Art Student Depicts Mickey Mouse Flying Toward Flaming World Trade Center

[rodbarnett]

EDINBURGH, Scotland (AP) - A soft sculpture of Mickey Mouse flying an airplane toward flaming, crying World Trade Center towers has caused a stir at a college art exhibit.

Alan Bennie, a student of the Edinburgh College of Art, titled his work about the Sept. 11 terror attacks "Mickey's Taliban Adventures."

One museum director has called the work "dreadful." The exhibitions coordinator at the Royal Scottish Academy defended it as "social and political comment."

<snip>

"What a bland thought process - a work depicting Disney as the root of all the troubles of the world. How original. It sounds dreadful," Julian Spalding, art critic and former director of Glasgow's museums and galleries, told Glasgow's Sunday Herald newspaper.

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGAHY2DOWQD.html

[gttim]

1. Better yet...

What I saw on Fark this morning, on making toys more dangerous. Yes, he may be going to hell, but it is pretty funny.

[DrWeird]

7. Funniest damn thing I've seen all week.

Confess!

[northzax]

2. I'm with Spalding on this one

sounds like tasteless, sensationalist crap. I hope he gets his exhibition, and that no one comes. I hope someone puts on a gallery opening for him, and that no one buys anything. Time to sink, Alan, freedom of speech works both ways, you can say it, and we can laugh at your stupidity. Don't give him the attention, and he'll go away.

[Dhalgren]

4. If the guy is a real artist

he won't give a shit what you or anyone else thinks. Arts doesn't have taste or feeling, it just is - all the other crap is brought to it by its audience.

[Rich Hunt]

11. nonsense

he won't give a shit what you or anyone else thinks.

Lots of artists care what people think about their work - it's a form of communication like any other. It has a social function and always has.

I think most artists aren't making art to talk to themselves.

[northzax]

18. so there is no such thing as good art?

all art is equal? That is patently not true, Art does have something to say, all good art does. The difference between good art and poor art is both in technical skill, and in ability to say something meaningful. Great art sings in your soul, stand before a rembrandt, or a de kooning, or a matisse, or a Calder, and tell me it doesn't. Look, I can paint. I could even, with a lifetime of practice and study, reproduce a Rembrandt perfectly. But it wouldn't sing like the real thing.

What I find interesting about your comment is the belief that art exists in a vacuum. It doesn't, art is its audience, and the audience is art, one cannot achieve great heights without the other. Saying that an artist doesn't care what anyone else thinks, is like saying Melville shouldn't have had an editor, or that Michelangelo shouldn't have painted the Sistine Chapel (it was done under commission, after all, directed to the minute detail) Or that your Venus of Willendorf should have remmained buried where she was found, after all, why put someone's religious artifact, or work of art on display for others to see? I'm sure the person who made it didn't care, and just made it for his/her own satisfaction. Artists as independant creatures are such a modern concept, the result of the industrial revolution.

And lastly, if he doesn't care what anyone thinks of his 'art', why go to art school? is that not the whole freaking point of art school? to get feedback and develop as an artist? and why display your work at all, if you don't want feedback?

[Whoa_Nelly]

3. The sculpture--pic

Pic of the soft sculpture at:
http://www.royalscottishacademy.org/pages/exhibition_frame.asp?id=72

[Paul Hood]

20. Thanks for the link.

You can't really see Mickey in the picture, but the buildings all have expressions on their faces that really fit in with the cartoon genre.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

28. This is shocking? I don't think so, and I have lots of friends

and relatives who died in there.


Sorry, just not shocked. Not even awed.

[trapper914]

5. Tasteless, yes,

although no more tasteless than voices from the right saying Muslim extremist hate America because of our tolerance of homosexuals.

[transeo]

6. It's tasteless, but

I read it as a fairly effective reflection of the way corporatism is the real enemy and what is taking down America, not Islamic fundy terrorists. It's the corporate terrorists we need to watch out for. Just my two cents.

[Rich Hunt]

10. I don't think the artist cares much for 'America'

Look, I'm left-wing at all -and- I've studied art, but this appears to be a bunch of art student anti-Americanism. I can understand why Europeans might feel angry at the US, but this seems pretty thoughtless.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I've seen more than my fair share of bad student art over the years.

