Man Walks Through Peanut Butter Art Exhibit

I like some abstract art, I even make abstract art. This is not art. Any jerk can spread peanut butter.This is pretentious garbage. They should have scraped it up and told the "artist" to get lost the first time someone stepped in it. Better yet, not allowed the moron who thought up this installation any access to the museum. It is time to stop giving people like this a voice. Go get a job, and leave art to real, talented artists.

I could not agree more with Rumson. This is not art at all. In fact, by not erecting a fence it seems like it is more of a trap to extort money from anyone unlucky enough to step in it. If this IS art, then the act of stepping in it is ALSO art in it's own way.

Art?

Two thousand jars of peanut butter could have fed a hell of a lot of people.
Instead, someone spreads it on a floor in a gallery and calls it "art." And its been done before?
So what does it mean? Where is the symbolism? What statement was the "artist" trying to make? And this jerk has been making this same "artistic statement" since 1962. And people have stepped in it before.
You would have thought after 49 years someone would have realized spreading Skippy on a museum floor was a stupid idea.
Wim Schippers is lucky he hasn't been sued for causing a visitor to fall or at least ruining someone's shoes.

Listen, if you;re gonna make a peanut butter floor and not mark where it is, it's your own fault. Also, has the same peanut butter been in there since 1962? That's pretty gross.

wait... created in 1962?? so this guy fell in 50 year old peanut butter? that's just naaaasssty...

This is as logical is digging a pot hole in your parking lot, and expecting people to pay whenever they accidently drive into it. But to play devil's advocate here, leaving a trail of how many footstep? How oblivious can you be to take multiple steps before you realized you've stepped in a basin of peanut butter?

Yes, to all the above.

Modern art is a largely a scam perpetrated on willing dupes. These artists play the role of the tailors in "The Emperor's New Clothes." When anyone dares to point out the emperor is naked, they're shouted down as philistines who don't "get" art.

Rumson, garbage IS art:

http://www.monstersandcritics.com/arts/news/article_1191.php/Artwork_Containing_A_Bag_Of_Trash_Was_Thrown_Out

Look guys, it's art. It's just not art that's demonstrative of technical skill, which is what most people identify as art. Also, it's kind of lame, and the shoeprints should really be left in instead of fixed at this guy's expense. Every element of an installation is supposed to be carefully considered, especially placement. If this artist wanted to put a crapton of peanut butter on the floor without a fence, he needed to be aware that someone might step in it and be prepared for the eventuality.

Unbelievable. According to those pictures, the exhibit isn't even marked. Who the H E double hockey sticks would be looking for a vat of peanut butter on the floor when walking through a museum. Who purchased the exhibit in the first place and what were they on? Has this peanut butter seriously been sitting there for 49 years?! If the artist is still alive, he is getting the last laugh for sure.

Instead of making people pay for their "damages", they should accept those changes as part of the meaning of the artwork

Jeffos;

I'm all for garbage as art, I collect metal and car parts to make art. This is just GARBAGE.

And BB;

There is a difference between simple or minimalist art and someone spreading peanut butter on a floor. Some of my favorite works of art are simple. This is beyond simple. It is a spill in an aisle that someone took credit for.

It's art because a pretentious hack managed to fool a gullible museum director and cow a sheep-like public? Even if Rembrandt filled a tub with peanut butter, that wouldn't make it art.

When people can't tell the difference between art and garbage (because there literally is none), we've gone way too far down the post-modernist, deconstruction rabbit hole. Simply asserting "It's art!" doesn't make it so.

If it was a floor made of pearls that would make sense. Margaritas ante porcos.

Pathetic. How can this be considered "art"? The "pricey installation" is crazy and the visitor who walked into it will never have to pay.

I don't get why so many people hate art that isn't a pretty picture. Simply asserting "It's art!" does make it so as Duchamp proved almost 100 years ago. If you care to comment as to the quality or message of the art, do so. Or you can just blindly hate what you don't immediately understand, as this is the internet.

That said, put a rope around it. I think that's far less detracting than having people walk through it.

I did that too with a wet cement in college. I was not fully awake. :/ I got my sneakers all uh wet and dirty! :(

Duchamp proved what is attributed to Barnum - "There's a sucker born every minute" - and Mencken - "Nobody went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public."

Duchamp and his fellow travelers wanted to destroy the idea of art by making "art" that was literally meaningless and nonsensical. He sawed off the branch he was standing on.

It's a nonsensical, self-defeating argument. And this "art" is just another iteration of the same pointless exercise in "artistic" narcissism.

And I'll bet you the artist expected to be paid in real money -- not in Monopoly money, or a check with "THIS IS NOT A CHECK" scrawled on it. And I'll further wager the museum isn't going to let the visitor argue that walking across the peanut butter was performance art.

It's common to have peanut butter stick to the roof of one's mouth. But I never thought that peanut butter would stick to the floor of one's foot.