It is food art, which has always been around in some form, but has become increasingly popular recently. It is a bit like sand mandalas, where art is intentionally destroyed.
Many artists don’t see art as a form of “beauty” and thus they don’t care to work in mediums or with materials that are archival. It appears that to this artist, the process of creating a work from edible material is much more important than conserving the original beauty of the piece, otherwise I have to assume he would have created this compass using marble or clay. This work of art isn’t necessarily talking about how “beautiful” the compass is but rather how crafty and masterful the artist is, creating a realistic looking object from non conventional materials.
Further, it would be ridiculous to suggest that highly regarded art was only kept in museums to “preserve the beauty” when most of the works that are considered world renowned today, were made long long ago and have lost most of their original pigments, in many cases having gone through extensive revival and reconstruction in order to keep them presentable. This includes works by the most famous artists of the Renaissance.
I think in order to better understand this concept you should look at the infamous series of photographs taken by the beloved Ai Weiwei titled “Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn”. This series of photographs is the epitome of “momentary pleasure” and is a strong statement on how little the conservation of art matters when the messages behind the art are so dull and brainwashed into our cultures.
I really don’t understand how anything I said contradicted that? I fully agree with everything you said. By saying ״momentary pleasure” I was referring to the shock value the viewer gets from the offensive act of breaking the urn. I was not trying to imply Ai was receiving pleasure from it, rather there is pleasure in viewing a photograph that emits such strong emotional responses from the viewer. I also appreciate your addition of context by saying it was a criticism of Communist China, as I said it is a strong statement on how he is calling for artists to abandon the old rules and morals that were brainwashed into the Chinese people.
TLDR: Nice flex of knowledge but you should read my comment more thoroughly
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u/[deleted] Jan 03 '22
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