The Emperor has no clothes...

[Update] For the poor souls who come to this blog wondering what on earth the expression "the Emperor has no clothes" means, it comes from Hans Christian Andersen's story, "The Emperor's New Suit." You can read it here. It has always struck me as being a particularly apt metaphor for how the art establishment puffs artists of highly questionable worth. Well, questionable in my opinion anyway, for which they have little or no respect, I am sure.

But seeing as you're here, why don't you have a look around? Check the Topics list in the sidebar and see if anything piques your interest.

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...and is writhing in his own blood on the art gallery floor.

Canada's artsy-fartsy version of a shock jock, Istvan Kantor, is at it again. And is succeeding at getting himself banned from yet another art gallery, this time the Art Gallery of Ontario.

What amazes me in all this, is that curators and critics, who spend their entire professional careers dealing with art in all its forms, seem completely helpless in coming up with a definition of art that excludes any form of expression whatsoever. All they can do is sniff in derision because his performance was "so '60's" and ban him because his actions affected the rights of another artist, the late Andy Warhol, whose exhibition was the staging grounds of Kantor's latest shenanigans.

OK, so they're banning a living "artist" because he's infringing on the rights of a dead one. Hmmm. Wonder how that would fly in court. Politically and artistically correct people do have to twist themselves into the weirdest pretzels to justify the simplest acts, which to their credit, they took promptly.

Is it really so hard to say, "Our definition of art does not include pointless, narcissistic vandalism." Apparently, yes, it is. But I am still left wondering, what is the purpose of a word whose definition is so vast it ceases to have any functional meaning?

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NOTE: The only online source for this story from the mainstream media is available only to Ottawa Citizen subscribers. The blog post linked to in the title provides few details.

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Technorati tags: Istvan Kantor, Art, Hans Christian Andersen