»In which the art is what you make [of] it

&tThe current installation at the Tate Modern fascinates me, although I have not seen it. Reading about the reactions that visitors have to seeing Doris Salcedo's massive five-hundred-foot-fissure in the imposing Turbine Hall reminds me that art is in the eye (and sometimes dexterity) of the beholder.

Word of [another] mishap prompted a discussion among visitors of whether it might be wise to erect barriers around the exhibit, or seal it with some kind of Plexiglass-type material.

No, was the consensus.

“I think that would completely ruin the excitement of it,” said Rachel Laine, whose 2-year-old son, Charlie, was peering into the crack, searching for crocodiles. “The whole concept of why people are coming here is to see a huge concrete floor with a crack in it.”

I take this quotation, and the preceding narrative, from Sarah Lyall's excellent article in yesterday's New York Times, which I am only reading today.

Art is subjective, as is pornography, as is marketing (or is that art?). Eye of the beholder, caveat emptor, look before you leap.