Modern Art -
Isle of Thanet Gazette 30th June 2006
Reading the news can be a dispiriting business. What with daily reports of death and destruction and endless photos of Mrs Beckham's pout to contend with (someone should tell her she looks much prettier when she smiles), it's no wonder one gets depressed. So what a delight to read the joyous story this week of the rise to fame of a humble plinth. If you missed this wonderful tale, artist David Hensel spent two months creating an 18 inch resin head, entitled 'One Day Closer to Paradise' (italics) for consideration by the Royal Academy for its Summer Exhibition. Finding that the head kept rolling over, he then passed the afternoon making a stand for it from a slab of slate and a small piece of wood. During the judging procedure by the good art experts of the Academy, the two - head and plinth - became separated. The head itself (not surprisingly because it was hideous) was rejected, but the plinth on which it should have been balanced was chosen as " a quirky little piece" to be displayed in the exhibition. The artist, evidently not one to miss a trick, rapidly renamed the plinth Another Day in Paradise (italics) and was quick to point out that it had "some kind of presence. It has got that kind of balance and certainty and mystery, freedom and control." I would love to think that he is being deeply ironic but I fear he means it. The plinth is now being auctioned off in The Times (reserve price £1000) and I won't be bidding. Not because I disapprove of the quirky. I was smitten when I first visited the Saatchi gallery, finding Tracey Emin's bed mesmerising and strangely beautiful, Damien Hurst's tank compelling and while some of the exhibits had an air of unrelenting sexual depravity that came close to making me queasy, they were all oddly enthralling. I hope if the Turner Centre is ever built, we will see plenty of such creativity on display - including work from Tracey Emin and co - and I will be the first to defend it against the blinkered. For whether it is rubbish, or bricks or bits of dead animal if a collection of objects, carefully put together, are pleasing to the eye, thought-provoking or moving, then that is Art without a doubt. If anything is going to give Modern Art a bad name, it's not the paintings/installations/sculptures themselves but the pretentious claptrap that gets talked about them. But I drivel on too long. It is time to present a bottle of chilled Macon Blanc Villages juxtaposed with a corkscrew, echoed by a wine goblet and set against a bowl of Kettle Chips. It is entitled Another Evening in My Kitchen.(italics) If anyone would like to own this fusion of glass and potato, this union of straight and twisting planes representing the myriad of experiences in urban life, the random placing of the bowl symbolising the circle of mortality and the pressure of salt consumption so evocative of our fragile place on earth, the bidding is now open. Reserve price for this fine exhibit is £5.99. Hurry or I'll have drunk it...