Must we throw this filth at our fringe kids?
My god, what an appalling, patronising, ill-informed, load of tosh The Edinburgh Show (spin off from The Culture Show) was last night (BBC2, in the Late Review slot). The Ron Mueck piece was the worst piece of contemporary art “reviewing” i’ve seen for about ten years, surely we’re still not stuck in the idea that “ordinary” people don’t get things that aren’t paintings are we? Or that people think that there is some sort of “secret art club” that you need to be a member of to “understand” modern work? So incredibly patronising. And why send someone to do the show who’d never been to the festival before? Anyone watching the show would either be going or wishing they were, so feedback from a veteran about how this year’s festival compares to past ones would be much more informative than “ooh i don’t like stand-up me”. Also reducing stand-up to three VERY shouty blokes (the joke-free Jason Byrne, the out-dated Brendon Burns and some boring american bloke who is meant to be some sort of new Bill Hicks) is bound to put anyone off it, when there is such a wide variety, even when it comes to one person with a mic shows.
If i bump into Matthew Sweet or Zina Sara-Wiwa in the pleasance courtyard (and considering the ENTIRE show was from there last night, despite there being 200 other venues, i don’t think this will be too hard) over the next five days they will be getting a piece of my mind…
(x-posted to the bbc msg board, i bet i know which one gets more readers, eh viewers?)
CarsmileSteve in Do You See /FT /The Brown Wedge • TV • 791 views
Yes, this type of thinking is exactly what I was going on about apropos John Harris on Beefheart in the Grauniad. I don’t actually see how anyone even semi-sentient couldn’t “get” exactly what Ron Mueck does. Thank heavens I watched Carol Vorderman on The Friday Night Project instead.
Oh actually, i think i’ve misrepresented what they were saying a touch.
They were saying that
the plebsanyone could get mueck’s work, unlike all that WEIRD stuff, rather than mueck’s work being particularly deep or owt. this was “explained” by saying that one could see the WORK and CRAFT that had gone into the sculptures which is what the commoners like apparently, implying that eg shark in a box etcetc didn’t fit this pattern and thus were disliked.ALSO, “apologies” for the “abundance” of “scare” “quotes”…
a fooptimist speaks: THEY SHOULD HAVE SENT WRIGHTIE!
How very dare you call Burnsey out dated. He’s a fucking genius.
Scrap the BBC!
BBC’s idea of WORK and CRAFT = toothbrush-holing factory in Balham.
But it does seem that there is a widespred view held out there (or at least held up by media) that the method is as important as the produce. It’s like the old ‘Real Rock vs Manufactured Pop’ argument really. Mueck being the relatively trad/conventional artist that ‘everyman’ can relate to (with the sense of that being uber-important upheld in the process) in this instance.
The only problem I can see here is the reference to ‘plebs/commoners’ as a generalised example of people who don’t get/like highbrow art. But I do not have first-hand experience of my expectations actually being confounded in this way i.e. I’ve not met someone I might expect to not like that kind of Art actually like it! But this isn’t saying much.