NEW YORK - With the Seattle Sounders tifo team creating a display that resembled the New England Revolution fan's JAWS/REVS tifo from 2014, The Nutmeg News turned to New York City Art Critic Donalda Bristane to illuminate their attempt at a stadium installation in popular poster art.
Man, I just don't get art. Isn't this the two different views of the same thing?
"The disparate lines give a truth to the melange of paint lending a pop sensibility to the pastiche of twenty-first century Revolution Fan style" said Ms Bristane after viewing the two banners.
"What we have here are two poster art re-creation paintings that attempt to play on the pop sensation JAWS. They both attempt to convey a message of imminent doom for the opposition. Of course we must recognize that New England were first at using this particular methodology where the designer and painter pastiched the Jaws poster. What Seattle has attempted to do is lend gravitas to the copy of the copy of the original movie poster by taking a concept and then attempting to improve upon it.
My reservation as an art critic in this medium is that what we see here is a copy of a copy of an original. So we must take a step back and decide whether this is a copy of a copy of a copy or whether this is just a copy of the original. That is, of course, in the eye of the beholder. Sadly for the artist in this case, primacy is everything. A million people have painted sunflowers since Van Gogh, but he brought them into the light with technique at that time. So, thusly, the Sounder tifo must be said as being derivative."
When asked for her feeling on the impression that the Sounders tifo gave to her, Ms Bristane was blunt, " I haven't been this disappointed since Bjarne Melgaard’s 'The casual pleasure of disappointment' installation. I was left cold and wanting, like a slow rolling wave that creeps ever inward soaking the desolate parts of my soul. I give full marks to the artist for effort, however I do hope to see original works from all stadium installations in the future."