Art of the State
ROBBIE
After the all night revel at Curly Joe's we woke, ashamed, at half-past
twelve and rushed to Croydon where we were supposed to helping Vicky's old
art tutor-- now teaching in the west country-- with an art project. I wasn't
prepared for the frightening banality of this piece of publicly funded art.
Outside Allders in North End Croydon, 3 people, watched by four others and
being filmed by V's former tutor were holding 350 balloons which were
grouped in colours of the rainbow. Children were encouraged to take a free
balloon from one girl-- the others held their balloons as storage. The
cluster of balloons she was giving away began entirely red and then as one
red was given away, it would be replaced by the next colour in the rainbow;
thus over a period of time the balloon cluster held by the girl giving the
balloons away changed through the colours of the rainbow. Wow eh?
Naturally the smell of marijuana smoke wafted through this event and I began
to realise (I was pretty hungover) that I was in the middle of the very
worst kind of ecstasy generation banality-art.
Afterwards all concerned repaired to the Dog and Bull in the market and
soon I was talking to 'the artist'. I already guessed what his schtick would
be but eventually it surprised even V, who has a great tolerance for
post-modern art. It started off somehow on politics and I said:
Me: if it goes on like this, I'll end up voting tory
Tutor: you can't do that. You can NEVER do that.
Then,
Me: What was today about?
Tutor (soft northern accent): It's about getting art out there really y'know
cutting out the whole 'purity' thing of artist showing off in a fucking
gallery. Y'know, everyone getting something out of it.' *Communal* that's
the idea.
Me: What did those kids today get out of it?
Tutor: A balloon!
Me: Don't you think the piece might also be a kind of handy metaphor for the
downside of socialism?
Tutor: Howja mean?
Me: Well a lot of the kids let go of their balloons straight away-- y'know,
easy come easy go?
Tutor: heh heh
Me: You don't like painting?
Tutor: We discourage it on the fine art degree I'm teaching unless the
person seems to have a unusual background. We've got a drag queen on the
course who we let on because he's a drag queen and we thought that
interesting we certainly din't let him on because of his shitty sub-picasso
doodlings. Also we've got a Maori painter- didn't let him on because he's a
painter but because he's a maori and he might have something to say.
Me: So if you interviewed someone who you thought was talented but, say,
didn't share your political ideas?
Tutor: We wouldn't let 'em in.
Me: Spozing the most interesting and talented painter you'd interviewed for
years came along but he was non-left wing?
Tutor: No, I wouldn't let him in.
Me: So you're a fascist?
Tutor: Heh heh
Me: what dop you think of the idea that it might prove ultimately
destructive to the richness of people's lives if, instead of asking them to
'come up' as it were to Art, the artist and his proselytizing academic
tutors elect to 'come down', perhaps 'dumb down' to the people?
Tutor: Ah yeah but we don't think it *is* coming down.
Then the conversation got derailed but I could see that V was disturbed by
this friendly fascist. His collaborator-- 'all art that I find interesting'
said the tutor 'is collaborative'-- then somehow, apropos of the word
fascist and the fact he'd lived in Germany for five years, managed to get
the conversation on the the liklehood of a Hitler phenomenon happening here
in the 30s. So hostile was he to the English people and the 'idea of
England' (and the fact there are apparently no lager louts in Germany) that
he thought it 'very likely' that fascism could have taken off here in the
30s. 'Yes, but it didn't', 'yes,' persisted this Phd in robotics ' but it
really could have.'
He so wanted to believe it; this was interesting. I said I thought the
British then were in no way capable of doing a Hitler routine for a whole
variety of reasons.
"Ah yes," he said grandly, "but did you know the the British *invented* the
concentration camp?"
"Actually yes I did but we didn't invent the gas chamber as a form of social
engineering."
The tutor, that arch-social engineer and dab-hand and getting dough out of
funding bodies, was very sociable and friendly and kept buying drinks from
the funding money so it made it difficult for me to really put my boot on
his neck. He made frequent use of certain words: 'too much 'purity' in art'
'everything thing needs to be more communal' etc. When I asked him about his
art career he told me about 'trying to make the big time, west end galleries
etc. One day I met a guy from Belfast, very politicised, who said 'who are
you doing all this for?' and I realised I was trying to become a bourgeoise
artist, y'know, selling my stuff to people with loads of money'
'Who' I thought 'weren't buying it. Could this be the reason you decided
galleries are 'too pure' and 'not communal enough'?
Myself and V stayed out drinking and discussing/arguing about the whole pomo
art thing. She made frequent use of a perjorative against painting which I
couldn't undertsand: 'it's no good painting pretty pictures'. I said 'Who is
advocating that? Jeez they've brainwashed you haven't they? Extrordinary
that a fine art course requires extensive, complex reading (Barthes,
Baudrillard, Levi Strauss, Marx etc) to produce such tiny-minded, minimal
and banal works of art.
--
Incapacity Benefits~ the blog
http://robbie.journalspace.com/
Paul Stables
"ROBBIE" <word_c...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:boal4t$1bhlga$1...@ID-200782.news.uni-berlin.de...
> Thursday 30th October
> Then the conversation got derailed but I could see that V was disturbed by
> this friendly fascist. His collaborator-- 'all art that I find
interesting'
> said the tutor 'is collaborative'-- then somehow, apropos of the word
> fascist and the fact he'd lived in Germany for five years, managed to get
> the conversation on the the liklehood of a Hitler phenomenon happening
here
> in the 30s. So hostile was he to the English people and the 'idea of
> England' (and the fact there are apparently no lager louts in Germany)
that
> he thought it 'very likely' that fascism could have taken off here in the
> 30s. 'Yes, but it didn't', 'yes,' persisted this Phd in robotics ' but it
> really could have.'
> He so wanted to believe it; this was interesting. I said I thought the
> British then were in no way capable of doing a Hitler routine for a whole
> variety of reasons.
> "Ah yes," he said grandly, "but did you know the the British *invented*
the
> concentration camp?"
> "Actually yes I did but we didn't invent the gas chamber as a form of
social
> engineering."
>
Robbies account of the facist artist caused a time slip in my brain to about
the mid 1970s. The Head of Art at my school was this pukka pukka
Anglo-Indian who was supposed to be the grandson of an Indian Princess. He
was a good Artist and skilled potter who had a deep deep hatred of all
things German. One day a group of German school teachers on a good will
visit (we had recently joined the EEC) were being given a tour of the place
and were ushered into the Arts and Craft block; Crozzers looks up from his
potter's wheel "Ahhh Germans I expect you want to look at the ovens"
Paul Stables
ROBBIE
"Paul Stables" <psa...@i-cable.com> wrote in message
news:bob5ii$6k...@rain.i-cable.com...
> and were ushered into the Arts and Craft block; Crozzers looks up from his
> potter's wheel "Ahhh Germans I expect you want to look at the ovens"
>
> Paul Stables
>
>
LMFAO, to use a net vulgarity