The (Tasteless) Displays in Heth

2/22/02

I'm sure all of you have walked through Heth Student Center and seen the wonderful paintings on display there. My main questions is; "What the hell were you on?" That art, in my opinion, is really more of an eyesore than aesthetically pleasing to anyone! I bet almost anyone here at Radford could create a more pleasing and interesting piece of work.

For those of you who have not had the chance to inspect this display of wasted paint, I shall describe it to you. Assume you enter from the Muse side of Heth. There, on the left under a couch is one of the offending paintings. It is a conglomeration of dark browns and greens thrown together in a random pattern. Also notice the very large canvass. The cost of 'painting' on such a large canvass and the gallons of paint used must be very high. The second one is on the right. It consists of a painted black circle surrounded by a black square.

Wow. Now that just boggles my mind! That is so deep! This too is on a fairly large canvas. Maybe the university was trying to get the most canvas area to cover walls, and forgot to actually look at what was on them!

It's Eleanor Roosevelt!Some people may argue that it is abstract art. Fair enough, but still, a painted circle surrounded by a square will only occupy a persons mind for so long - say five seconds? After that they've seen it and moved on. The collage of thick paint on the other wall may take up more of people's time, but no more than 15 seconds max. Why not stick these things upstairs or in some other room where it's not quite as prominent? Are these two paintings donations from alumni? Well, if so I can see why they didn't want them! I'd much rather see a painting of something. How about some sky, or mountains, a beach, the ocean? I'd agree with almost any nature scene because I believe it would go pretty well, even it was a landscape of Antarctica! Hell, you could leave the circle and square if you just added something to balance it out besides another monstrosity.

My point is that those pieces add very little to Heth or Radford in general, and are probably ignored by the vast majority of students. After walking through Heth day after day one can't help but notice them and start to actually look at them. After that, it's all over. Once you start looking at them and thinking about them, you really wonder where they came from, and hope that this world never has a mass onslaught of work by those starving artists.

Name: Brian Korte
Year: '00
Comments:
David's right (Hi, Dr. Hill!)
It's a conversation piece. And look! You've gone and written an article about it.

Name: rachel
Comments:
i like the sculture by davis (near powell and mguffey). at least it is colorful and creative.

Name: Adam Justice
Year: senior
Major: art
Comments:
obviously this person is illiterate in both the arts and aesthetics (it's evident that he is grammatically illiterate also considering his poor writing and spelling). the question isn't if these two pieces are art -- the question is who is looking at them. any open-minded, rational person can understand that art deals with not only the artist but also the audience. if he doesn't like them - fine, that's his right - but i think he defines his ignorance by saying these pieces are not artistic. if he wants a scene of Antartica, let him go there - i won't miss him at all. he totally disregards the sublime in art which is the doorway into an aesthetic experience. shed the usual Radford superficiality, buddy, and take the time and effort to dig a little deeper. you may be surprised what you see.

Name: Blitzkrieg!
Year: Aluminum
Comments:
I could wipe my ass and rub it on the wall.... er... in the name of art! ...maybe somebody beat me to it...

Name: alumni
Year: '00
Comments:
Wait, what's outside of Davis now? Umm..which one was Davis again?

Name: David
Year: '61
Major: Administrator
Comments:
Art is there for a reaction. It is not there because you should like or dislike it. The fact that you have a reaction and that it generates reactions is a good thing in and of itself. That is what a University is about, generating thinking. I wish there were more art (of all kinds) to stimulate reactions, both positive and negative. Come visit my office. You will have a reaction. There is no bad art.

Name: Alan
Comments:
Perhaps it did take quite a while to do.. minus the paint application. There *may* have been a great deal of thought put into it.. but I don't really think so. I think that for a great amount of thought, they could have come up with something better. I do not deny that it is art and unfortunatly it is. Of course, I could take a mug and smash it against the bricks of heath plaza and call it art. I could probably fling some pizza around in the terrace shops and call what ends up 'art'. My point is that art classification has gone so far that almost anything can be called art. I even heard of a time when some decomposing meat was called art! It should take more than canvass, paint and a little free time to create what we now call art.

Name: Jeff
Year: Senior
Major: English
Comments:
I'm torn here. While the painting doesn't look it, it probably did take a lot of thinking on the artist's part and gave the artist great satisfaction to create it. There's something that's true for all forms of art: the artists owes those whom receive art nothing. This is why books and movies are allowed to end without you knowing the ending. On the other hand, being readers and viewers we bring our personalities and desires to each visit to the artwork. I don't like this kind of art either. It's been going on for too long. There are too many paintings like this in Heth, which is becoming a monument to a car crash of Dadaism, surrealism and cubism on barbituates.

Name: Monkeyballz
Comments:
My apologies. During my last comment I had brain fart and meant to say, "Holy rabbit nipples and taco beef, it is the first thing visitors see when they come here!" Thank you.

Name: Monkeyballz
Comments:
Screw the walls of Heth. Did you see whats outside on the lawn of Davis Hall? Flaming, rainbow, frilly, towers of hell! Holy rabbit nipples, the first thing when visitors come is that!

Name: Brian Korte
Comments:
It's art. Why? For art's sake. Leave it be. Of course you're entitled to your opinion, but isn't there anything else to write about?

Name: brandon
Comments:
I hope they didn't pay for that so-called art in the picture. Sheesh.