Kienholz's Useful Art #5: The Western Motel

A video about Useful Art #5: The Western Motel made by Edward Kienholz and Nancy Reddin Kienholz

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Portland
• Art
• Museum
• Kienholz

[badinia]

"It really *is* a sculpture." Yep.

[brentswitt]

@jimj122680 A physics Phd does not an art critic make.

[elandain]

The commentary was pretty stupid. I like a lot of Kienholz's work, but I don't think he intended people to spend five solid minutes psycho-analyzing this one tiny assemblage. The rest of his work has so much more social meaning, that this one borders on insignificant.

[daringbarons]

This is a very powerful piece to see in person. You just can't get the effect from the video. It blew me away the first time I saw it. I highly recommend seeing this at the Portland Art Museum before judging it. In my opinion, it was the best work in the entire gallery (and I'm not easily impressed by art.)

[evakiss2]

The point is that it IS trash.

Kienholz uses found objects to re-create an environment which conveys meaning.

Even the fact that it is made out of trash adds symbolic meaning as the materials.

Yes it sounds absolutely wanky... I understand how you can think that, I used to also, but you need to think about art conceptually. Commercial art sucks, yes, but often you just need to see past the creation of art.

CONTEXTUALIZED.

[jimj122680]

This is trash. How much did you morons pay for this garbage? Any fool could put this together and call it "art". Go to a psychiatrist, you need a mental evaluation since you think such trash is "art". Get help. Your mind is diseased.