I was gonna put this in the self-esteem thread, since it makes me feel a little better about myself... This artwork... ...titled "New York City I," created by Mondrian in 1941, is an interlacing of different colored adhesive tapes. It was first displayed by the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in 1945, and has been at the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen K20 museum in Dusseldorf since 1980. Ever since it was first hung, it has been displayed upside-down, like so: No one noticed. No curator, no fellow artist, no one walking through either museum on either continent, no member of the industry's media...not a single educated soul. Not for 3/4 of a century. "The thickening of the grid should be at the top, like a dark sky," curator Susanne Meyer-Buser explained, per the Guardian. "Once I pointed it out to the other curators, we realized it was very obvious. I am 100% certain the picture is the wrong way around." [I wonder how confident a tone that last sentence was said in.] The thing is, now they cannot hang it the right way. "The adhesive tapes are already extremely loose and hanging by a thread," Meyer-Buser said. "If you were to turn it upside down now, gravity would pull it into another direction." Ms. Meyer-Buser recovered nicely by adding "And it's now part of the work's story." Yup. A wonderful story of superior intellect and refined tastes, passed down through the generations. MSN.com
Ah, now, I can see where they would have hung it the first way.....the "thickening of the grids" at the bottom, like sludge. I'll never understand....art. At least, some art. Years ago, at a major art show one of the top winners was an old road map, creased, stained and torn, held together with old yellowing cellophane tape that was coming loose and hanging in shreds. It was hailed as "wildly imaginative", "refreshing", and, if I remember correctly, something along the lines of "a deep look into the American Psyche". Darn, and there I had almost the exact thing in my car glove compartment ......... I coulda been a contender in the art field. That's me, a day late and a dollar short.