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Friday Fun Thread for October 28, 2022

Be advised; this thread is not for serious in depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Unless the 'message' and 'meaning' of the work are tied up in the knowledge that it was a particular artist who made it, or the exact materials that were used, then making a new one in the exact same configuration should be precisely as meaningful to the viewer as the original.

You... don't accept the premise of "the original" in the first place, do you?

The original is the one the artist made with his own hands.

But either the original has some special meaning to it that a reproduction wouldn't, or they can make a copy and it will be just as meaningful.

I'm questioning that "the original" is of any special value in this instance.

The special meaning of the original is that it's the original. Being made by the artist's own hands is the point. This isn't a new development in art.

But in this case, there's really nothing about the original that can only be captured by that particular artist's unique talents.

It's colored tape, arranged in a particular layout.

The process the artist used is EASILY reproducible.

Why would people's feelings about the work change whether the original artist's hands were involved or not?

The ship of Theseus is an age old philosophical argument. Convincing reproductions that pass professional scrutiny get treated like the original until the deception has been discovered, but nobody who saw the forgery instead of the original feels different from how they'd have felt seeing the original. If it protects the work and gives the audience the chance to see the work as it was meant to be seen, what is the issue? I think what it comes down to is do you want to actually see a Mondrian, or is it more important to you to tell people you have seen a Mondrian?

The ship of THeseus is a far cry from just building another ship and calling it the ship of Theseus.

And I would say recreating that Mondrian is a far cry new dawn from making another piece of art and calling it that Mondrian.

I've lost you here.

It would be acceptable, in case the artwork was damaged, to reglue the strips in place. It's called restoration. Making another one wouldn't be the original, it's what they call a "reproduction" and you can't hang that up in a museum as an original.

Are you really talking down to me? "Reproductions" get hung up in museums as originals all the time. They are called forgeries and nobody gives a shit until some people with microscopes come along and prove it. There are, 100% guaranteed, "reproductions" hanging in museums right now and nobody knows or cares.

Unless, can you just tell from the, I don't know, aura? From the sense that the piece you just viewed didn't instill the exact right feelings and thoughts in you, and so it must be a reproduction? Because if you can you should hit me up in PMs - with your ability to sense authenticity and my ability to understand more than a single perspective we could make serious coin.

if all it takes to create a "reproduction" of a famous piece of art is some dude with sticky tape, that calls the whole art scene into question.

There's a joke about the mechanic fixing the car. "But all you did is tighten one nut! What's 1000 bucks for?" "One buck for tightening the nut. The rest is for knowing that this is what I had to do."

To create a reproduction of an art piece, you need, at the minimum, an art piece to reproduce. Otherwise all the reproductionists could just host their own works in their museum.

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