Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for May 11, 2018

Ask him to make an offer first.

BS is in the eye of the beholder.

Even worse, he didn’t even realize that it’s upside-down.

This odd-shaped and clearly distinctive blot in the lower left-hand quadrant is, without question, Waldo.

I’m guessing that’s how Jack the Dripper got started. Jackson Pollack to the uninitiated.

, my kid could have made that.

I always enjoyed the parts of Bob Ross’s show where he’d begin a painting with a few patches of color and say, “We already got us a piece for the Museum of Modern Art.”

Whatever happened to gas station art? I haven’t seen a gas station MOMA in years.

So, was that a white canvas and you painted the room blue, or a blue tarp and you painted the room white?

Reminds me of the great scene in the Tom Baker Dr Who episode “City of Death” where John Cleese and Eleanor Bron think the TARDIS is a work of art.

The goal of art is to make people think. These days that’s a goal that’s almost unobtainable.

You should see the art work I create with joint compound.

Put a velvet rope around anything and it will draw crowds.

Reminds me of an episode of Murphy Brown when her 2-year old son Avery is finger-painting with the “Manny/Housepainter” Eldon. For a joke, he has the painting displayed in a gallery under the name A. Verry which is subsequently sold for $150,000.

Somebody or other did a cartoon of a guy pretentiously ranting about the splendid naturalistic detail of a landscape painting, the artist’s passion evident in his careful work, blah blah blah….

It was a window, not a painting.

Think about R. Mutt (Duchamp) and his “Fountain” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fountain_(Duchamp) . It is art because it was declared to be art. This paved the way for Velvet Paintings, Bob Ross, and amateur artists to be seen as artists.

So, gocomics webmaster, did you get a nice big raise for doubling your clicks by putting in the annoying ’Overview" that shows nothing but a center panel of the days comic to make the viewers click out of it to actually see the comic?

“Art Snobs” are ALMOST as annoying as “Wine Snobs”. How many could REALLY tell if you poured some MD20/20 into a fancy wine bottle and served it in fancy glasses??

As Jackson Pollack observed, “It is all about how you place the worms.”

I am constantly amazed at abstract artists’ ability… to BS and make money off of it. If done right, you couldn’t tell a Pollock from a painting that an elephant slung paint at. Jeff Koons puts vacuum cleaners in a display case. Best example I ever saw was in Chicago. On the floor was a pile of sheets of paper about 1.5 feet by 2 feet with a 1 inch black border on each sheet. The little note next to it invited people to take a few sheets as it made the “work of art” a dynamic piece. One you can re-create for yourself at home with a pad of Post-It Notes. Arthur Fry was an artistic genius!!!

“A fool and his money are soon parted.”

“He who knows a thousand works of art, knows a thousand frauds.” Horace (Roman poet).

“The purpose of art is delectation.” Nicholas Poussin.

“Art happens when anyone in the world takes any kind of material and fashions it into a deliberate statement.” Thomas Hoving.

The only question is whether it’s “good” art or “bad” art. On making that determination, “Good luck with that.”

Modern art isn’t.

And just think that Wiley Miller has shared this masterpiece with all of us for free!

Years ago, I went to the Houston museum of Modern Art and walked into a vast open space, the size of a large auditorium and the art work that this huge space was dedicated to was a white string or maybe yarn that stretched from a corner of the floor diagonally up to the corner of the ceiling! A security guard was dutifully stationed in the room to guard this wonderful work of art.

Gesundheit.

Modern art. If You can walk around it, it is a sculpture. If you hit a wall, it is a painting.

What’s the difference between art and great art ?

The Price Tag !

I learned very early on in my life, the higher the price tag the more buyers value the work, and the faster it sells. People think because they paid a lot of money for a painting that it must be great art but ignore the real masterpieces that can be purchased inexpensively.

Something similar to this really happened in the Atlanta airport years ago. A “drop cloth” was thrown out by the custodians, but turned out to be a painting by some big name, waiting to be hung.

Value is in the eye of the beholder. A wealthy individual who would spurn a pair of $19.95 Wrangler jeans will bid thousands for it if someone tells him they were once worn by Elvis Presley.

Hi-lar-i-ous! It’s boring sad when people use other people’s words to describe art in the attempt to sound intelligent.

Obviously, it is a photo of one of the globular clusters (of stars) in orbit around our Milky Way Galaxy.

Meanwhile, John Cleese analyzes a certain blue box:

One of my favorite memories was years ago at an art exhibition, one of the artists was displaying some paintings in the “outdoor still Life” category. Lansdcapes with the occasional building in them.

Except that they were getting a Lot of attention for his very Unusual color choices. Orange Grass, lavender skies. Some houses with things like yellow window Panes trimmed in bright Purple.

I heard some people “analyzing” his color choices in the usual “I’m an Educated Art Lover” type BS. But, after they walked away, I turned to the guy standing next to me and said something about the utter Pretentiousness of the “Expert” who had just walked away. He looked at me, smiled and said: “Yeah. I’m the artist. the answer is really simple: I go down to the paint store and buy the stuff that other people have Returned because they bought the Wrong Color. They will almost Pay you to take it away. And the Worse the color, the Cheaper it is. So, If I buy a gallon of screaming Purple, I just keep using it until it runs out.”

He also said that, since he’d started doing that, his sales had tripled.

I was on vacation in Santa Fe, New Mexico; some 20 years ago and I was browsing in the “Photo Eye” book store. It is one of the largest Photography book stores in the U.S. I was looking through some books that were featured on a table and I saw a book; I think the paper cover had a picture of a toilet on it. As I browsed through it I realized that every page had a Photo of a toilet with Human feces in it! I could hardly believe it! There it was for sale. I kind of wanted to stick around to see if any body would buy or at least see the reactions of people who picked it up. Unfortunately I didn’t have much since I was to meet my wife in a few minutes. It was the most disgusting art book I have ever seen. This is an absolutely true experience.