[crucini]

You call in a hazmat team to dispose of it.

The article leads off with the chocolate and soap busts, which at least show artistic merit, unlike nailing deli meat to the wall. However the artistic merit is unaffected by the material. IF you think these busts are notable sculpture, preserve by making a mold and casting them in a durable resin.

That preserves the sculptural form, but not the material. This pattern is shown in bronze statues (generally the original was sculpted from clay) and in plastic and resin toy figures (original often sculpted from wax).

The problem is the busts probably aren't worth preserving sculpturally (they're competent, but not evocative), and part of the perceived "art value" is being made of a weird material.

I'll use risky terminology here: If a REAL artist wanted a "chocolate bust" - since the bust is purely a visual artifact - he would sculpt or mold it of a suitable material and paint it to look like chocolate. That's what a movie or theme park would use to convey the IDEA of a chocolate bust.

[mturmon]

The artist you have noted, Janine Antoni, did the famous piece Gnaw (a huge cube of gnawed chocolate) as well as the chocolate busts you mention. Here's a summary of her intentions:

http://www.artnews.com/2013/02/21/chocolate-self-portraits-b...

Smelling the chocolate, and indeed the possibility of a transgressive viewer licking it, is definitely part of the piece. Brown paint wouldn't cut it.

On the subject of smelly rooms, I was able to experience the chocolate room by Anya Gallacio (http://beautifuldecay.com/2014/05/27/anya-gallaccio-creates-...), and let me say, a whole gallery room that smelled of chocolate was highly memorable. I did not lick the wall, but it was allowed. Delightful!

[crucini]

It seems to me that if the smell of chocolate is part of the desired experience, you design and render that smell. Random link on artificial smells: https://foodbabe.com/2015/02/16/the-behind-the-scenes-market...

What kind of chocolate smell do we want? How sweet? How much vanilla note? How much burnt component? How concentrated or diffused in space? We probably don't want the smell to change over time, just like you probably don't want the colors in a painting to change over time.

To me, making the artifact out of chocolate is a bad way of creating a chocolate smell. The exposed surface area will offgas and oxidize, resulting in a diminishing and changing smell. It seems lazy; it also seems like "confusing the map with the territory".

[zachrose]

Yours is a consistent and reasoned approach to making art.

But a lot of what makes modern and contemporary art exciting (for me, anyways) is an ongoing flirtation with what's authentic or made of "real" materials, and what it means to value that, and how artworks are not fixed artifacts but ongoing systems.

If the chocolate bust challenges collectors and scientists to discover new things about preserving chocolate, then that discovery becomes part of the work's story.

[mturmon]

Because the artist invited the public to lick the chocolate-covered walls of her sculpture, it's safe to assume she wanted it to change over time, and it seems evident that real chocolate was required. For words to that effect, see her quote in the link I offered above, or her statement at: http://visarts.ucsd.edu/faculty/anya-gallaccio

In general, underestimating the intentionality of top-tier artists is a losing proposition. Calling them "lazy" without even casually experiencing their work looks to me like typical nerd philistinism.

[whywhywhywhy]

There is a reason installations list the materials they're made of in the title card.

Take a work like Love Remembered [1] this could have been easily created using actual pills but making the piece with actual pills is a completely different work of art than painstakingly sculpturing a representation of real pills. The same way Crematorium [2] could have been recreated using sculptured cigarette butts and a synthetic smoke smell but it wouldn't be the same experience as walking up to the piece and about a meter or so away the stale stench of smoke hits you (the piece genuinely reeks) and knowing that it's real stale cigarettes.

[1] http://www.damienhirst.com/images/hirstimage/DHS6220DtlL1_77...

[2] http://www.damienhirst.com/images/hirstimage/DHS469rt1_771_0...

[hanniabu]

I'd assume you could paint it with chocolate as well though

[arthur_pryor]

> The problem is the busts probably aren't worth preserving sculpturally (they're competent, but not evocative), and part of the perceived "art value" is being made of a weird material.

> I'll use risky terminology here: If a REAL artist wanted a "chocolate bust" - since the bust is purely a visual artifact - he would sculpt or mold it of a suitable material and paint it to look like chocolate. That's what a movie or theme park would use to convey the IDEA of a chocolate bust.

this is where many (myself included) will disagree with you. i don't think it's reasonable to discount the artistic value of making something of weird material. like any broad category of choice, that sort of thing won't inherently increase or decrease the worth of the piece. but as other posters have noted, that choice can be an inherently important part of the work's meaning, and it's not always possible to achieve the same thing through more durable means.

i think of art as a constant ongoing global conversation. it requires context. it can't be appreciated in a vacuum. sometimes part of the communication is "out of band" for the ostensible medium (think about the way body language or vocal delivery can undercut or augment the meaning of a set of spoken words). i don't believe there's such a thing as an inherently universally meaningful piece of art, or a truly timeless piece of art, and i don't really buy this idea that a "real" artist will do the best work within the proscriptions of the sorts of art that have come before. subversion (and even cheekiness) can be important artistic ideals as worthwhile as any other.

as implied above, i think all meaning in art is inherently deeply subjective. i think it's fun to talk about it like it's objective, and to talk shit about the "other side"'s viewpoint (whoever the other side may be in a given argument). but the other replies to your comment illustrate why i don't actually believe in the ideas of "real" art, or "high" art, or whatever.

i do believe that some art is inherently ephemeral, and some aspects of some more durable art are inherently ephemeral (e.g. performances of notated or recorded works). i don't believe that it's inherently crazy or unartistic to make something out of bologna that's unpreservable, because preservability isn't an inherent component of all good art.

[theoh]

You're talking dismissively about art as if it's something about which anyone's casual opinion is equally valid.

Conceptual art is an intellectual tradition, like most human activities, and you 're only revealing your own prejudices and ignorance when you dismiss it.

I'm not saying "leave it to the professionals to discuss art", but please at least have the politeness to be aware that there's a bit more to this than reactionary ideas about mimetic "artistic merit" or talent.

[vacri]

> If a REAL artist ... That's what a movie or theme park would [do]

... because theme parks are noted for the quality of their art.

[algesten]

Why is the bust a "purely visual artifact"? Why do you put the visual constraint on it?