There's no such thing as a harmless joke
Oct. 23rd, 2007 02:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ventaSaturday was a day of culture: the Institute of Contemporary Arts, and the Tate Modern. OK, if we're strictly accurate, four of us went to see Jeffrey Lewis, antifolk hero extraordinaire, as part of the Comica festival. He and a lady called Helen did a few songs, he performed a couple of low-budget videos, and then he was interviewed by Everett True and Josie Long.
Which was enjoyable, if a bit brief. Low-budget videos are cartoons, drawn into an A3 sketchbook whose pages are slowly turned to accompany a rambling story-song. Well, actually one of them was a video for Nirvana's Sifting. The other was The History Of Writing, which did exactly what it said on the cover (from earliest times to the 23rd Century).
Everett True turns out to be named after an obscure old comic-book character and talks like someone who'd really rather shut up. Josie Long is endearingly enthusiastic and reminded me constantly of a younger and less self-assured![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kauket. They babbled cheerfully at each other for twenty minutes or so.
One of the songs performed was Big A, Little A, originally by Crass. Jeff Lewis recently released an album of Crass covers, which I'm thoroughly confused about. I decided I wouldn't listen to it until I'd dug out the mysterious track-listing-free tape I copied from an ex and which I believe to be Crass. And which, it transpires, I now can't find - if any parents are reading, could they possibly peer at the tape shelf in my bedroom and see if it's easily locatable, please ? It's got a pale yellow card inlay and says "CRASS?" on the spine in pencil.
Anyway, the only track I remember clearly on it is the raucous song about who put the turd in custard. I certainly wasn't expecting the verbose introspection of Big A, Little A. Crass requires further investigation. On the evidence of one song, Jeff Lewis' cover CD will be pretty good, too.
Then we went on a roundabout route along Fleet Street (which has lovely architecture) to the Tate Modern. Where an enormous crack currently runs across the floor of the Turbine Hall.
We were curious to see it, and thought we'd better hurry up before they hedge it round with barriers - since it opened, apparently three people have gone and fallen into it. Which is beyond my comprehension - none of them were apparently blind or mobility-impaired. They just spontaneously fell in. Sometimes I despair of the general public.
Anyway, Shibboleth 2007 symbolises divisions in society and racial hatred. The smartly-printed leaflet went on at some length about the artist's earlier works, the themes she explores and the questions posed by the sculpture.
Actually, if there is any work of art in the Turbine Hall at present, I think it's merely faciliated by the crack. The art is in the people and their responses to it; not philosophically, but phsyically.
I briefly tried expressing this theory to my companions, but they looked at me a bit funny. They had, independently, concluded that it was, in fact, A Crack. And, on reflection, they're right.
If you look at a nice, traditional watercolour of a rural scene you're allowed to enjoy looking at a picture. You don't have to divine the artist's statement about the futility of farming in today's society. You don't even have to understand the Freudian connotations of the relative positions of the sheep, or decide that actually it's nothing to do with the countryside and is in fact a damning indictment of the actions of Harold Wilson. You can just say ooh, pretty picture.
I don't see why this shouldn't extend to non-representational art. As cracks go, it's a pretty good one. You can peer into its depths. You can poke things in it (you can drop your toddler in it for a photo - yes, I did see someone do this). You can walk round it, enjoy the tactility of the rough edges, and generally rejoice in the visceral experience of being able to touch a work of art without fear of breaking it. You can spend really quite a lot of time trying to work out how it was made. In short, it's a lot of fun. However, it isn't a shibboleth. It's a crack.
Then we decided that was enough culture, went to a variety of nautically-named pubs, and ate prodigious quantities of Japanese food.
Which was enjoyable, if a bit brief. Low-budget videos are cartoons, drawn into an A3 sketchbook whose pages are slowly turned to accompany a rambling story-song. Well, actually one of them was a video for Nirvana's Sifting. The other was The History Of Writing, which did exactly what it said on the cover (from earliest times to the 23rd Century).
Everett True turns out to be named after an obscure old comic-book character and talks like someone who'd really rather shut up. Josie Long is endearingly enthusiastic and reminded me constantly of a younger and less self-assured
kauket. They babbled cheerfully at each other for twenty minutes or so.One of the songs performed was Big A, Little A, originally by Crass. Jeff Lewis recently released an album of Crass covers, which I'm thoroughly confused about. I decided I wouldn't listen to it until I'd dug out the mysterious track-listing-free tape I copied from an ex and which I believe to be Crass. And which, it transpires, I now can't find - if any parents are reading, could they possibly peer at the tape shelf in my bedroom and see if it's easily locatable, please ? It's got a pale yellow card inlay and says "CRASS?" on the spine in pencil.
Anyway, the only track I remember clearly on it is the raucous song about who put the turd in custard. I certainly wasn't expecting the verbose introspection of Big A, Little A. Crass requires further investigation. On the evidence of one song, Jeff Lewis' cover CD will be pretty good, too.
Then we went on a roundabout route along Fleet Street (which has lovely architecture) to the Tate Modern. Where an enormous crack currently runs across the floor of the Turbine Hall.
We were curious to see it, and thought we'd better hurry up before they hedge it round with barriers - since it opened, apparently three people have gone and fallen into it. Which is beyond my comprehension - none of them were apparently blind or mobility-impaired. They just spontaneously fell in. Sometimes I despair of the general public.
Anyway, Shibboleth 2007 symbolises divisions in society and racial hatred. The smartly-printed leaflet went on at some length about the artist's earlier works, the themes she explores and the questions posed by the sculpture.
Actually, if there is any work of art in the Turbine Hall at present, I think it's merely faciliated by the crack. The art is in the people and their responses to it; not philosophically, but phsyically.
I briefly tried expressing this theory to my companions, but they looked at me a bit funny. They had, independently, concluded that it was, in fact, A Crack. And, on reflection, they're right.
If you look at a nice, traditional watercolour of a rural scene you're allowed to enjoy looking at a picture. You don't have to divine the artist's statement about the futility of farming in today's society. You don't even have to understand the Freudian connotations of the relative positions of the sheep, or decide that actually it's nothing to do with the countryside and is in fact a damning indictment of the actions of Harold Wilson. You can just say ooh, pretty picture.
I don't see why this shouldn't extend to non-representational art. As cracks go, it's a pretty good one. You can peer into its depths. You can poke things in it (you can drop your toddler in it for a photo - yes, I did see someone do this). You can walk round it, enjoy the tactility of the rough edges, and generally rejoice in the visceral experience of being able to touch a work of art without fear of breaking it. You can spend really quite a lot of time trying to work out how it was made. In short, it's a lot of fun. However, it isn't a shibboleth. It's a crack.
Then we decided that was enough culture, went to a variety of nautically-named pubs, and ate prodigious quantities of Japanese food.
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no subject
Date: 2007-10-24 09:05 am (UTC)Best Crass song I know of is the Falklands-related 'How Does It Feel (To Be the Mother of a Thousand Dead)?', is that on your compo? But I don't think I've heard any of the early stuff.
(To neatly unite your two themes, Crass drummer Penny Rimbaud's autobiography was called Shibboleth.)