art

i love art. i try to go to as many galleries and exhibitions as i can.
i do fall into the category of not knowing much about art, but knowing what i like.

this year's turner prize was a flop for me. when you consider all the great art that is being made out there that the turner prize panel can manage to find 3 totally useless series of works and 1 viewable series of work, you have to be amazed at their ability to get it wrong.
but then over the last couple of years the turner has been getting worse and worse.

of all the categories of art i have yet to really come to terms with it is performance art. it always seems to be "artists" just jumping around like loons with no rhyme or reason. people such as paul mccarthy, joan jonas, valie export and like. they all seem to have spent more time working out the justification for the work they perform than actually the perfomance itself.
but england need not fear as we have our own performance artist who does pointless art events, that have more "meaning" and "conceptual" thought gone into it than the actual art itself.

this time mark mcgowan is crawling 60 miles, while towing some chocolate, to canterbury. he is doing this while carrying a sign that says "could you love me?" this has something to do with being lonely during christmas (though he does seem to think it is ok to be lonely during the rest of the year.
he is quoted as saying "I am looking for love because I have had enough - I don't want to be alone any more." well his "art" is not going to help him pull so he would be better off filling in the lonely hearts column.

this is the worst type of art, it actually says nothing, it doesn't look good or interesting (it is the proverbial paint drying...)
pretty much here is a talentless tosser who wants to be an artist and has to get media atention in order to prove that he is in fact an artist, which is how the game is played. it is not about creating art, it is about claiming to be an artist because you are an "artist".

so given the shit that the boys at the tate like - expect mcgowan to be up for the turner prize in 2006.
go here for the story http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/4575440.stm