Comments on The Day the Board Said No to the Flying Cars: An Artist's Fantasy About Seattle Art Museum

ms. graves,

can you have one of the stranger people currently in denver snap a photo of the Blue Bear? Is the bear good art to you? Does charles like blue bears?

http://www.deskproto.com/gallery/bear.htm

im so glad they bought the cars instead of blowing it on propping up the local artists.

I have to say, I was really underwhelmed by the new SAM when it opened. The ceiling-mounted cars to me seemed really banal, and a really bad selection as an image to "brand" the new SAM. One of my big gripes with the old one was that it seemed like they had so much, but not the space to show it all. Now I feel like they have all this space, and don't use it well -- though, granted, I haven't been to any of the special exhibitions since the place reopened. More art by local artists would have been great!

Has a rep for being disconnected and arrogant?

I think you mean ... still does.

Let the local artists starve, that's their view.

I was thinking about this piece when I walked by Club Lagoon earlier today...

SAM would much rather have a third rate piece by a big name artist than a first rate pice by an artist with a smaller reputation. That's what makes them a third rate museum.

The Wrights need to go to the sculpture park and pick up their litter. Too many of their donations are junk they no longer wanted from their backyard done on commission to drunks playing a practical joke on them and calling it art. And now, the joke is on the entire city.

Wow, you're right, for a fraction of the price, we could have covered the entire ceiling of the SAM lobby with this:
http://annahepler.typepad.com/.a/6a00d834e925f769e200e553e5680e8834-pi

Hell, they could've covered the ceiling of every room in the museum...

I say, if you're going to spend six milli, at least go for the tigers:
http://shrey27.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/wolves_tigers_010.jpg

Those fucking cars need a tow-truck! Every time I go there, I wonder who the idiots were that thought they were a good idea; I haven't renewed my membership. SOMEDAY in a new regime, somebody with balls will have the sense to "donate" them elsewhere, hopefully to an underwater reef exhibit...

@#7 I tend to agree, although when I saw them years ago on the estate off in the woods, they were kinda amusing; out in the open they're dumb.

wasn't everyone falling all over themselves with praise for that installation when the new SAM first opened, Jen Graves included?

She stated that the art has never looked better, and that the cars were the "splashiest of the art" and a "spectacle," like that was a good thing (Shock and Awe)

More recently she (4/17/08)she complained that the Guggenheim (suckers) displayed a copy, but still seemed enamored of the exploding cars, so why the change of heart now?

Perhaps there is an auto-themed casino in Las Vegas that would LOVE to display this abomination when SAM finally admits what an embarrassment those cars really are.

High-school caliber institutional critique on the part of PDL.

Grade-school level journalism on the part of JG.

Prenatal understanding of what SAM is/does by all.

I've been half-moved by these cars--the trick is to look up, and only up. The fault I believe is in the lack of full commitment to the piece. There are photographs of this peice (other editions, I think) in a long darkened corridor and is just explodes. It looks incredible. Istead we get a cheapened experience faded with flourescent lobby light and a cheapened peice of art getting second class treatment as spectacular decoration rather than what should be presented in a true and singular installation. If SAM is going to do something, they need to do it fully, and right or continue to catch hell.