Art and Its Institutions

When it comes to art and its institutions its hilarious to see the satirical and comedic work that comes out, especially against high art and its audiences, especially for how much this has changed and how accessible art is today. This is explemfied in Thomas Struth work of his large scale photographs of people at blockbuster mainstream art exhibitions to see the masters. His "lush" imagery depicts famous museums such as the Louvre in Paris, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and other major Art tourist attractions, which amuses me that the audience is portrayed as the artwork, and indeed the wide spectrum of the audience portrayed, its your average joe blow and your john doe there, or people from the other side of the world, the old institution of art is no longer art maybe, its a tourist attraction, and the real art is something else on the other side of the spectrum, or maybe he is just poking fun at something that is portayed so serious is so accessible to everyone and that you can take a photo inside there and it is an artwork in itself. How he was able to take the photos also intersets me just because normally there is no photography allowed. The photographs also demonstrate the large scale of the artworks and how the audience is "dwarfed" by the piece, the decoration- the architecture comparitive to its audience- how beautiful the atmosphere is compared to the averageness of the audience. His work also demonstrates how institutions shape our perception, how art in the street is perceived and how museums add this air of importance to the work- he highlights this "elitism". What is pictured is the Gallery in Venice, taken in 1992, and the Louvre in Paris taken in 1989.