Habemus Pasta
July 30, 2023 6:11 AM Subscribe
Pope Francis is going to be in Lisbon next week for the World Youth Days. To welcome him, artist Bordalo II strolled into the gargantuan and controversial stage still under construction for the main mass, and unrolled €500 banknote replicas for an installation he called "The Walk of Shame" for "the tour of the Italian multinational."
I want to see the "Institute of Wine to spend €3,500 (with no recourse to tender) for a “personalised sausage box to offer His Holiness, Pope Francis…".
posted by boilermonster at 9:04 AM on July 30, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by boilermonster at 9:04 AM on July 30, 2023 [1 favorite]
Sinead O'Connor is smiling.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 10:15 AM on July 30, 2023 [11 favorites]
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 10:15 AM on July 30, 2023 [11 favorites]
To be a bit of devil’s advocate-
In a time of financial crisis, injecting money into the system is a good thing. The church and the state together created jobs in setting this event up, jobs the workers clearly needed and, we imagine, found satisfying. Hell, even the artist’s assistants (I’m assuming he had help in making this carpet) got a few cruzieros from the deal.
Still, the whole money carpet thing looks more like a relatively low budget PR stunt as much as anything. You don’t get to be a world renowned and well paid artist without cocking a few snoots, which is all this really amounts to. Will minds be changed? I doubt it, even assuming that’s what he has in mind. The event’s target audience will presumably find value in being there, and you can’t put a price on that.
....one effective Nope the Pope protest was to order multiple on-line tickets for the main mass with the intention of not turning up. The venue was only 25% full
Effective in what way, exactly? Righting wrongs? Smiting evil? Spreading happiness? Changing the minds of the wrong headed? Making the world a better place?
Materially, all it accomplished was to deprive an unknown number of the faithful from attending an event that they would have found meaningful. The pranksters could have accomplished the same end by loitering outside the venue and snatching physical tickets from unsuspecting patrons. But that would have risked real pushback, would have required real guts, and so was dismissed for the more cowardly and lazy, albeit admittedly more effective, tactic of hiding inside the internet.
A sulky fourteen year old might have found the whole thing clever and good for a laugh with the lads. A step up from the classic twelve year old favorite paper bag + dog waste + front port + lit match + doorbell + scarper. With any luck at all, you grow out of that sort of thing, and learn a little tolerance and compassion,
posted by BWA at 1:39 PM on July 30, 2023 [6 favorites]
In a time of financial crisis, injecting money into the system is a good thing. The church and the state together created jobs in setting this event up, jobs the workers clearly needed and, we imagine, found satisfying. Hell, even the artist’s assistants (I’m assuming he had help in making this carpet) got a few cruzieros from the deal.
Still, the whole money carpet thing looks more like a relatively low budget PR stunt as much as anything. You don’t get to be a world renowned and well paid artist without cocking a few snoots, which is all this really amounts to. Will minds be changed? I doubt it, even assuming that’s what he has in mind. The event’s target audience will presumably find value in being there, and you can’t put a price on that.
....one effective Nope the Pope protest was to order multiple on-line tickets for the main mass with the intention of not turning up. The venue was only 25% full
Effective in what way, exactly? Righting wrongs? Smiting evil? Spreading happiness? Changing the minds of the wrong headed? Making the world a better place?
Materially, all it accomplished was to deprive an unknown number of the faithful from attending an event that they would have found meaningful. The pranksters could have accomplished the same end by loitering outside the venue and snatching physical tickets from unsuspecting patrons. But that would have risked real pushback, would have required real guts, and so was dismissed for the more cowardly and lazy, albeit admittedly more effective, tactic of hiding inside the internet.
A sulky fourteen year old might have found the whole thing clever and good for a laugh with the lads. A step up from the classic twelve year old favorite paper bag + dog waste + front port + lit match + doorbell + scarper. With any luck at all, you grow out of that sort of thing, and learn a little tolerance and compassion,
posted by BWA at 1:39 PM on July 30, 2023 [6 favorites]
In a time of financial crisis, injecting money into the system is a good thing.
Sure. So why not inject that money into something with long-term benefits? Why not direct it to social needs?
Why not make an investment in the nation and for all the people, rather than for the narrow benefit of a specific set of people and an institution that has plenty of its own wealth?
posted by happyinmotion at 1:58 PM on July 30, 2023 [10 favorites]
Sure. So why not inject that money into something with long-term benefits? Why not direct it to social needs?
Why not make an investment in the nation and for all the people, rather than for the narrow benefit of a specific set of people and an institution that has plenty of its own wealth?
posted by happyinmotion at 1:58 PM on July 30, 2023 [10 favorites]
I hope it will be hot.
posted by parmanparman at 2:44 PM on July 30, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by parmanparman at 2:44 PM on July 30, 2023 [1 favorite]
To be a bit of devil’s advocate
The devil has hired a part-time lawyer to down-spin and tone police anti-papist protests?
I'M FASCINATED BY THIS DEVELOPMENT!
posted by srboisvert at 3:34 PM on July 30, 2023 [14 favorites]
The devil has hired a part-time lawyer to down-spin and tone police anti-papist protests?
I'M FASCINATED BY THIS DEVELOPMENT!
posted by srboisvert at 3:34 PM on July 30, 2023 [14 favorites]
I'm curious how a stunt like this gets pulled off. I suppose if some anonymous person broke in and did it, how would anybody outside the people organizing the event ever know? I mean, do they look at all those giant bills, and think, "Welp, I guess the Pope is just gonna have to walk on this, what else can we possibly do?" How does this kind of gag get publicized so widely? Could it be done just by publicizing a digitally rendered mockup? Are the promoters of the event thinking this actually helps publicize the event?
posted by 2N2222 at 7:39 PM on July 30, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by 2N2222 at 7:39 PM on July 30, 2023 [1 favorite]
The artist posted a video of the stunt to his Instagram account which has 366k followers [as linked above]. The Portuguese media is on a hair trigger for all things Pope Francis and the World Youth Day. The images were instantly everywhere here online, then in all the newspapers, accompanied by the kind of incessant faffing by experts that is the main artefact of 24-hour rolling news. Bordalo II was interviewed by TVI, a main broadcaster, and the Mayor of Lisbon went out to the site to drop off an actual multilingual "welcome mat" in a response video, posting that to his instagram [only 36k followers] and made sure all the media knew about it. There has been pearl-clutching about the "security breach" [blamed on the company building the stage] and about the public money Bordalo II has received over the years [which is rather a lot, like more than €3m].
posted by chavenet at 4:01 AM on July 31, 2023
posted by chavenet at 4:01 AM on July 31, 2023
"but it's creating jobs" is always such a bullshit sounding argument. Setting up a money-incinerating plant can create tons of jobs to shovel stacks of hundred dollar bills into furnaces, but it's not a HELPFUL job to create.
posted by FatherDagon at 7:43 AM on July 31, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by FatherDagon at 7:43 AM on July 31, 2023 [2 favorites]
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