
Goldschmied & Chiari meant for this mean something. Unfortunately they may have a problem for two polar opposite reasons. First of all a tenant of Conceptual Art is that the artist creates and the museum finishes the piece (in that the idea extends from the mind to the exhibition). Their piece was a critique, so maybe the custodians were actually completing the art beyond the museum by agreeing with the artists that the 1980s were a decade to do away with. Except that the custodians might actually be the new artists in this case because their action goes beyond what the artists intended. Beyond authorship, which is always a problem with Conceptual Art (add into the fact that Damien Hirst is kind of a scumbag), their second problem, even though it was a criticism of something that happened 30 years ago, is that the work is so unrecognizable in today´s terms as being art that someone actually threw it away.
Now, with this latter issue, it isn´t the first time that this has happened. Paintings have been thrown away and sculptures dismantled, so this happens to more traditional pieces as well. But let´s just ask something about Conceptual Art here with regards to Conceptual Art pushing the boundaries: when does art become unrecognizable, and if it does so, does it remain art? Conceptualist artists will say that everything is art so the question is moot. But I say that isn´t true because we must live today and without today tomorrow is irrelevant. We can only push the boundary until the next nano-second, or whatever is comprehendible to the human mind. Therefore, if something doesn´t meet today´s standards of comprehension, even if it´s avant-garde, then it simply doesn´t meet today´s standards of comprehension. In other words, there is something that isn´t art, and this is the definition: something that pushes art so far forward that it isn´t recognizable by today´s standards. In the end, Goldschmied & Chiari can take this as a compliment in that their work is ahead of its time. But at the same time, what´s the point? If it is ahead of its time, and if it´s entirely possible that the piece might not make it until its time is due, then as a piece of art it is, in fact, a failure. Art must be relevant to contemporary standards and it must be understandable in context.