I'm aware of the tendons behind my knees. For most of my life I was blissfully unaware of the apparatus that houses me. It just worked. Leaving me free to play. Running around and jumping and kicking balls was all possible without warm ups or cool downs. Nothing needed stretching. It just worked. Faithfully and without complaint or obvious need of maintenance or practical attention. But now I'm aware of the tendons behind my knees. The joints in my spine. The nerve signals that carry alarms from angry parts of my body to my brain. All of these functionaries are shouting out that they've had enough. No longer will they subordinate their needs to serve me. They now demand that I take an active role in keeping everything in good order. Keeping fit. That's running around with a purpose. Activity for function not for pleasure. Where's the pleasure in running against a conveyer belt heading nowhere? Riding a stationary bike to get your condition somewhere while you remain in the same place. Serving the machine. If I don't, they warn me, things will only get worse. Work to rule has already kicked in. If I sit for too long my knees cave under me when I attempt to stand. As I rise up to my full height my nerves attack my brain sending it dizzy, just standing up. The rebellion has begun. I am aware of the tendons behind my knees.
Wednesday 18 May 2011
Sunday 15 May 2011
What is Art, you decide
Art, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. Some art is obviously lovely and widely admired, yet can be dismissed as being low art. High art is something out of reach of us ordinary types. Hence its name. It's been produced by the art gods way up high.
To many a pile of bricks or a glass of water on a shelf are not art. To others these are installations from the art elite. They lack formal beauty or obvious craft. They confuse the observer and, we are told, raise questions. Which has become the highest or maybe sole purpose of art.
Once while visiting the Tate Modern, ostensibly to view the Picasso and Matisse exhibition but largely just to visit the building itself, there was a long queue for everything. Queues to see: A stairway leading up to a small wooden chair - baby bears presumably, unbroken and waiting for goldilocks to crush it under her selfish weight; A TV screen the size of a letter box looping a film of a largely unmoving group, presumably arranged for a wedding photo. Queues everywhere and for everything. Standing in the longest queue, for the gift shop, I joked with the lady in front of me that "I hope this exhibit is worth the wait". She replied without irony that "as long as it puts a question mark in your mind."
It's a fine line when discussing what is or isn't art between being too conservative and too pretentious. Fashions in art are always changing and dismissing a new style might one day be revealed as mere shortsightedness.
At some point even the most widely accepted artist, if their work was in any sense pioneering, have met with derision. Turner whose name is now more well known for the prize his estate awards to new artists was the subject of this joke: when is a cow not a cow? When it's painted by Turner. Of course the modern version of this joke would be: when is cow brain matter not cow brain matter? When it's a brick in a Turner prize exhibit.
Turner who is nowadays highly regarded was a contemporary of Constable who is not. During their working lives Turner was successful and Constable was not. Yet while Constable's picturesque figurative paintings have become widely popular his image suffers. In a modern context it is assumed that painting what you see is pandering to low brow imagination. Whereas Turner's more abstract work is assumed to be more adventurous. Yet in his own time Constable was considered a rebel for painting on location. Now that his work is used on tea towels and jigsaw puzzles he's regarded as somewhat commonplace.
Poor Constable. It seems he can never win. He proves that one test for art - that it challenges the viewer is flawed. What is daring now is mundane tomorrow. Take note Mr Hirst the shock value of putting a sliced-up cow in a tank doesn't last.
Art we are told must be for art sake. So we favour art that appears to be inspired to serve art rather than the artist's bank account. The all too obvious figurative paintings seem designed for a ready audience. Whereas a drizzle map of criss-cross lines of different colour paint seem intended to please only the artist. Of course to prevent this from being masterbation the artist must suffer. For the art, of course. It's not bollocks if it's Pollock's.
Art for art sake and the notion of the struggling artist is bogus. Poor constable found few benefactors. But throughout history art has mainly benefited from patrons who commissioned works and sponsored artists. And many of today's most avante garde artists are fairly well off. They have the ability to appeal only to the elite and therefore appear edgy, because the untutored masses don't get it.
