Conceptual art

I am loving, loving, loving the great big snit being held in honour of the Turner Prize nominee Martin Creed. I think Marin Creed *rocks*. A lot of the art critics are failed painters eg. Adrian Searle.This affects their written output; knowledge of this background is essential in deconstructing the agenda they bring to the public in print.

Actually I'm totally lying. The day my mother comes into my apt to complain about my unwashed dishes will also be the day that I have grown wings to fly into the sun.

(see, it's AMBIGUOUS!?¡¿)

Which brings us back to the Quo.

AS I SAID BEFORE conceptual art is all about having the quirky idea first. You either like the idea or you don't. If I sat home flicking my switches and calling it art NOW, it wouldn't be art but if I had done so and called it art BEFORE Creed, it would. Think of it like a nice big game of TAG.

My initial post was about having some idea about the agenda his critics bring to the table, ie. being resentful painters (stand up Adrian Searle. At any rate the winner is either Isaac Julien or Mike Nelson this year - neither of whom make conceptual art.

An otherwise clean room, with a small pile of freshly cut glass (replaced each morning). Title: Nothing's Perfect
A Severed foot on top of a television (showing a video of a guy playing guitar, badly, on a loop). Title: We don't need them anymore
A photo display of various plugholes. Title: Where does it all go?

Send me cash!

A bit like Pete said, I sometimes wonder if half the problem is that the 'quirky idea' or concept or whatever buckles under the weight of its execution. Y'know, if you reeled it out in a conversation or on the kitchen table (say, two plums and a banana, but then I like SArah Lucas cos she is rude and funny in way that by-passes my reflexivity; I have no idea what the critical consensus is on her)--> ha ha! very good! - but if you take 6 months, a lot of effort and a big room to realise your concept it starts to look kind of slight.

doesn't have to be original: just has to be stuff = we all do it all the time

But isn't Martin Creed's point kind of that it doesn't even have to be stuff?

I am going to go home and practise LONG DIVISION now.

The Hockney debunk of the acclaimed period of painting, showing how they caught the light with mirrors and projectors was excellent. If a huge period as venerated as that can be brought down to a trick of the light, then current debate over the value of conceptual art is nothing.

I think people should listen to / read David Lee in the London art world, he's pretty much the only person talking sense, although Sewell sometimes strikes a chord. The controlling group of people is even more insidious than the music industry because it's much smaller, less competitive (closer to cartelism) and far more hidden.

http://www.davidshrigley.com/images/drawings/why_we_got_sack/1_artists.jpg

ah, august 18th. episode 4 the midlands.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/features/digital-picture-britain.shtml

Danish artist told to repay museum €67,000 after turning in blank canvasses
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66847139

A Danish artist has been ordered to return nearly 500,000 kroner (€67,000) to a museum after he supplied it with two blank canvasses for a project he named "Take the Money and Run". The Kunsten Museum in Aalborg had intended for Jens Haaning to embed the banknotes two pieces of art in 2021.
Instead, he gave it blank canvasses and then told dr.dk: "The work is that I have taken their money." A court has now ordered him to return the cash - but keep some for expenses. The art project was intended as a statement on salaries in Denmark and Austria.

“The work is that I have taken their money."

Any true conceptual artist would be satisfied that the full beauty of their concept was delivered to their audience where it will dwell forever inviolable. The eventual fate of the money was only incidental to the artistic inspiration, in that it was always going to disappear back into circulation anyway.

"It has been good for my work, but it also puts me in an unmanageable situation where I don't really know what to do."

... what was he expecting?

The Kunsten Museum in Aalborg had intended for Jens Haaning to embed the banknotes two pieces of art in 2021.

huh?