I’m aware that I have not written a proper post in ages as I seem to have been spending most of my free time doing Latin or moaning about having to do Latin (just ask Nat if you don’t believe me). I’m the only person left in the class who is not retired/ over 60 and who didn’t do Latin at school (they seem to remember everything even 40 years on!). They all spend several hours a day on Latin and I get left behind feeling a bit stupid. But I will not be defeated.
Last weekend I had the good fortune of visiting Tate Liverpool on the final day of an exhibition of the work of Jake and Dinos Chapman (“Bad Art for Bad People“). I was quite impressed.
Good art: Some reworkings of Goya’s Disasters of War etchings and some sculptural “hellscapes”. Severed limbs, decapitated bodies, McDodonaldses and swastikas aplenty. The exhibition blurb didn’t add much. We are just drawn to the grim and the gory, end of story, no? Not so according to the free booklet I picked up on the way out: “Through an aesthetics of horror and disgust, they deal with the instability of moral and ideological belief systems, particularly those founded on eighteenth century Englightenment thought, Christianity or consumerism.” Well there you go.
Bad Art: Distorted dolls, genitals in the place of facial features: yawn. Freudian trash. Hans Bellmer was doing similar things to dolls in the 1930s.
And in the news, Jean Baudrillard has simulated his own death : (.
09-Mar-07 at 9:39 am | Permalink
The Wikipedia article on Baudrillard is nice and up to date.
11-Mar-07 at 11:04 pm | Permalink
Chapman kids > Do nothing for me. For the record, I hate Goya too. I have real trouble with depiction of the gratuitous without good reason. I don’t think there’s anything clever about their work whatsoever. It’s pretty obscene, revolting stuff as far as I can see. Quite an advocate of most of the other YBA’s to find fame after the Sensation exhibition. Particularly Hirst, whose work is gratuitous in all the right ways, but these kids are erm, shit. Not a fan.
Love to go and see the Gilbert and George retrospective at Tate Modern. Have you been? To be honest, they don’t do much for me either, but I want to go anyway!
Ooh, and I heard that the SAC have secured funding for a retrospective of Warhols work in summer apparently. Awesome..
12-Mar-07 at 8:42 am | Permalink
>without good reason.
Goya was trying to bring the horrors of war to public attention, before photography and aw that. I really like Goya. I agree that the Chapmans’ art is probably just sensational. Lots of it reminded me of Playstation games.
Yes I would like to see Gilbert and George and maybe Hogarth if they are still on in April.
12-Mar-07 at 7:56 pm | Permalink
Horrors of war > Yeah, I have a book of his prints. He had quite the proclivity for nightmarish stuff too though. Bit mingin.
Lots of it reminded me of Playstation games > Touche! Hee. See, I think GTA is a lot more than gratuitous behaviour though. MULTI LAYERED entertainment. Like lasagne.
14-Mar-07 at 8:35 pm | Permalink
R.e.s.p.e.c.t
- rendezvous primo rama latter
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funnily enough it was March 14th. Nothing ever happens on March 14th.