£460,000 Forest Pitch hosts its TWO matches

Doonhamer · 26 Aug 2012 at 10:29

Maybe some of you heard about this previously but as it was happening locally to me I thought I would see what the opinion on here was about it, mainly to see if you all thought it was as big a waste of time and money and everybody else I know.

Such a large sum of money, on what seems to be nothing more than a chance for an artist to blow some cash that isn't theirs. At a time when money is tight and the money could have went to local clubs who are desperate for cash to build facilities(that last longer than two games) to encourage kids into football in an area where its the second choice sport.

BBC Article

Azza · 26 Aug 2012 at 10:55

Who's paid for it?

Doonhamer · 26 Aug 2012 at 11:19

The artist hopes "Forest Pitch" will provide a contrast to the new buildings being created for the Olympics.
Scotland based artist Craig Coulthard was selected as the Scottish winner of a £460,000 lottery funded commission, for "Artists taking the lead", a major project for the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad.

From an earlier BBC article. Is as much as I know about where the money came from.

reflux · 26 Aug 2012 at 11:25

I think it's a cool idea, but it's a bit of a waste of money.

Doonhamer · 26 Aug 2012 at 11:28

Considering the capacity was 1,000 spectators and, admittedly this is only a assumption until figures turn up somewhere, I would be amazed if it was even close to that many attending. It just seems a really indulgent way to spend some money that could have gone on a much better use, either sporting or culturally.

fez · 26 Aug 2012 at 12:59

God I have an intense hatred of this sort of art. I would hate it a little less if we didn't have to listen to some jacked up bull **** some useless "artist" concocted. "Ummm I don't actually have any artistic talent to create something amazing so I ummm, went down the conceptual path".

I really don't have any idea why we give such huge amounts of money to "artists" to create rubbish like this when everyone else has to do it on their own.

Do you see recording artists getting half a million from the lottery to make an album that no one wants to listen to but means something deep to the artist. Art shouldn't be sustained by giving talentless idiots money to indulge their own self importance and head up arsery.

ScarySquirrel · 28 Aug 2012 at 15:41

Why not spend the money on new facilities that kids could actually use? Ridiculous!

mhowarth · 28 Aug 2012 at 15:56

Such a huge waste of money and time, it's sad really. Could've made a lot of 5 a side pitches in cities to get kids playing

strocky · 4 Sep 2012 at 12:24

It's amazing the crap that gets spunked on "art installations"

The funny thing is, through work we get involved with manufacturing "art concepts" and the amount of times you don't get the order because "they don't have the budget", whereas in fact they want to get it manufactured for as cheap as possible leaving more cash for themselves

shipinabottle · 4 Sep 2012 at 13:21

Wow, that is a massive waste of money.

Can think of a 100 ways off the top of my head to use the money.

For **** sake, common sense has to prevail surely in scenarios like this.

tom_e · 4 Sep 2012 at 13:25

What a load of jumped up balls.

ringo747 · 4 Sep 2012 at 13:34

Its a bit like locally at the Giants Causeway some German engineer stuck a few red and yellow flags into the ground and it was branded as modern art.

Total farce. £150,000 for this...
http://www.u.tv/news/Flags-give-new-perspective-of-Causeway/abc1ad88-ce9a-47d1-8154-a345cf807cff

fez · 4 Sep 2012 at 15:15

Art is one of the only areas where people are not expected to produce work that is worthy of investment. We seem to view artists as poor creatives that society has abandoned in favour of capitalist ideals.

Give them a load of money to produce something that:

a) is pretty much always horrendous.
b) requires a long explanation of the emotions and thoughts behind it as there is not a ******* chance that you will thinking anything other than huh and, is this the installation.
c) costs way more than you could ever imagine it cost them to produce.
d) has a limited shelf life so that you can make up so **** about it representing the fleeting nature of life and the transience of everything.

God I hate "sponsored art". Art should be something that people enjoy because it appeals to themselves, not something we have pushed in front of our noses by someone saying: "Look how unrelated to its intended message I have managed to make my piece, I'm deep and understand things on a level you don't which"