We Like Art

What can I say? Art is good.

I keep up with the art scene in a most desultory fashion... I sneek a peak at some high art mags now and again at the bookstore, and very occasionally when FF and I are in a town that has a decent array of museums, we like to hit the galleries. Nevertheless, we get art on the brain all the time. That's why it gets my goat when contempo art is alleged to have an audience of zero, save for insidious insiders and Enron CEO wives.

So I thought I would share some of the art pieces that have generated the most thoughtage around this particular noggin. Here are five:

1) Tom Friedman's 1000 Hours of Staring (1992-1997), a blank sheet of paper at which Friedman allegedly stared for one thousand hours over a five-year period;

2) Maurizio Cattelan's Untitled, (2001), a teeny-tiny working elevator installed in a corner of the LACMA contemporary art wing. This is FF and SB's all-time fave!

3) Tim Hawkinson's Eggs (1997), little dinosaur eggs made from the artist's collected nail clippings:

4) Charles Ray's Puzzle Bottle (1995); and

5) John Baldessari's I Will Not Make Any More Boring Art (1971). Word!