The man in the street doesn't have room in his house for Tracy Emin's unmade bed. And Rachel Whiteread's Ghost needs to haunt a big space. These pieces need big money just to be displayed. There's nothing small scale about these works. Whiteread has won commissions from Austrian authorities, so there is a market and she isn't struggling.
Once art was as much about craft and technique as it was about meaning. The impressionist employed dazzling new painterly techniques to capture the fleeting moment or the feeling of light. Now artists like Whiteread, Hirst and Koons create projects rather than construct works. They are art architects. Although much of the impact of their work is derived from the spectacle of the finished product, they themselves are more the designers of the concept. The designers of the question. It's all about the spin. This most high concept and modern of arts while achieving acclaim for it's unconventionality is the most commercial of all.
Why is Koons large replica of a mickey mouse toy art? Why is Hirst's copy of a children's educational muscle man toy art? Because they tell us it is. The guy who sued Hirst for stealing his toy design wasn't an artist, so his toy wasn't art. He didn't have any spin. These artists they make you think don't they?
Some apply a very narrow definition of art that it must be figurative, painterly and pleasing. Others reject formal prettiness in favour of more difficult works. The definition is so broad that almost everything is art. But then what is it?
In the end as is often said, no truer words were ever spoken in jest: I don't know much about art but I know what I like.
What is art? You decide.
To many a pile of bricks or a glass of water on a shelf are not art. To others these are installations from the art elite. They lack formal beauty or obvious craft. They confuse the observer and, we are told, raise questions. Which has become the highest or maybe sole purpose of art.
Once while visiting the Tate Modern, ostensibly to view the Picasso and Matisse exhibition but largely just to visit the building itself, there was a long queue for everything. Queues to see: A stairway leading up to a small wooden chair - baby bears presumably, unbroken and waiting for goldilocks to crush it under her selfish weight; A TV screen the size of a letter box looping a film of a largely unmoving group, presumably arranged for a wedding photo. Queues everywhere and for everything. Standing in the longest queue, for the gift shop, I joked with the lady in front of me that "I hope this exhibit is worth the wait". She replied without irony that "as long as it puts a question mark in your mind."
It's a fine line when discussing what is or isn't art between being too conservative and too pretentious. Fashions in art are always changing and dismissing a new style might one day be revealed as mere shortsightedness.
At some point even the most widely accepted artist, if their work was in any sense pioneering, have met with derision. Turner whose name is now more well known for the prize his estate awards to new artists was the subject of this joke: when is a cow not a cow? When it's painted by Turner. Of course the modern version of this joke would be: when is cow brain matter not cow brain matter? When it's a brick in a Turner prize exhibit.
Turner who is nowadays highly regarded was a contemporary of Constable who is not. During their working lives Turner was successful and Constable was not. Yet while Constable's picturesque figurative paintings have become widely popular his image suffers. In a modern context it is assumed that painting what you see is pandering to low brow imagination. Whereas Turner's more abstract work is assumed to be more adventurous. Yet in his own time Constable was considered a rebel for painting on location. Now that his work is used on tea towels and jigsaw puzzles he's regarded as somewhat commonplace.
Poor Constable. It seems he can never win. He proves that one test for art - that it challenges the viewer is flawed. What is daring now is mundane tomorrow. Take note Mr Hirst the shock value of putting a sliced-up cow in a tank doesn't last.
Art we are told must be for art sake. So we favour art that appears to be inspired to serve art rather than the artist's bank account. The all too obvious figurative paintings seem designed for a ready audience. Whereas a drizzle map of criss-cross lines of different colour paint seem intended to please only the artist. Of course to prevent this from being masterbation the artist must suffer. For the art, of course. It's not bollocks if it's Pollock's.
Art for art sake and the notion of the struggling artist is bogus. Poor constable found few benefactors. But throughout history art has mainly benefited from patrons who commissioned works and sponsored artists. And many of today's most avante garde artists are fairly well off. They have the ability to appeal only to the elite and therefore appear edgy, because the untutored masses don't get it.
The man in the street doesn't have room in his house for Tracy Emin's unmade bed. And Rachel Whiteread's Ghost needs to haunt a big space. These pieces need big money just to be displayed. There's nothing small scale about these works. Whiteread has won commissions from Austrian authorities, so there is a market and she isn't struggling.
