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The courts have spoken: You can't get around the indoor-smoking ban by pretending you're a theatrical production.
Jump to full article: Minneapolis (MN) Star Tribune, 2009-07-17
Author: JAMES LILEKS, Star Tribune
Intro: The Appeals Court has settled the issue for good with a decision you can sum up thusly: Oh, c'mon.
It's obvious the bar's managers were trying to get around the law, right? They weren't making a grand philosophical point about the nature of Art. They just wanted to let consenting adults light up a nail indoors without standing outside where the winter wind flays faces to the bone. But if they said it's art, well ... isn't it? . . .
But this goes against everything we've been told about Art for the past 50 years. Art is not a matter of conforming to academic rules set down by stern, gray-haired men in frock coats and watch chains; Art is what you say it is.
. . .
If the bar folks filmed the event as part of a 19-hour-long video installation, they would have had a better case. If they'd had a grant, even better. But no. Here we are: It's not art if the court says it isn't, and that's the part that ought to rankle.
On the other hand, on behalf of everyone who has paid admission to a gallery only to find big canvases covered in black paint and Lucky Charms -- let the lawsuits begin!
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