Here is one of those stories that confirms what you always suspected. From the Wall Street Journal:
In this year's summer show at London's Royal Academy of Arts, "Exhibit 1201" is a large rectangular tablet of slate with a tiny barbell-shaped bit of boxwood on top. Its creator, David Hensel, must be pleased to have been selected from among some 9,000 applicants for the world's largest open-submission exhibit of contemporary art. Nevertheless, he was bemused to discover that in transit his sculpture had gotten separated from its base. Judging the two components as different submissions, the Royal Academy had rejected his artwork proper--a finely wrought laughing head in jesmonite--and selected the plinth. "It says something about the state of visual arts today," said Mr. Hensel. He didn't say what. He didn't need to.
In other words, a sculpture produces a "finely wrought laughing head," and puts it on a wooden base. In transit to the judges, the sculpture is separated from the base. The judges think they are looking at two works of art, reject the actual scupture and award the base it was supposed to rest on.
Anyone belonging to London's Royal Academy of Arts is entitled to citizenship in the Confederacy of Morons.
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