Art and Porcelain

Ninety years ago Marcel Duchamp gave the idea of what one might consider 'art' a radical flushing.

In the latest news of unintended consequences we have art and we have urinals.

First up: art.

OK, this has nothing to do with Duchamp's porcelain. This is Georgia O'Keefe and her cronies. This story is not one for people with attention defcit disorder. See, O'Keefe was married to Alfred Stieglitz. The famous photographer. He collected art. He died. He willed all the art (some hers, some his, some others) to her. She in turn willed it to various institutions. Including Fisk University. An historic black university. However, she left these strings attached. That the collection be kept and exhibited together and not sold. I think the idea was that blacks needed an opportunity to see this work that was denied them elsewhere. Anyway, a couple of the paintings, including one by Ms. O'Keefe herself, are worth a lot of money and Fisk wants to sell to maintain the rest of the collection or maybe keep the institution going. Here is one story. (I read it in The Wall Street Journal. Just as an aside, I think if you subscribe to the paper you ought to get the online stuff, but that's not the way that site works.) If this story doesn't cry out 'unintended consequences' then I don't know what does. What did Ms. O'Keefe and her advisors envision for the year 2007?

Ah, but what about urinals? Well, let's set the scene. It's New Mexico. You have a problem with drunk driving. Someone invents 'talking urninal cakes.' Now the inventor, surely, had motion-induced advertising in mind. But authorities thought, hmmm? Let's make the cakes give a drunk driving warning. After all what's the thing guys do before getting in their cars drunk? They relieve their bladders. Now the other shoe hasn't dropped on this. But I couldn't resist. So many unintended outcomes lurk in this one. Oh, and the voice is a female voice.