13-08-2002 00:32									#1
	Swedish Socialist art - take a guess! Support Apolyton, buy GURPS/ Alpha Centauri

Having had an argument with a friend recently, I've decided to pass this issue on to the infallible wits of the Poly OT collective.

Here's the deal. Any Swede is supposed to shut their trap, and so is anybody else who happens to know what the, eh, art depicted below actually tries to refer to. I would like people who don't know to try to guess what this is.

Yes, once we get enough suggestions, I will be happy to tell you who got it right.

Some background data: It's a public work. The taxpayers paid for it. The Social Democrat Prime Minister has expressed how appropriate it is.

So, pretty please, could anybody be so bold and take a guess at what this masterpiece actually is.

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	13-08-2002 00:33									#2
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Here's another shot.

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	13-08-2002 00:34									#3
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And a third.

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	13-08-2002 00:36									#4
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I can tell you exactly what it is.

It's art.

	13-08-2002 00:37									#5
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It looks cool.

	13-08-2002 00:38									#6
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Since I am Swedish I'll shut my trap but I can give some extra info. Some true poet described them as "frozen doggydoo"

	13-08-2002 00:41									#7
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There's a sphinx-like quality to the figures, but they also look like they're emerging from the ornate paved surface. There's something slightly menacing about it. It looks old- ancient, and slightly forbidding.

Art is a subjective experience, and that's mine.

	13-08-2002 00:44									#8
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The meaning of art depends on the viewer more than the intentions of the artist. This peice could be symbolic of mortality or it could be the struggle of humanity to raise itself, etc.

	13-08-2002 00:45									#9
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A little more angular that Carl Milles...

	13-08-2002 00:52									#10
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soldiers, or poo.

	13-08-2002 00:57									#11
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They must be politicians. In Finland, it's been a trend since the 70s that a statue constructed to represent a politician can not look remotely like a human being. Old statues are allowed to continue their existence, of course, but new statues have to be... art.

	13-08-2002 00:59									#12
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Vikings... moving slowly.... migrating. Whatev... doesn't do much for me.

	13-08-2002 01:00									#13
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Looks to me like a graveyard.

	13-08-2002 01:23									#14
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Thank you, gentlemen. Some of you, no doubt, a geering up for careers as post-modernist art critics. Still, I'd like some suggestions as to what this particular piece of art tries to depict, not only the fairly trivial statement that it is art - I mean, what isn't?

	13-08-2002 01:27									#15
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You should see some of the big art sculptures in Eastbourne. Outside the art gallery are a group of very big posts in a circle, made with old groins from the beach. Which costs $10,000. In the town centre is a big rock. A very old big rock.

	13-08-2002 01:27									#16
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Pavlov is correct. It's frozen dog crap.

	13-08-2002 01:58									#17
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quote: Originally posted by moomin Thank you, gentlemen. Some of you, no doubt, a geering up for careers as post-modernist art critics. Still, I'd like some suggestions as to what this particular piece of art tries to depict, not only the fairly trivial statement that it is art - I mean, what isn't?

Why? It's up to the viewer.

Sure, it's interesting to hear the artist's motives to add new angles of appreciation, but very far from crucial. Take Holbien's "The Ambassadors" for example. Nearly 500 years on still nobody's got a clue what that's all about, but what an impact it makes.

That's not a post-modernist interpreatation, by the way. It's the bedrock of artistic appreciation gor the last 150 years. Art is not a DIY flat-pack sideboard from IKEA- it doesn't come with instructions telling the viewer what to think. Use your imagination.

	13-08-2002 02:16									#18
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quote: Originally posted by moomin not only the fairly trivial statement that it is art - I mean, what isn't?

A toilet signed by Duchamps is art, but only because he was making a point about how hackneyed the art world had become. (Some nitwit actually did this again in the 90s. ) Art has a message. And contrary to your stupidity, against which the gods themselves struggle in vain, art criticism isn't post-modern. There have been art critics since the first caveman painted his hand on a cliff wall.

	13-08-2002 02:20									#19
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ships? snails? trolls melted by the sun?

	13-08-2002 02:32									#20
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quote: Originally posted by chegitz guevara And contrary to your stupidity, against which the gods themselves struggle in vain

Contend. It's contend in vain, you commie ignoramus, you.

	13-08-2002 02:34									#21
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I'd vote for either clouds, or frozen poo.

And if this thing had been installed in an American city, I'd title it "Lawsuit Waiting to Happen".

	13-08-2002 02:43									#22
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They remind me of clouds... and carriers (those big ships, nothing that has to do with modems)... so obviously it's about Tove Jansson.

Hm. Random subconscious association at work, it seems. I actually had to wonder why I was thinking about Tove Jansson for some time...

	13-08-2002 02:47									#23
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quote: Originally posted by LightEning They remind me of clouds... and carriers (those big ships, nothing that has to do with modems)... so obviously it's about Tove Jansson.

The most horrifying interpretation so far. Take a bow, good Sir.

quote: I actually had to wonder why I was thinking about Tove Jansson for some time...

Did you now?

	13-08-2002 02:50									#24
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* Ari Rahikkala takes a bow (with arrows)

(couldn't resist a horrible pun after your good praises)

	13-08-2002 03:02									#25
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They look like shoes- perhaps representing capitalists trampling over the workers?

	13-08-2002 03:05									#26
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felled trees

	13-08-2002 03:06									#27
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They look like slugs, meandering across the pavement. Clearly some have been stepped on.

	13-08-2002 03:27									#28
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BTW, moomin, I take great exception to your comparing me to a Holocause denier. The irony, of course, is Irving is much closer to your politics than mine. I think you two would be perfectly happy misrepresenting the truth together.

	13-08-2002 03:53									#29
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I have no idea whatsoever what this can be... Is it in Stockholm, moomin?

But 'socialist art'? Really...

	13-08-2002 04:40									#30
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yep it's in Stockholm, on a square with a name that I can't reveal. Close to Strandvägen. sorry for stealing your answers, moomin.