1531 Artistic Record

Occasionally things we do seem to merge. Or maybe they just take on different meanings because of intent. A white lie, where you fail to tell your mom that new piece of clothing makes her look hideous, becomes a kindness when you find out how much she spent on it.
No one can deny you were dishonest and so divergent from one of the Ten Commandments. But sometimes one commandment trumps another, as in, “Honor your father and mother.”
So it was the other day when I heard of a new piece of art from Florida conceptual artist Brian Feldman. He took honoring his father to new heights. He spent the whole of Fathers Day, 24 hours, giving his dad a hug while the two stood in the middle of a boxing ring.
Feldman called it, "a healing and transformative experience". And crucially here, he also called it art.
Which is funny, and goes back to that intent thing. Because to me it sounds less like art and more like an attempt at a Guinness world record. Which is the ultimate in anti-art.
Then again, I suppose there's not much difference in installing cheesy fabric gates in an entire park like that Christo and Jeanne-Claude did and having a Midwestern town build the world's biggest cheese pizza. Art is in the eye of the beholder. And if the beholder happens to also be Guinness, well, why not?
But I do like the idea of 5,000 people linked in a mile long conga chain being called a conceptual art creation. And if Brain Feldman wants to call hugging artistic, I'm all for that too. But maybe he shouldn't call it conceptual art.
Since it was his father, maybe he should have called it Pop Art.
America, ya gotta love it.