[Name removed]

12. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[abelenkpe]

27. I think you are mistaken

there is nothing about that sculpture which says 'I hate America.' You might not like the piece, and you are entitled to your opinion, but that does not mean it isn't an effective work of art. As an artist, I've seen lots of bad student art too, but this piece isn't one of them. I think it's quite good.

[pinto]

29. I think its a good piece, also, esp the eyes on the buildings, and the

different "emotions" of the buildings. I thought it was touching, in a way, the buildings themselves as "stand ins" for the thousands of emotions in that instant. The use of Mickey as a Taliban "stand in" speaks to the almost instant mythification of the event in America and apparently the world....

ed for sp

[Cooley Hurd]

8. Disney isn't the root of all evil...

Mooby is!

Kill Mooby!!!

[Muddleoftheroad]

9. You didn't say bless you after I sneezed

That's it for you.

[truthisfreedom]

13. art is supposed to make you think, right?

looks like the piece worked, at least.

[Rich Hunt]

14. well...

When you're forced to look at it, you're forced to think about it.

TV commercials also make me 'think'.

I mean, 'art is supposed to make you think' is pretty meaningless. All art makes you 'think', whether it's good or bad.

[On the Road]

15. At Christmas, I Was With My Brother's Family

(who are fundies, incidentally), and we were doing an activity involving lots of Christmas pictures.

On picture showed Santa Claus merrily flying his sleigh towards a quaint New England town featuring a large church steeple. My 8-year-old nephew happily blurts out "Santa Claus is a terrorist! Santa Claus is a terrorist!" It did sort of look like the planes on 911.

This image is deeply embedded in our national consciousness. It's exactly the type of thing pop art works with, and these things don't either surprise or shock me.

[They_LIHOP]

16. Shoulda been planes with Halliburton Logo's on the side...

That woulda made a more effective (and accurate) political commentary...

I cannot believe anyone on this board would be spiteful towards this artist for this art! I'm a Disney-loving Patriotic American, and I wholeheartedly support this man's right to produce whatever art his muse directs him towards! Lot's of great art was/is somewhat 'tasteless' and designed to inflame people's sensibilities. Years later, the prescience of such a piece of art may be proven, and the artist shown to be a sage...

17. believe it

the right wing does not have a monopoly on philistinism

[Rich Hunt]

22. erm....

I'm no philistine - I have a strong background in art. Not liking something doesn't make you a philistine, either.

I still think it's silly. It's a really bad example of 'provocative' art, and we only know about it because the media decided to make a big deal about it.

24. I was referring to this comment

Lot's of great art was/is somewhat 'tasteless' and designed to inflame people's sensibilities.

not to anyone's personal educated opinion.
I have no reason to assume your opinion is not educated.

[justjones]

21. Or, it stands for the Mickey Mouse government 9/11 investigation (n/t)

[Whoa_Nelly]

26. Good call, justjones!

You could be correct.

Wonder if one can email the student through the acadamy and ask what message he really was trying to convey?

Welcome to DU, justjones! :hi:

[Stuckinthebush]

19. I'm having a hard time being outraged by this

The twin towers is now an icon that is used to symbolize many things, but one is the destruction of power by the by-products of that power. I am not looking to debate that symbol, but nevertheless, it is present.

I'm not a particular fan of the art work, but it doesn't make me hopping mad.

[BadGimp]

23. HA HA!

.

it's funny ok

[kiahzero]

25. Small problem with your sig

Iraq did in fact use chemical weapons against the Kurds.

[thebigidea]

30. geezus, if this makes headlines - why hasn't my stuff shocked people silly

[knight_of_the_star]

31. Not sure what to think of it

I thought for a second a friend of mine who moved back to Scotland last summer did it, but he's attending the University of Sterling, it sounded to me like something he would do just to make a point. Maybe that's all the artist there is trying to do. Make a point.

[sydneyguy]

32. I guess it's art...

....in a very Dali/Christo/Burroughs/Britney Spears/cheap champagne kinda 20th century post-modern sense.

Certainly not art in a Da Vinci/Monet/Goethe/Wagner/Nick Drake/fine wine kinda-high-art sense.

Who said post-modernism is the god of the eternally talentless?

[teryang]

33. The superficial and transparent mythology

...of 911 is mickey mouse to most Europeans. It's like believing in the "lone nut" theory behind American political assassinations. Americans are so naive, the use of mickey is particularly appropriate.