BS: Pride in English Modern Art

Subject: Pride in English Modern Art
From: Cappuccino
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 02:05 PM

Speaking as an Englishman, with all that implies in terms of artistic sensitivity, may I say how proud I am to see that this year's Turner Prize for art, with its awards of twenty thousand pounds (thirty six thousand dollars or so) has been won by an Englishman, Martin Creed, with his work 'Lights Going On and Off'. If you haven't seen it, this is an empty room in which the lights fade on…. and off. And on again. And off again. And so on. That's it.

The judges 'admired his audacity, and noted the work's strength, rigour, wit and sensitivity. Coming out of the tradition of minimal and conceptual art, his work is engaging, wide-ranging, and fresh, extending into music.'

(His major musical composition, we learn, is 'Nothing', which lasts five seconds.)

The artist is apparently 'fascinated by the idea of nothingness, and creating simple yet direct works, as befitting his Quaker upbringing'.

And, for switching a light on, he has earned what would keep my family for a year.

A proud day for England.

- Ian B

Subject: RE: BS: Pride in English Modern Art
From: Jeanie
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 03:30 PM

Well, I'll go to't foot of our stairs ....

(Do you think they might pay me to do that ? Performance art ? Do I hear £30,000 ?)

Subject: RE: BS: Pride in English Modern Art
From: breezy
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 03:46 PM

Subject: RE: BS: Pride in English Modern Art
From: breezy
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 03:46 PM

5 secs later

Subject: RE: BS: Pride in English Modern Art
From: breezy
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 03:47 PM

Subject: RE: BS: Pride in English Modern Art
From: breezy
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 03:49 PM

Oi! Turner, where's me £20,000

Subject: RE: BS: Pride in English Modern Art
From: breezy
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 03:50 PM

its more minimal than 30

Subject: RE: BS: Pride in English Modern Art
From: Cappuccino
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 04:20 PM

Breezy, your subtlety impresses me. I should apply for an Arts Council grant to develop that idea, if I were you.

- Ian B

Subject: RE: BS: Pride in English Modern Art
From: breezy
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 04:48 PM

IanB you are a true B.S ter.

Subject: RE: BS: Pride in English Modern Art
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 05:05 PM

This is really a continuation of this thread, with some overlap.

Here is a post I made there, repotted here:

I suppose a conman is a kind of artist.

Some suggestions for future Turner Prize awards -

a queue with a pickpocket;

a toilet that plays "God Save the Queen" when you try to sit down on it. It'd work better when it gets to New York, and it's adjusted to play "God Bless America";

karaoke for solo conductor;

a dead rat on a plate for as long as it takes for it to turn into a swarm of flies and a skeleton.

Subject: RE: BS: Pride in English Modern Art
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 05:13 PM

There is an older thread still extant about this - of which this is in effect part 2, but with some overlaps.

Here is a post I made there, repotted here:

I suppose a conman is a kind of artist.

Some suggestions for future Turner Prize awards -

a queue with a pickpocket;

a toilet that plays "God Save the Queen" when you try to sit down on it. It'd work better when it gets to New York, and it's adjusted to play "God Bless America", sinc epeople are perhaps more likely to feel like standing up for it;

karaoke for solo conductor;

a dead rat on a plate for as long as it takes for it to turn into a swarm of flies and a skeleton.

Subject: RE: BS: Pride in English Modern Art
From: GUEST,Wyrdsister
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 05:24 PM

I just posted on this topic on an earlier thread, but would just like to say to breezy that this piece has real potential as a short (or even feature-length!!!) film....if I were independently, or even marginally, wealthy, I'd certainly offer to produce it; brilliant work, just brilliant!

Subject: RE: BS: Pride in English Modern Art
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 06:54 PM

If I turn the light off to go to bed, am I breaching Mr Creed's copyright?

