not the end of the world
On Friday at work it was suddenly amazingly busy. The phone rang. It was an automated call offering help with any 'debt problems' I might have - still, that could come in handy, since my previous employers have written to say that they have overpaid me, and will shortly be demanding their money back, or some of it. Perhaps they have decided that they should have been paying me minimum wage for the last ten years. Well: you win some, you lose some.
I wasn't joking, it was busy on Friday. I reacted by immediately taking a week off. No 'three-month trial' period here. I went to London with Mat and Dave and Chad on Saturday. To the Barbican, a massive, confounding place with the air of an institution but stylised, softened. Odd echoes of the future as depicted in A Clockwork Orange: the decor, not the ultraviolence. (Although we were there to look at war photography.) Even the hand towel dispenser in the Gents was a puzzling brutalist art object. I could see the dispenser but not the towels. Then a fellow toilet-goer twisted a knob on the side. There they were.
We were watching a video 'about the war in Iraq' (woman tied up on bedroom floor; man fiddling with crotch) when Mat informally commissioned me to come up with an idea for some 'artwank'. 'Artwank: First Blood', Chad spontaneously suggested as a title. Is this how Damian Hirst started? Probably.
One of the events listed for that day in the Barbican was someone's wedding. Was this art? Could you walk in and peer at the guests? The question was too complex. We went to Tate Modern, where we knew what to expect. Bunk beds. Loads of them. The effect of cramming these into the Turbine Hall was, oddly enough, to create a jolly communal atmosphere, rather than the intended post-apocalyptic gloom. Even the 'sinister' art objects imported in to the scene (a monstrous Louise Bourgeois spider) failed to dispel the good cheer. Just as well that the bunk beds had no mattresses, or they'd have had trouble getting people to leave. If the world's going to end, might as well stake out your territory now.
The future was also a feature of the Mighty Boosh show we saw after this. The second half, which was the better half, consisted of a 'serious play' which began with a grim scenario of a near-future England devastated by environmental disaster and ended with the beheading of the Honey Monster with a giant hair dryer. After which poo came out of Winston Churchill's ears. Now that's art.
I wasn't joking, it was busy on Friday. I reacted by immediately taking a week off. No 'three-month trial' period here. I went to London with Mat and Dave and Chad on Saturday. To the Barbican, a massive, confounding place with the air of an institution but stylised, softened. Odd echoes of the future as depicted in A Clockwork Orange: the decor, not the ultraviolence. (Although we were there to look at war photography.) Even the hand towel dispenser in the Gents was a puzzling brutalist art object. I could see the dispenser but not the towels. Then a fellow toilet-goer twisted a knob on the side. There they were.
We were watching a video 'about the war in Iraq' (woman tied up on bedroom floor; man fiddling with crotch) when Mat informally commissioned me to come up with an idea for some 'artwank'. 'Artwank: First Blood', Chad spontaneously suggested as a title. Is this how Damian Hirst started? Probably.
One of the events listed for that day in the Barbican was someone's wedding. Was this art? Could you walk in and peer at the guests? The question was too complex. We went to Tate Modern, where we knew what to expect. Bunk beds. Loads of them. The effect of cramming these into the Turbine Hall was, oddly enough, to create a jolly communal atmosphere, rather than the intended post-apocalyptic gloom. Even the 'sinister' art objects imported in to the scene (a monstrous Louise Bourgeois spider) failed to dispel the good cheer. Just as well that the bunk beds had no mattresses, or they'd have had trouble getting people to leave. If the world's going to end, might as well stake out your territory now.
The future was also a feature of the Mighty Boosh show we saw after this. The second half, which was the better half, consisted of a 'serious play' which began with a grim scenario of a near-future England devastated by environmental disaster and ended with the beheading of the Honey Monster with a giant hair dryer. After which poo came out of Winston Churchill's ears. Now that's art.
posted by martin at 3:47 PM
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