Hanging art in a museum is nothing unusual, but the way New York's Guggenheim Museum hung the collected works of Maurizio Cattelan for a recent exhibit certainly qualified as odd.
All of his pieces, in a display appropriately titled All, were hung from the ceiling of the museum's seven-story rotunda.
There were 128 pieces in all -- or, if you like, in All. And out of all those weird works -- the pope hit by a meteorite, the chess set pitting good vs. evil, the tiny elevators -- one of them spoke to me the most.
It was a stuffed donkey, with an old TV set tied to its saddle.
Perhaps, for a television critic burdened with too much to do and see, it's the perfect metaphor.
Yes, I realize, that makes me an ass. And also means I'm a beast of burden of my own choosing. And so on.
I get it.
But what I don't get is the title Cattalan gave to this particular 1998 piece -- a media commentary whose own working media, as a work of art, are taxidermied donkey, television, rope, saddle, and blanket. (Budding artists and media critics, don't try this at home.)
The title of the work, according to the exhibition booklet, is:
If a Tree Falls in the Forest and There Is No One Around It, Does It Make a Sound?
Great piece of art. Lousy title.
So what should it be called?
For starters, how about:
Mule Never Get Rich.
Dumb Beast, Smart TV.
TV Worth Carrying.
Okay, so those aren't great titles, either. Some, I admit, may even be ass-inine.
I presume you could do better. So go ahead and try . . .