Subject: RE: BS: Pride in English Modern Art
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 07:04 PM

Do shut up, Kevin,

and please go to bed

Subject: RE: BS: Pride in English Modern Art
From: GUEST, A Regular, sans Biscuit
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 07:15 PM

So, Guest...what you got against him?

If you resent that he is cleverer than you, & most of the rest of us, why dont YOU shut up, go away, & EDUCATE yourself?

Subject: RE: BS: Pride in English Modern Art
From: GUEST,Wyrdsister
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 07:42 PM

Au contraire---I've been totally misunderstood; I thought it was funny. Sorry If I inadvertently caused any offense!

Subject: RE: BS: Pride in English Modern Art
From: Cobble
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 08:25 PM

Never has so much crap been made by so few, to annoy so many. Turner would turn in his grave. The only way to win the £20.000 is to be as stupid as those that put this crap up and call it art, they know who they are.

Cobble. (Watercolourist)

Subject: RE: BS: Pride in English Modern Art
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 08:34 PM

No offence taken at all. (But thanks anyway, bickieless one.)

Subject: RE: BS: Pride in English Modern Art
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 09:21 PM

Canadian art is superior. They are exhibiting a construction here that consists of a box containing semen.

Subject: RE: BS: Pride in English Modern Art
From: GUEST,Stavanger Bill
Date: 11 Dec 01 - 02:53 AM

From Canada - "...a construction here that consists of a box containing semen."

What is that a minimalist Container Ship??

Subject: RE: BS: Pride in English Modern Art
From: GUEST,Sledge
Date: 11 Dec 01 - 05:06 AM

Come again??

Subject: RE: BS: Pride in English Modern Art
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 11 Dec 01 - 05:57 AM

The "seminal" exhibit consists of a refrigerated container with this notice attached- "Warning, contains 6 ml of semen extracted through masturbation, distributed among seven glass tubes." Its title is "Level 7."
The exhibit is on display at the Banff Centre of Fine Arts. The artist, Israel Mora, a professor from Mexico, received $1300 in financial assistance (surely a paltry sum!) from the Banff Centre. (Calgary Herald editorial, Dec. 9 01)
A letter to the paper notes that the artists residency ends this week and that he will laugh all the way back to Mexico.

Subject: RE: BS: Pride in English Modern Art
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 11 Dec 01 - 07:16 AM

A real minimalist would just have suggested the idea of having the lights going in and off, instead of actually going and doing it with wiring and all that.

Or why not write down "I have a clever idea, give me the money" on a bit of paper, and leave the judges to give him the prize, and guess what the idea might be?

Subject: RE: BS: Pride in English Modern Art
From: breezy
Date: 11 Dec 01 - 02:15 PM

so the Canadian recipient was a w.n.er.

Subject: RE: BS: Pride in English Modern Art
From: GUEST,Cobble at work
Date: 11 Dec 01 - 04:53 PM

All this sort of talk and no message from Spaw.

Cobble

Subject: RE: BS: Pride in English Modern Art
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 11 Dec 01 - 05:44 PM

Maybe he's turned minimalist...

Subject: RE: BS: Pride in English Modern Art
From: Ringer
Date: 18 Jan 02 - 04:33 AM

It seems that I have support from someone who ought to know.

In an article in this week's New Statesman, Ivan Massow, who has been head of Britain's most avant garde public gallery for three years, described conceptual art as pretentious and hollow rubbish and claimed that there was a conspiracy between Downing Street, the Tate's Sir Nicholas Serota and the wealthy collector Charles Saatchi to force conceptualism on Britain whether it liked it or not.

Mr Massow claimed that conceptual art, made fashionable by the Damien Hirst generation, was "all hype and frequently no substance" and that "the British arts world is now in danger of disappearing up its own arse...Most concept art I see now is pretentious, self-indulgent, craftless tat that I wouldn't accept even as a gift. It is the product of over-indulged middle-class bloated egos who patronise real people with fake understanding...It's a crime. We need art lovers to tell artists that they're not obliged to reinvent themselves into creators of piles of crap."