VA chastised for art spending
Forbes talks about the Veterans’ Affairs Department and their massive expenditures for art work to decorate their facilities during a time that veterans are dying while waiting in line for healthcare;
For example, a VA facility dedicated to serving blind – yes blind – veterans spent $670,000 for two commissioned sculptures. Just last month, a VA spokesperson stood in front of the infamous $1.2 million “cubed-rock” sculpture in Palo Alto, CA and argued that this type of artwork “creates a healing environment.” Yes, nothing creates a healing environment quite like long waiting lines that are in part the result of resources being misallocated.
So, the VA has modified their policy for buying expensive decorations – they merely require more signatures to authorize those purchases.
So, why didn’t the VA institute a permanent moratorium on pricey art?
Well, it could be personal to the top administrators. Oil portraits, busts, and self-named buildings have a certain appeal to bureaucrats. In 2010, the VA spent $60,000 for two commissioned oil portraits of the previous Secretaries of Veterans Affairs: James Peake ($24,882) and Jim Nicholson ($24,675). Additionally, thousands of dollars were spent on a sculpture bust of Congressman Jerry L. Pettis in 2012 on a medical center that already bears his name within the Loma Linda VA system, California.
All of these expenditures occurred during now-infamous VA scandal, when tragically, many calls to the suicide assistance hotline were answered by voicemail.
The culture at the VA is what needs to change. They throw huge parties for themselves, they game their own system to their own benefit, no one is held accountable for anything. While there are people who want to help veterans in the department, the overall culture is not one that helps veterans. It costs lives.
Category: Veterans' Affairs Department
Nice, some asshole got over a million to drop a giant turd shaped rock in front of a VA building and called it artwork.
Nothing says we’re healing blind vets who need assistance by spending 1.2 million on a giant gray turd placed in a prominent location and labeled art by some assholes who’ve never actually worked for a living. What a bunch of fucking morons…
I realize I’m not a college indoctrinated fine arts aficionado but that art is a rock, a giant turd shaped fucking rock…when I look at dumb shit like this I don’t see the many variations on the healing themes of man’s struggle to achieve enlightenment beyond self in the pursuit of a larger sense of oneness with the universe…I just see a giant fucking rock…for a million dollars…what the fucking fuck are they thinking.\
VOV – That was my initial thought too. I have pushed more “artistic” lumps out of my rectum, Never realized how valuable they are to the Pal Alto VA. Anyone have the number to their Procurement Branch?
That’s no shit
I was just about to ask if that thing looked like a turd to anyone else. I’m glad I’m not the only one.
Oh, it’s a piece of shit all right…
Yep, fossilized brontosaurus dropping.
I showed it to one of my employees, and she agrees. Turd.
Glad I’m not alone in this diagnosis.
But I feel the artwork in question is incomplete. It needs something… something more organic.
I suggest a good, thick coat of paint in a properly-matched deep ochre with streaks of brown, and the addition of large yellow lumps that look distinctly like undigested corn kernels, accompanied here and there by splashes of tattered tomato-red, so that the viewer can more easily identify the subject matter of the sculpture.
Nonsense-it is clearly an eerily lifelike bust of current VA Secretary McDonald. I cannot be the only one who noticed the uncanny resemblance.
Hmm. Had to go look again. Uncanny resemblance…
lockquote>Originally posted by Veritas Omnia Vincit:
Nice, some asshole got over a million to drop a giant turd shaped rock in front of a VA building and called it artwork.
I thought the same thing. Artwork, including sculptures, films (still/motion), and other forms of art, have symbology in them. So when I see any kind of artwork, I look at symbology. One health realted symbology stuck out with that giant turd shaped rock… the symbology for shitty service, administration, operations, leadership, etc… just one giant pile of shit. 🙄
I guess seeing artwork that agrees with what many patients and veterans think about VA healthcare would be therapeutic.
Now there’s an interpretation that I believe a great many of us will find to be very astute and on point.
I thank you for clarifying the symbology, I was trying to ascertain the inherent “healing” qualities that a giant turd shaped rock could offer to blind veterans and was struggling mightily to wrap my head around what symbology was cleverly hidden in this gray homage to defecatory service…and you hit it on the head and provided instant clarification.
Many thanks.
What relations was that a.h. forgive the expression “artist” to the other a.h. that paid 1.2 million for that piece of shyt???
Is that what you guys call a pile of Monkress?
That’s a sculpture? Some pointy headed artistic fucking genius carved a huge rock into a big rock? It’s still a rock! He needs to get in touch with whatever art school he graduated from, I think he deserves a full refund on his tuition.
His professors are probably celebrating him. “You chiseled a couple lines into a big rock and sold it for 1.2 million! Bravoooo!”
“Cubed Rock”, MY ASS! That looks like just another big fucking rock to me. I wonder if its supplier or fartist wasn’t butt-pals with the right bureaucrat or politician to pull than con job off on us taxpayers?
