FFS,on display is three pairs of fuckin pyjamas called Sleepwalkers...no its not,its three pairs of fuckin pyjamas..bell end.
In Sleepwalkers, Ellis creates a touching and unsettling exhibit from three pairs of pyjamas belonging to his late father. Usually symbols of comfort, security and perhaps intimacy, the pyjamas have become associated with mortality for Ellis. Delicately embroidered with the words of the French Surrealist poet Robert Desnos, the pyjamas touch on the themes of sleep, night, and dreams. Desnos was an active member of the French Resistance and spent time in a Nazi concentration camp where the uniforms worn by the victims resembled striped pyjamas. The humble 'pjs' are thus transformed - simultaneously intimate and universal in their symbolism. The boundaries between dreams, memories, sleep and death are beautifully merged in this haunting piece.
http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/ladylever/exhibitions/ellis/
I,m not a philistine (sp)
Sorry, that DID make me chuckle. You're not a Philistine for ranting against a particular art exhibition, but yourself, and those that followed in this thread with the 'I could fucking do that!' shout,
are. Sorry.
OK, sometimes you walk into exhibitions and are clueless as to what is going on. You walk around scratching your head going 'wha!' and then you'll leave. Or of course, you could choose to do a bit of research, either in the exhibition itself, or at home afterwards, or in the bookshop. Or of course a trip to the pub will sound better. It's just up to you. Unfortunately, art does sometimes require you to think. It's one of it's jobs. It's a pain in the arse I know, but hey. Art isn't like an advert on the telly -it doesn't spoonfeed you info. Artists look at the world and translate it back to us in various forms. You'd hope so with 4 billion people on the planet, who are all able to do this very act if they so wished. Having said that - yes, alot of art is absolute toss. Alot of 17th Century painting was rubbish too. Carlton Palmer played football for England - I'm sure i don't need to go on.
Reading your description of the pajamas lying on the floor did make me go 'Yeah, that
does sound a bit crap.' But Google, one click, and 60 seconds of reading later, I'm already thinking that it's just an incey wincey bit better. OK, it's not exhilirating but it's decent. It's dictating certain images in my head from a different angle - a journey I wouldn't have had sitting on the lavvy.
There on display was a glass of water on a shelf and some fuckin beaut in a linen suit explaining it to me.
An Oak Tree by Michael Craig Martin. Yep, a curiously intruiging piece. Made no sense to me when I first saw it, makes hardly any sense to me now. I guess it'll come as a shock to you if I told you it's not just one of the most influential pieces of conceptual British art but one of the most important pieces of British art. Yes, I thought so
. He made it sometime in the 70's and I remember him saying, 'It took me years to realise I could do it.'
You have to remember what the late 60's and 70's were all about - minimalism. Everything got pared down. Reduced, simplified. Like Carl Andre's Bricks (or to give it its real name - 'Equivalent VII'). It was political aswell as theoretical. Then again, I could fucking do that!
crap,... who can make millions by having a brick in the Tate!
Utter shite of the highest order!
Constable, DaVinci, and others I cant remember cos I have had a few beers are still classics.
Here we are in our society where someone can paint shit on a canvas with there arse and get paid a shit load of money,. yet someone that can make a true and accurate drawing painting of people and places earns a living in Maccy-D's or selling pavement art.
Utter Bollocks!!
Utterly clueless. Sorry.
You or anyone in this world couldn,t tell the difference between a £10,000.00 painting from a "famous" modern artist or something I knocked up in my dinner hour.
No, I'm pretty sure I could
. Tell you what tho - and I'm VERY
VERY serious about this, go to B&Q and buy 10 or so blank canvases (10 quid each, 60x70 cm) and do me some paintings. I'll exhibit them. Put a
bit of effort into it tho, but I will exhibit them and call it 'I Could Fucking Do That!' ('bout time there was a show with a decent title round here.) IM me for more info. I'll try and flog them for 200 quid each. You'd get 100. You could go to Stamford Bridge on that!
'Art' has gone so far up its own arse its ridiculous. New ideas are fair enough, but its starting to go the way more of design, new idea's to make people think. Fair enough, but the idea is paramount now not what is being produced. Plenty of people from plenty different stations working plenty different jobs could come up with new 'ideas' if they were set a brief to make something arty and pretentious. How many can paint something like The last supper? Very very few, that takes talent, massive talent. A talent that can be put down for people to see take in and marvel at.
That's where it pisses me off enormously. You could put a leaf down (and someone probably already has) and ask the viewer where did it come from, what is it, what does it mean, blah blah blah and that is art. For fucks sake!
Hmmn, where to start? Firstly, Da Vinci is one of
the most overrated artist. Fabulous draughtsman, a genius, but he completed what? 6 paintings in his life time? You have to remember that the Old Masters were trained, highly trained draughtsmen and technicians. They had no choice after all. Yes, you'd need a bit of inbuilt talent, but the only mode of making images, and the climate they lived in - political, religious, and theoretical - demanded art to look 'real' in huge apostrophes. We've got cameras now. I'll bet my bottom that if Da Vinci was around now he'd be pissing people off with I could do that! type works. Picasso, one of the greats of Modern art once said 'When I was 8 years old I could draw like Titian, but it's taken a whole lifetime to draw like a lobster.' Something like that anyhow. William de Kooning was similar, and ended up painting like this:
It's called 'moving on.'
This is a painting by Gerhard Richter which he made in 1991:
Another argument which always rankles with me about modern art is the criticism that some artists don't even make the work themselves but get in helpers. Each and every Old Master had assistants, sometimes dozens of them.
being a bit thick i don't really get the art thing. but what does really tickle me is why people get so upset about 'modern art'. all these people who go
"well its a pile of suitcases" / "a cow in a box"/ 'an unmade bed"/ "a tent" and its a disgrace that someone gets paid for this shit cos anyone could do it, even i could do that...blah blah"
seems to me the answers simple - go and do it then, if its money for old rope quit your job and go and do it. the fact is you havent done it, someone else has, someone else likes it, it makes someone else think about things, talk about things, appreciate things.. and someone pays for it.
Spot on. It IS that simple!
One of my favourite galleries in London, The Foundry in Old Street, has this as its call to arms:
www.foundry.tvSo - let's see your stuff grifter!