Once art was as much about craft and technique as it was about meaning. The impressionist employed dazzling new painterly techniques to capture the fleeting moment or the feeling of light. Now artists like Whiteread, Hirst and Koons create projects rather than construct works. They are art architects. Although much of the impact of their work is derived from the spectacle of the finished product, they themselves are more the designers of the concept. The designers of the question. It's all about the spin. This most high concept and modern of arts while achieving acclaim for it's unconventionality is the most commercial of all.
Why is Koons large replica of a mickey mouse toy art? Why is Hirst's copy of a children's educational muscle man toy art? Because they tell us it is. The guy who sued Hirst for stealing his toy design wasn't an artist, so his toy wasn't art. He didn't have any spin. These artists they make you think don't they?
Some apply a very narrow definition of art that it must be figurative, painterly and pleasing. Others reject formal prettiness in favour of more difficult works. The definition is so broad that almost everything is art. But then what is it?
In the end as is often said, no truer words were ever spoken in jest: I don't know much about art but I know what I like.
What is art? You decide.
Sunday 1 May 2011
The Royals: they're just like us
Apparently, the Royal Family or at the very least the Royal Couple are just like us. That's good then. Apparently. Odd though. Odd that people who stand in their thousands to cheer at two strangers are doing so to celebrate them because they're just like us.
They are just like us, except they're better. William is not unlike anyone else who one day will become king. In fact, we are told, he willingly cleaned out toilets in Chile without a murmur of complaint. Not even a bloody hell these toilets stink like shit.
The point of this tale is two fold. Firstly to silence those who would wrongly accuse a lad of privilege of being stuck up. Secondly to show that he's just like us, only better. Come on, if you had to clean out a shit house you'd do it but you'd fucking grumble about it.
Throughout the wedding broadcast the stories of the Royal Couple being just like us flowed fast. The wedding cars and fairy tale carriages had been replaced at the couples behest by mini coaches. Which was charming fun because it's just like us, only bigger.
Unlike us they got wed at Westminster Abbey, had airforce fly overs and granny gave them gold to fashion into rings. And the whole thing was beamed live all over the world to 2 billion people, so we are told.
Why all the interest if they're just like us?
Because they're not. After all Prince William's new wife Kate, whose folks certainly aren't short of a few bob, is referred to as a "commoner". Starts to make those coaches sound a little like slumming it for kicks.
All the royal watchers and royal spin doctors seem to think that any republican stirring will be quelled by saying what downright ordinary folks these royal types really are. Because we all know that to be a republican you need to think the royals are all lizards from outer-space.
Not long ago the royals maintained their privileged place by claiming the divine right of kings. They couldn't help being better, they were just born that way. Chosen by god to rule. In fact even a modernising monarch like King Juan Carlos I of Spain claims to have been selected by god to guide his country. Franco before him of course, though not of royal descent, made a similar claim that god sent him to save Spain from poverty, presumably by offing a lot of his fellow citizens. Claiming your humble right to lord it over your fellow man by the authority of god was always a good way to keep the common herd from questioning the order of things.
So isn't their station in life based on the notion that they are not like us. Aren't they born to be kings by divine right?
Perhaps not since Victorian times, when Prince Albert recast the unpopular royals as a middle class family with great and lasting success. They were still our betters but now acting as a template of how to behave derived from their noble birthright and duty to serve as our rulers. It worked then and its working now.
The more flawed they are shown to be the more just like us they claim to be. If the future king's a Nazi then let him abdicate for a royal romance. If their marriages fail it shows how in touch with the common herd they are. Why shouldn't they be allowed to act just like us, we say as we pity them for the royal straight jackets they've been forced to wear since birth.
If they're just normal like many had suspected for a long time then do we need them at all?
One often given reason is that a constitutional monarchy saves us from electing a political head of state. Some scumbag who we couldn't trust. A slimy elected politico. The royals are not competing for our votes, they are instead prepared from birth to serve with grace and dignity. Whereas, the logic runs, an elected head of state might be ignorant of other cultures or hold objectionable views and make shady alliances with despots. What then explains the antics of Edward VIII friend of Hitler, or Prince Philip casual racist or his mother-in-law the well known supporter of Ian Smith. None of them were stupidly elected so sadly they can't be unelected either.
