Soccer Dad

The critically acclaimed for a plinth

A what? (h/t Dave Durian)
Just when you thought the art world couldn't become even more bizarre ...

A budding sculptor has expressed his bafflement after Royal Academy experts judged his sculpture to have less artistic merit than the plinth on which it was stood.

David Hensel's pleasure at having his One Day Closer To Paradise sculpture chosen turned to shock when he visited the exhibition of his work – and found the sculpture, a large laughing head, missing.

It appeared the slate plinth, a rectangular cube except for a small protuberance designed to prevent the head from rolling away, had caught the attention of the judges, who thought the plinth was a 'quirky little piece'.

I know the complaints about works of art like look like little more than spilled paint. We've been hearing them for at least 30 years. But this is absurd on a couple of levels.

1) The curators of the museum thought they had a complete display. Don't they know what a plinth is? How could they not have realized that the object had not yet arrived?
2) The same question applies to the judges. What is quirky about a display plinth? Have artistic values been so subverted that judges and critics can easily fool themselves into seeing art where there isn't any?

UPDATE: featured in this week's Carnival of the Vanities.

Technorati tags: Plinth, Art, Culture.