I was in New Orleans a couple of weeks ago for the Workboat Show. I always try to go if I’m not working. It’s interesting and New Orleans is always a blast. 🙂

This year, the schedule was a little off, also I’ve been laid off and no idea when I’ll get any work. It could be months. Years even. I was hoping to find somebody hiring at the job fair. Or, talk up some of the recruiters at their booths. So, I went to the show, but I cut back. I didn’t stay as long as usual. I didn’t spend as much money as usual. I was only there 4 days instead of 5-6, but I still had a good time.

I flew in Wednesday and flew out Saturday. I had hoped to be able to do some tourist stuff on Friday since I had all day free. I wound up spending all day long driving down to Fourchon and back to pick up some paperwork from my last ship.

So Saturday morning I had to return the car. Lucky for me, I saw on the way that they were setting up for the Krewe of Jingle Christmas Parade. I was planning to spend the day in the WWII Museum. I had heard it was really good, especially the movie (Tom Hanks).

Because I really wanted to see the parade, I skipped the WWII Museum (I thought it would be worth more than 1-2 hours) and went to see the Ogden Museum of Southern Art instead.

It’s nice that all those museums are so close together. Almost right across the street from each other. There is also a Civil War museum right there and a contemporary arts museum there too. I’ll have to do those and the WWII Museum next time. 🙂

The Ogden Museum was interesting. They had an exhibit of photographer Bill Yates that was pretty good. They displayed a bunch of black and white photographs from a skating rink (FL in the 70s), reminded me of when I was growing up over there. There was another exhibit of Michael Meads that I really liked. A lot of those were huge drawings/paintings, mostly in black and white but very intricate. (Not allowed to take pictures of those exhibits).

I started from the top (nice view from the balcony) and worked my way down. Four floors, pretty compact. They had painting, photography, pottery, sculpture, glass and more. They had an exhibit by some school kids that I really liked. Made out of garbage (plastic) and painted. Sculptures of fantasy creatures and interesting objects. I thought it was very creative and nice to recycle.

They had some of the more traditional museum type paintings, they also had some strange stuff that really got me thinking about ‘what is art?’.

Some of the things they had I could see really took a lot of effort, a lot of thought, a lot of creativity, a lot of talent. I could see why someone would want to put them in a museum (and probably pay a bunch of money for them).

“Victim of Silence”- Mark Messersmith 2011

detail

But some of the things they had on display I thought “WTF???”. Why in the world would anybody want THAT hanging around? Much less pay anything for it! Why would anyone consider it ‘art”?

mud & paint on plywood by Jimmy Lee Sudduth

Those items looked to me like anybody could make them. A child could do better. A MONKEY could do better!

Why are these things sitting in a museum? What makes them worth it? What makes them ‘great’? I’m assuming if they’re in a museum, they’re considered to be ‘great art’. Why do the curators pay high dollars for these things when the majority of people who see them think the same way as I do and wouldn’t pay 10 cents for them? What makes them art and your kids refrigerator specials not?

So, what does make art?

And what makes ‘great’ art (worth of a spot in a museum)?

I’m really curious. Come on with your comments…