When non-royal normal types, like Posh and Becks or Peter and that other Katie called Jordan, throw their opulence at us by marrying on throwns they are derided as deluded and self important fools. Yet when a £50 million wedding has real royalty on board then it's exciting and acceptable because of how ordinary they are.
If they're not chosen by god, if they're not our betters, if they don't have to adhere to royal protocols, if we're saddened on their behalf by the burden they never asked to bear then why can't we set them free and do away with our monarchy?
After all they're just like us, give them a break.
They are just like us, except they're better. William is not unlike anyone else who one day will become king. In fact, we are told, he willingly cleaned out toilets in Chile without a murmur of complaint. Not even a bloody hell these toilets stink like shit.
The point of this tale is two fold. Firstly to silence those who would wrongly accuse a lad of privilege of being stuck up. Secondly to show that he's just like us, only better. Come on, if you had to clean out a shit house you'd do it but you'd fucking grumble about it.
Throughout the wedding broadcast the stories of the Royal Couple being just like us flowed fast. The wedding cars and fairy tale carriages had been replaced at the couples behest by mini coaches. Which was charming fun because it's just like us, only bigger.
Unlike us they got wed at Westminster Abbey, had airforce fly overs and granny gave them gold to fashion into rings. And the whole thing was beamed live all over the world to 2 billion people, so we are told.
Why all the interest if they're just like us?
Because they're not. After all Prince William's new wife Kate, whose folks certainly aren't short of a few bob, is referred to as a "commoner". Starts to make those coaches sound a little like slumming it for kicks.
All the royal watchers and royal spin doctors seem to think that any republican stirring will be quelled by saying what downright ordinary folks these royal types really are. Because we all know that to be a republican you need to think the royals are all lizards from outer-space.
Not long ago the royals maintained their privileged place by claiming the divine right of kings. They couldn't help being better, they were just born that way. Chosen by god to rule. In fact even a modernising monarch like King Juan Carlos I of Spain claims to have been selected by god to guide his country. Franco before him of course, though not of royal descent, made a similar claim that god sent him to save Spain from poverty, presumably by offing a lot of his fellow citizens. Claiming your humble right to lord it over your fellow man by the authority of god was always a good way to keep the common herd from questioning the order of things.
So isn't their station in life based on the notion that they are not like us. Aren't they born to be kings by divine right?
Perhaps not since Victorian times, when Prince Albert recast the unpopular royals as a middle class family with great and lasting success. They were still our betters but now acting as a template of how to behave derived from their noble birthright and duty to serve as our rulers. It worked then and its working now.
The more flawed they are shown to be the more just like us they claim to be. If the future king's a Nazi then let him abdicate for a royal romance. If their marriages fail it shows how in touch with the common herd they are. Why shouldn't they be allowed to act just like us, we say as we pity them for the royal straight jackets they've been forced to wear since birth.
If they're just normal like many had suspected for a long time then do we need them at all?
One often given reason is that a constitutional monarchy saves us from electing a political head of state. Some scumbag who we couldn't trust. A slimy elected politico. The royals are not competing for our votes, they are instead prepared from birth to serve with grace and dignity. Whereas, the logic runs, an elected head of state might be ignorant of other cultures or hold objectionable views and make shady alliances with despots. What then explains the antics of Edward VIII friend of Hitler, or Prince Philip casual racist or his mother-in-law the well known supporter of Ian Smith. None of them were stupidly elected so sadly they can't be unelected either.
When non-royal normal types, like Posh and Becks or Peter and that other Katie called Jordan, throw their opulence at us by marrying on throwns they are derided as deluded and self important fools. Yet when a £50 million wedding has real royalty on board then it's exciting and acceptable because of how ordinary they are.
If they're not chosen by god, if they're not our betters, if they don't have to adhere to royal protocols, if we're saddened on their behalf by the burden they never asked to bear then why can't we set them free and do away with our monarchy?
After all they're just like us, give them a break.
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