Letters: But is it art?

Re “Billboard garden project funded,” Dec. 13

For just a few dollars, Claude Monet and Pablo Picasso painted masterpieces worth millions today. Even now an artist can produce an extremely large painting for just a few hundred dollars with the same potential.

When did things become so perverted that someone would spend $100,000 (and even successfully solicit funds) to plant some bamboo on a billboard support? For $5 he could have followed Frank Lloyd Wright’s dictum and just planted ivy at the base of the billboard pole and let nature take its course, with similar and more permanent results.

When did art take such a dramatic turn into the absurd? And what a sad commentary that this artist could find more than 1,500 people to give him the money.

Tom Roberts

Beverly Hills

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