Went to two different photo-galleries around town last week.
At the AGO(Art Galleryof Ontario) there was a special exhibit of works by 'Christo and Jeanne-Claude'. Here is a one of the pieces, titled 'Valley Curtain, Project in Colorado'.





Next day was the PUBLICity screening of Toronto Photobloggers. Here is Sam Javanrouh 's photograph titled 'Cloud makers' (involving no photoshop, just a chance encounter)




Would you say that the first piece is a tad 'pretentious'? I mean, thousands of dollars were given to artificially 'drape' cliffs, trees, buildings etc around the world and then photograph them. Granted the mixed-media sketches(left) done prior to the actual draping of the real thing(right) were interesting, but in the end, the photographs were essentially of things covered in a piece of cloth(?) and for the better part, tied up with strings! They say its "Art", but representing what?....someone suggested it reminded him of 'packing during a move'.
O-kay, unpleasant memories right there...but by just looking at the photograph and not having someone shout 'its ART its ART' in your ears, what would you, if anything, feel ? Would you smile wondering what the artist must have thought while doing this piece? or frown at the phoniness?

On the other hand how long did it take for you to understand the objective of the second, much simpler and may I say less expensive, photograph? Did you smile at how the angle of the camera created a story? Did you note the unobstrusive way it was captured- just as things are in the real world?

May be 'Art' is a more personal than an universal thing than we thought because the first piece was totally lost on me!
Then again its just two-cents from a smartass, so don't beat me down for it.