I can’t wait for The Turner Prize.
Posted by Big John on April 28, 2008
A New York Times critic commented that so called artist Martin Creed was …
… “a very late conceptualist with no bias against objects, and a devotee of the rarefied art-in-the-street tendency of situationism whose favourite situation seems to be the white cube of a gallery”.
Well he would say that, wouldn’t he, as the ‘art’ in question was two videos in which a person walked in front of a camera trained on an empty white wall and floor, and then threw up before walking away.
Now we are to be treated to a new ‘work’ by Creed to be ‘exhibited’ at Tate Britain which will have a group of athletes running around the Duveen Gallery. He ‘created’ a similar ‘masterpiece’ in Italy where his creations were described in an exhibition brochure as …
… “a metaphor for the capacity to build art out of nothing or the sisyphean struggle of life” … ”offering an obscure metaphor of today’s looming paranoia and existentialism” … ”at the same time an ascetic gesture of disarming
simplicity and an ironic invitation to re-imagine a new destiny”.
It is a little known fact that runners sometimes have to perform their ’bodily functions’ while taking part in a race. Not a pretty sight :shock: but perhaps it is to Mr. Creed and his defeca… dedicated followers. So after pools of vomit, who knows what we might expect to see on the floor of the Duveen Gallery ?
My guess is that it will be a small ’something’ that will truly represent the artistic talent …
… of this master of the minimalist ‘metaphor’. 
Betty said
So, does this mean you weren’t impressed?
bettyslocombe said
Good old Martin: he had a piece in Melbourne which was a darkened room, and as the Age art critic said:
‘The artist has done only one thing: he’s asked the gallery not to switch the lights on. As far as I can tell, this event – described as a world premiere – is the same idea with which he won the Turner Prize in England.
Unbeknown to their parents, our two children plus a friend had come equipped with a torch. They’d heard about the dark rooms and hatched a plan. Torch in hand, the little people performed a joyful impromptu son et lumiere, with lots of shadow and flicker, filling the void with spontaneous drama and hilarity. Unfortunately, however, a certain visitor who was grappling with the minimalist gravity of the artistic proposition was not amused. Perhaps for her, the children’s invention desecrated the Zen tranquillity of a great metaphysical statement.’
I prefer proper artists – like Tracey Emin and Rachel Whiteread
Red Baron said
I sense the dichotomy here of descending into ludicrous pretension and talking about the subjectivity of the aesthetic or just joining in and having a good rant about how modern art is arse!
bettyslocombe said
One person’s arse is another person ‘s art. Discuss with examples. Now i need a pee: oh look, there’s a urinal.
Red Baron said
Sometimes the product of one person’s arse is apparently art as well.
Kylie’s arse is art and no I’m not just one of those recent appreciators now she’s famous, I got ridiculed when I was 17 and had pictures of the diminutive antipodean on my bedroom wall.
Chris said
That Turner Prize stuff’s all a big con. Me? I’m a ‘Haywain’ man myself, and proud of it.
Ginnie said
I wonder if the critics ever read your blog, John? It would certainly bring them into the realm of reality, a far place from where they dwell I would assume.
ferouzeh said
So after pools of vomit, who knows what we might expect to see on the floor of the Duveen Gallery
“In May 1961 Manzoni defecated into 90 small cans and had them sealed with the text Artist’s Shit. Each 30-gram can was priced by weight based on the current value of gold (around $1.12 a gram in 1960).[1] In the following years, the cans have spread to various art collections all over the world and netted large prices, far outstripping inflation. Many of them have also exploded, maybe because of corrosion and expanding gases” from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piero_Manzoni
In March 2008 his niece in art Pippa Bacca as an artistic conceptual happening left Milan with a female friend dressed as brides hitchhiking to Israel to bring a message of peace to the region. In Istanbul the two girls separated ( reason unknown). On her next solo lift Pippa was picked up by a man who raped an killed her.
Feruz
Terri said
Oh, PULEEEEEZE! Don’t tell me that people actually PAY to see this crap….opps! I guess I mean “art.”
John-Ward Leighton said
We have the example here in Canada of great gobs of government money being spent to support an artist that makes things out of buffalo sh1t! All done up in “Arts speak” indicating that there was some sort of esoteric thought process here. Pardon me, but sh1t is sh1t and should be on the manure pile or in the sewage treatment not being displayed in a publicly funded gallery.
I think sometimes the great gurus of Art are unable to discern between flatulence and perfume.
JWL