Editor’s note: This letter is in response to “Graffiti a problem at the center of the universe,” published in Monday’s Daily Lobo. The article discusses the frequency and cost of graffiti cleanup on the UNM public art piece by Bruce Nauman called “The Center of the Universe.”
Editor,
As a recent junior transfer, I had no idea until reading Monday’s paper that the supersized avian toilet located between Ortega and Mitchell halls is considered “art.” While I suppose con-artistry is technically a variety of art, only two words could possibly have traversed the anemic grey matter of the intellectual microbe who conceived that depressing Stalinist monolith at the moment he found his muse: “f*** it.”
It isn’t even sufficient to shelter a bum from the elements. Its only possible artistic purpose is to serve between bong-hits as an experimental canvas for the sharpie pens of degenerate, overindulged adolescents tripping over their pseudo-urban baby clothes.
Only an overeducated art-world sycophant with a burning need to dangle his or her nauseating credentials could possibly defend the cost of maintaining such narcissistic mental flatulence (“The Center of the Universe?” Gag me.). The Iraq War was a better use of taxpayer money. At least that debacle netted a few folks the G.I. Bill, so they don’t have to take out a loan to help pay the exorbitant upkeep on a node of repressed, marijuana-addled psycho-sexual tension that only serves to add 90 seconds of walking time between classes.
Aaron Cress
UNM student
