The Somerville Gates

Like the previous item, I learned of this internet phenomenon from an MSM source (the NYTimes). Much cooler than the overtouted Gates in New York's Central Park, a blogging type named Hargo made his own Gates, which have been viewed by over 100,000 people (photographically, that is). My favorite part of the progression is the Media Gates.

The original "Gates" do not impress InstantReplay. Anything that could be designed by a computer and executed by unskilled laborers is not art; it's aesthetics. Not that there's anything wrong with aesthetic improvements to public spaces. But I consider that a few key elements of great art are absent from The Gates:

1. Permanance. Great art lasts generations, if not ages. That's what separates it from pop culture.
2. Difficulty. Great art cannot be easily executed or imitated. Can you paint The Last Supper from scratch with your computer imaging program or your paintbrush? Can you chisel out a single gargoyle from the edifice of Notre Dame de Paris? Can you compose a symphony?
3. Value. Great art has great value (with some exceptions). This is, for instance, why we have a separate category for "literature"; it is not art in the purer sense. If they wanted, the makers could churn out gates by the million and sell them for $99.99 apiece. Only their (admirable) unwillingness to sell out to commercialism has kept a veneer of artsiness in an otherwise industrial product.

Hargo's imitation of The Gates is not flattery; it's mockery. The fact that so famous an icon can be so simply imitated deflates its faux mystique and strips it of the veil of artistic snobbery.

I have nothing against Christo and Jeanne-Claude; I merely place them in the same category as Barry Bonds rather than Claude Monet. Entertaining the public is not the same as creating great art.