Shit like this makes me want to campaign harder for legalizing physical violence against bureaucrats and politicians.
Speeding up VA appeals would be a lot more healing.
YGBSM!!! 1.2 million for a BFR! That’s art?
Well they could have paid me the money.. I have rocks all over the place at the New Mexico cabin
Just waiting for a place to call home..
???
I would bet that if you got some “art studies major” graduate to look at that piece of “art”, you would get a statement that would be equal to or surpass anything posted by a certain “SJW” that we loathe.
You said it best, Jonn – the VA system of “management” needs to be nuked and rebuilt from scratch.
I’m beginning to wonder if that doesn’t apply to the entire DVA.
Sometimes an organization is simply so thoroughly disfunctional it cannot be reformed, and must be replaced.
Calling that rock art is like calling Bernath a lawyer/pilot.
With a little more whittlin’ on that rock, they could have created a more fitting tribute to those VA folks that come up with these assine expenditures.
http://nepalpati.com/images/newsManagement/20160910113035-toya%20sex.jpg
For a hundred bucks and change they could go to the Goodwill and buy paintings. They have bins of the damn things for $2-$5 each.
If it ain’t Norman Rockwell, it ain’t art.
sarc off
I’m think paint by number ballerina and matador.
Maybe Elvis on velvet
Dogs playing poker? Always a fan favorite…
This past weekend, one of our VA nurses asked me if Chapter 5 of the DAV could get some toiletries for the inpatients. We provide these items for the patients from time to time. The VA is not obligated to provide these personal items.
Forget the art and provide for the veteran patients who don’t have the resources to pay for toiletries.
You would be surprised how many do not.
A fucking rock, way to go VA.
Cocksuckers.
I recognize that piece of art. It’s called Jabba the Hutt.
I personally see a slight resemblance to John “D Student” Kerry.
You really can’t fault the VA folks for having an affection for stone. After all, this just take us vets for granite. 😉
You really hit rock bottom with that joke.
“they” not this…….DAMMIT!
It’s all good bro, we read fluent typo here without complaint…we all knew what you meant and those of us with a sense of humor enjoyed it.
Actually, the questionable art may not be VA’s fault. GSA requires “art” for federal buildings and apparently they have a say in what goes out front, so to speak.
http://www.gsa.gov/portal/content/104456
It still looks like a big pile of fecal matter.
Yeah sure, the VA is just going to blame it on GSA when they get questioned about who approved it.
Once the VA gets some competition things might change. One of Trump’s plans is that any medical center that accepts government money will take any veteran with a VA card. No more 100 mile drives or dying while waiting for appointments hopefully.
I once spent an afternoon a few years ago working on an unrelated project at the Palo Alto VA, and remember it being a well-tended place. The mental-health part of it was just going in at the time. Here’s some background:
http://www.paloalto.va.gov/docs/vapamentalhealthbooklet.pdf
The cubed rock is actually called “Aggregate” by Phillip K. Smith III who is apparently a fairly hot property in the current art world. It’s also unlike Smith’s other work which can be seen here:
http://www.PSK3.com
Personally, I thought “Aggregate” might be improved with a few pitons and descending rings for rappelling, but that’s probably just me.
An annoying thing about some of this stuff is not just the VA spending money on expensive public art, it’s that the money is spent by a tiny anonymous circle of people who have no oversight. Some of them need to be named. The art world is also notorious for charlatans passing off goofy work as art. If, for example, any public official decided to spend money on a work by Damien Hirst, the official should be stood against a wall, and offered a blindfold and last cigarette. No mercy, no discussion.
I have a piece of Art at the top of my property that must be worth a Billion dollars. It is over 30 feet in diameter and was left where it sits buy the last retreat of the glaciers that carved this region. If the VA wants it I could let it go cheap, say 10 Million bucks. They will need to cut a road up to it, but I won’t charge them for the right of way. I’m a patriot, you know.
Hmm. It is quire reminiscent Mt Rushmore, before any faces were carved into it.
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Many people recovering from trauma use Art as a joyful alternative to physical therapy, as an outlet for the emotional backlash, or to recondition their control over malfunctioning bodies, and for a myriad of other reasons.
Let -them- decorate the facilities of the VA. If anyone gets paid by the VA for art, let it be -them-. (and -only- them)
The HQ where I worked had a mural done by a prior member of the unit. Not too bad. Ditto several places in my OSUT company.
Now, if a -patient- at a VA hospital created that rock sculpture, it likely would include a sign that says “More bran muffins, please.”
Looking at the picture of “the rock” is healing my worried mind already…..??????? I don’t think so………BUT
rock-n-roll works better than granite…long cruise in the car music turned up, LOUD, works every time
Interesting, some offices claim they don’t have money to spend for more bodies or refuse to give OT to workers. Also claim to be tight on money. Now know where VACO loss all their money on. Hell walk around VA HQ building, you are gonna see some real nice art work in hallways and entry way of agency offices.