6/4/2005: Belgian nest artist spotted in Britain

Undertoad • Jun 4, 2005 2:51 pm
Image

A month ago we had a rather inferior nest artist in China, who was trying to make a point about isolation. But a year ago we had first seen Belgian artist Benjamin Verdonck performing in a nest constructed on an office building. Verdonck is clearly the superior of the nest artists and proves it with this appearance last week on the Rotunda building in Birmingham UK.
wolf • Jun 4, 2005 2:53 pm
Is he face down on a piece of plexi or something?
xoxoxoBruce • Jun 4, 2005 6:25 pm
Looks like his legs are strapped to something that may even extend up under his coat. :eyebrow:
chrisinhouston • Jun 4, 2005 6:29 pm
I guess the windows are taped on the inside for safety.

Nice job of nestbuilding!
Elspode • Jun 4, 2005 10:38 pm
I want to see him flap his arms and fly up there with a big hunk of material in his mouth. Later, he should have to regurgitate something into the mouths of five babies as well.
capnhowdy • Jun 5, 2005 9:23 am
I appreciate art in any form, but I must say this is my least favorite. Very well done tho, I must add. I wish they would place odd looking creatures in them instead of themselves.
It would be super entertaining to watch this guy fall out and splatter.
I've always wondered how hard it is to get the building owner to cooperate...........
Trilby • Jun 5, 2005 2:59 pm
Well, if no-one else is going to say it, I will. This is just plain stupid. There.
jinx • Jun 5, 2005 4:07 pm
What's up with the Dr. Evil outfit?
LCanal • Jun 5, 2005 11:15 pm
Is that the Lesser Spotted Belgian Artist?
Sweets • Jun 6, 2005 1:18 am
Yeah, he is definitely laying on something. You can tell by the "strappy" looking deals on his legs there, and it almost looks squarish under his Dr. Evil outfit.

What's this supposed to represent? Fly free from corporations?

Whatever it mean's, it's stupid.
warch • Jun 6, 2005 11:11 am
Is that the Lesser Spotted Belgian Artist?

Checking my field notes: with the small conical bill and prominent tuft I would say so.
staceyv • Jun 6, 2005 11:15 am
I'm sick of people calling stuff "art" that is just retarded, stupid, senseless, useless and/or psychotic.
If I poop in my hand and run it through my hair, take a picture and call it "le bad hair day", can I be an artist, too?
wolf • Jun 6, 2005 11:54 am
Only if you are not already in an inpatient psychiatric facility when you do it. In an inpatient psychiatric facility, that is called "Tuesday."
warch • Jun 6, 2005 1:46 pm
It all went to hell when art stopped being pretty. ;)
lookout123 • Jun 6, 2005 2:50 pm
wolf - you are going to have to pay to clean my monitor.

and for the rest of you... shut up, you shallow uncouth americans. you are simply jealous that you cannot understand the brilliance of european culture.
dkb218 • Jun 6, 2005 4:44 pm
lookout123 wrote:
...you are simply jealous that you cannot understand the brilliance of european culture.


Yes, alas we the uncouth really can't wrap our brains around such wonderful, simulating European masterpieces such as this...:eek: :headshake
Queen of the Ryche • Jun 6, 2005 4:55 pm
A bunch of sticks and twine stuck together with spit, glopped onto the side of a building with Gray Lesser Spotted Belgian doing a stop-motion swan dive out the spittle riddled opening is "brilliant"? Well then call me crap loving, since I prefer Renoir, Degas, and Ansel Adams to a bunch of twigs and saliva.
warch • Jun 6, 2005 7:50 pm
well...ya gotta admit, that's a lot of spit. I'm a bit impressed.
Maybe he's trying to attract a mate.
kerosene • Jun 6, 2005 8:21 pm
And here I go with the unpopular opinion: I like it. I can't really understand why, but something about the nest itself looks pretty neat on the side of that building. Whatever the artist was trying to represent, he crafted something neat.

then again, I also liked the big pile of bananas in London. I would have liked to stand in fornt of it and smell it. Something about the physical aspects of that kind of art is attractive to me. Not so much the message, but the actual physical thing that is created (even if it is kind of stupid).
glatt • Jun 6, 2005 9:22 pm
I like it too. It's neat. And different.

But I wouldn't want my tax dollars supporting it.
kerosene • Jun 6, 2005 11:18 pm
There are worse things our tax dollars could (and do) support. I dunno. I guess I just liked the idea of a giant bird's nest much better than that of some of the other things our tax money goes toward, but that is a subject meant for another thread, I suppose.

Anyway, I like it. No I don't want half my income going to it, but it doesn't, so that's cool.
:)
wolf • Jun 7, 2005 1:21 am
case wrote:
Anyway, I like it. No I don't want half my income going to it, but it doesn't, so that's cool.
:)


Not that you're directly aware of. We still hand out shitloads of foreign aid. Who knows what the foreigners do with it? And we're still owed for WWII, or was that finally determined to be unrecoverable?
capnhowdy • Jun 7, 2005 7:41 am
wolf wrote:
Not that you're directly aware of. We still hand out shitloads of foreign aid. Who knows what the foreigners do with it? And we're still owed for WWII, or was that finally determined to be unrecoverable?



Correct.
Maybe we should just "shut up" and become "couth" enough to just forget the debts from the past. Let those idiots use their money to create substandard mockeries of nature instead of paying their goddam bills.
I'll chose uncouth over irresponsible anyday.
Even though these people don't have talent to produce real art, you gotta hand it to them: they still continue to submit these dumbass exhibits shamelessly. In most of their country I guess stupidity is accepted as the norm. If they keep trying maybe one day they can actually create some real art, and eventually come closer to the superior talent and intelligence levels that we americans enjoy.................. :headshake
wolf • Jun 7, 2005 2:35 pm
The piss-christ guy was an american wasn't he? And NEA funded? And the Virgin Mary Dung "painting" another American artistic triumph.

It's gotten so you can't get a good picture on black velvet any more. I really wanted that white tiger to go with the Elvis ...
warch • Jun 7, 2005 3:38 pm
Right on, Case!

Serrano's Piss Christ is actually a really fascinating image. It is provokative, personal, and there is a lot to discuss. It a beautiful photograph. I'm glad I helped to pay for part of his grant.

I'm a bit wary when governments get uppity about degenerate art. It has historically been bad.
And why should governments support the arts? Because they (images, text, drama, music) are our family pictures. You might not like the whole album, but when the house is burning down, its the stuff you race to save- its the stuff with meaning.
capnhowdy • Jun 7, 2005 4:12 pm
I reckon I just have this "thing" about the nest art.
xoxoxoBruce • Jun 7, 2005 9:11 pm
capnhowdy wrote:
snip--
Even though these people don't have talent to produce real art, you gotta hand it to them: they still continue to submit these dumbass exhibits shamelessly. In most of their country I guess stupidity is accepted as the norm. If they keep trying maybe one day they can actually create some real art, and eventually come closer to the superior talent and intelligence levels that we americans enjoy.................. :headshake
I'll bet they all have groupies. ;)
LCanal • Jun 7, 2005 9:59 pm
Even though these people don't have talent to produce real art, you gotta hand it to them: they still continue to submit these dumbass exhibits shamelessly. In most of their country I guess stupidity is accepted as the norm. If they keep trying maybe one day they can actually create some real art, and eventually come closer to the superior talent and intelligence levels that we americans enjoy..................

An example of superior American art which is a little knowm landmark in the City Of Spires (Oxford) also in Britain. It was erected in 1986. http://www.headington.org.uk/history/misc/shark.htm