once that's done, we're on our own to catch our own fish.

In this vain, while I'm all for arts education in school (and I do acknowledge that industry needs artists in many fields, from web-page design to marketing to forensic investigations, etc. etc. etc.), I'm dead set against any funding whatsoever for the arts beyond education.

 

[Francis2004]

OMG!

According to today's Globe and Mail, a certain Mr. Cesar Saez has the plan........create a 300 foot banana, fill it with helium, and float it over the state of Texas in "a statement about advertising, sex, politics and illegal immigration"

So he applies to the Federally funded Canada Council for the Arts and the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Quebec for cash money.

The Canada Council gives the guy $95,000.

The Quebec folks hand over $55,000.

Not enough. He wants $1.5 million.

All art funding done with our tax dollars needs to stop.

This is robbery, pure and simple.

This is where the system is broken and needs repair.. The money should not leave the country and be for an idiotic adventure in a Banana in the sky..

When you apply for a house loan can you then decide to buy a submarine and ask for 1.5 billion more after ?

Art funding should be for Art not stupid acts..

 

[Dexter Sinister]

All art funding done with our tax dollars needs to stop.

Well, I dunno about that. It's obvious there's a lot of crap getting funded from the public purse and I certainly share some of your sentiments, but I also think government has a legitimate role to play in funding the arts. It's far from obvious where to draw the line though. I'd immediately agree that a lot of what passes for art these days is pretty dumb, like floating inflatable bananas over Texas, but I'd also argue that any culture needs its artists and there's a long history in western Europe and the western hemisphere societies derived from it of official support for the arts. I'll never agree that it's intrinsically a bad thing, and I'd also point out that in a modern western democracy it's not possible to justify a principled public support for the arts while also restricting the forms of artistic expression. I''ve often felt that a lot of modern art is a conspiracy among the funders, the artists, and the critics, intended to make the rest of us feel stupid and uncultured, and I have a pretty hard time grasping the idea that a 300 foot banana filled wth helium drifting over Texas could have anything to do with "advertising, sex, politics and illegal immigration." But as Theodore Sturgeon said a long time ago, 90% of everything is crap. The arts are no different, but I think the value of the 10% of stuff that's NOT crap is worth the investment in the 90% that is.