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BS: Pride in English Modern Art

10 Dec 01 - 02:05 PM (#607278)
Subject: Pride in English Modern Art
From: Cappuccino

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


10 Dec 01 - 03:30 PM (#607329)
Subject: RE: BS: Pride in English Modern Art
From: Jeanie

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 ?)


10 Dec 01 - 03:46 PM (#607345)
Subject: RE: BS: Pride in English Modern Art
From: breezy


10 Dec 01 - 03:46 PM (#607348)
Subject: RE: BS: Pride in English Modern Art
From: breezy

5 secs later


10 Dec 01 - 03:47 PM (#607349)
Subject: RE: BS: Pride in English Modern Art
From: breezy


10 Dec 01 - 03:49 PM (#607350)
Subject: RE: BS: Pride in English Modern Art
From: breezy

Oi! Turner, where's me £20,000


10 Dec 01 - 03:50 PM (#607353)
Subject: RE: BS: Pride in English Modern Art
From: breezy

its more minimal than 30


10 Dec 01 - 04:20 PM (#607380)
Subject: RE: BS: Pride in English Modern Art
From: Cappuccino

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

- Ian B


10 Dec 01 - 04:48 PM (#607397)
Subject: RE: BS: Pride in English Modern Art
From: breezy

IanB you are a true B.S ter.


10 Dec 01 - 05:05 PM (#607422)
Subject: RE: BS: Pride in English Modern Art
From: McGrath of Harlow

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.


10 Dec 01 - 05:13 PM (#607425)
Subject: RE: BS: Pride in English Modern Art
From: McGrath of Harlow

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.


10 Dec 01 - 05:24 PM (#607432)
Subject: RE: BS: Pride in English Modern Art
From: GUEST,Wyrdsister

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!


10 Dec 01 - 06:54 PM (#607481)
Subject: RE: BS: Pride in English Modern Art
From: McGrath of Harlow

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


10 Dec 01 - 07:04 PM (#607491)
Subject: RE: BS: Pride in English Modern Art
From: GUEST

Do shut up, Kevin,

and please go to bed


10 Dec 01 - 07:15 PM (#607499)
Subject: RE: BS: Pride in English Modern Art
From: GUEST, A Regular, sans Biscuit

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?


10 Dec 01 - 07:42 PM (#607522)
Subject: RE: BS: Pride in English Modern Art
From: GUEST,Wyrdsister

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


10 Dec 01 - 08:25 PM (#607546)
Subject: RE: BS: Pride in English Modern Art
From: Cobble

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)


10 Dec 01 - 08:34 PM (#607558)
Subject: RE: BS: Pride in English Modern Art
From: McGrath of Harlow

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


10 Dec 01 - 09:21 PM (#607582)
Subject: RE: BS: Pride in English Modern Art
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)

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


11 Dec 01 - 02:53 AM (#607733)
Subject: RE: BS: Pride in English Modern Art
From: GUEST,Stavanger Bill

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

What is that a minimalist Container Ship??


11 Dec 01 - 05:06 AM (#607757)
Subject: RE: BS: Pride in English Modern Art
From: GUEST,Sledge

Come again??


11 Dec 01 - 05:57 AM (#607764)
Subject: RE: BS: Pride in English Modern Art
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)

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.


11 Dec 01 - 07:16 AM (#607774)
Subject: RE: BS: Pride in English Modern Art
From: McGrath of Harlow

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?


11 Dec 01 - 02:15 PM (#607881)
Subject: RE: BS: Pride in English Modern Art
From: breezy

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


11 Dec 01 - 04:53 PM (#607979)
Subject: RE: BS: Pride in English Modern Art
From: GUEST,Cobble at work

All this sort of talk and no message from Spaw.

Cobble


11 Dec 01 - 05:44 PM (#608010)
Subject: RE: BS: Pride in English Modern Art
From: McGrath of Harlow

Maybe he's turned minimalist...


18 Jan 02 - 04:33 AM (#630293)
Subject: RE: BS: Pride in English Modern Art
From: Ringer

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."