Dot in the Sky (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dotinthesky) wrote2006-01-29 04:47 pm
dotinthesky) wrote2006-01-29 04:47 pm
Entry tags:
Living in the Welfare State
Kevin and I are currently sitting in a cafe overlooking Hyde Park's lake. We are drinking lattes and eating salty as the sea crisps. There's a ruckus of children, tourists and expresso machines nearby. The sun's shining and the shadows of a willow tree flicker on our table. Kevin's just finished drawing a Russian in his notebook, I've finished writing a postcard; we just came from an exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery: The Welfare Show, by Michael Elmgreen & Ingar Dragset.
Social Mobility 2005
The show aimed to look at the Welfare State in Western societies and study its failure. A stripper's podium flashed lightbulbs beside a bucket, a mop and a "wet floor" sign ("after the fun, somebody has to clean up the mess," Kevin said); a stark white corridor was the home of two patient beds, one of them empty and the other carrying a life-like dummy (either dead or waiting for his possibly pointless operation); a wall advertised white socks in Woolsworth for 1.25 pounds behind an empty wheelchair with a balloon tied to it.
The theme of waiting was everywhere: an airport carrousel spun a solitary bag in a room with no exit (the stairs leading out had crumbled); just around the corner, several bored-looking security guards sat beside each other, intimidating us from trying the handles of the many doors facing them (which Kevin and I tried opening anyways, unsuccessfully); a waiting room with a dying tree and numbered tickets on the floor reminded us of the kind of bureaucracy we have all experienced. Just as we walked out, we passed a bank machine with a sleeping baby on the floor, tucked inside his carrier bag: the message seemed to be that the parents' welfare money hadn't arrived so they had to leave the baby they could no longer provide for behind.
There were many ideas, and interesting starting points for narratives about the Welfare State, but the exhibition still lacked something. Some of the pieces came across as half-baked ideas, or simplistic points on what were possibly more complex issues. The tension between the security guards and the locked doors could have been heightened if we felt more a need to open those doors. People wandered very quickly from one piece to the next; nobody seemed too enthralled or engaged with what was on display. When we left the gallery, Kevin said that many artists assume a certain kind of posture, or a position, where everything they create and exhibit is irrevocably art. Many people treat art galleries as a kind of esoteric experience, where the art displayed is always good because it somehow made its way there. This exhibition, however, was very weak, and I wouldn't even go so far as to call it art. We did have a good discussion afterwards about the potential narratives, but it still felt as if the "artists" were trying to say the obvious with a big grant. A wheelchair with a balloon tied to it is nothing more than a wheelchair with a balloon tied to it, I say.
The exhibition is free so, if you live in London, it's worth checking out if you are near Hyde Park. It's on until March.
Social Mobility 2005
The show aimed to look at the Welfare State in Western societies and study its failure. A stripper's podium flashed lightbulbs beside a bucket, a mop and a "wet floor" sign ("after the fun, somebody has to clean up the mess," Kevin said); a stark white corridor was the home of two patient beds, one of them empty and the other carrying a life-like dummy (either dead or waiting for his possibly pointless operation); a wall advertised white socks in Woolsworth for 1.25 pounds behind an empty wheelchair with a balloon tied to it.
The theme of waiting was everywhere: an airport carrousel spun a solitary bag in a room with no exit (the stairs leading out had crumbled); just around the corner, several bored-looking security guards sat beside each other, intimidating us from trying the handles of the many doors facing them (which Kevin and I tried opening anyways, unsuccessfully); a waiting room with a dying tree and numbered tickets on the floor reminded us of the kind of bureaucracy we have all experienced. Just as we walked out, we passed a bank machine with a sleeping baby on the floor, tucked inside his carrier bag: the message seemed to be that the parents' welfare money hadn't arrived so they had to leave the baby they could no longer provide for behind.
There were many ideas, and interesting starting points for narratives about the Welfare State, but the exhibition still lacked something. Some of the pieces came across as half-baked ideas, or simplistic points on what were possibly more complex issues. The tension between the security guards and the locked doors could have been heightened if we felt more a need to open those doors. People wandered very quickly from one piece to the next; nobody seemed too enthralled or engaged with what was on display. When we left the gallery, Kevin said that many artists assume a certain kind of posture, or a position, where everything they create and exhibit is irrevocably art. Many people treat art galleries as a kind of esoteric experience, where the art displayed is always good because it somehow made its way there. This exhibition, however, was very weak, and I wouldn't even go so far as to call it art. We did have a good discussion afterwards about the potential narratives, but it still felt as if the "artists" were trying to say the obvious with a big grant. A wheelchair with a balloon tied to it is nothing more than a wheelchair with a balloon tied to it, I say.
The exhibition is free so, if you live in London, it's worth checking out if you are near Hyde Park. It's on until March.
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The exhibit...I would have still gone to check it out too, however
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Free is good
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painted all in white
painted all in white
18 hardcover books for a dollar each
full of every thing I could want to know
sitting in my lap covering up the excitement I do not feel
hordes of indifferent zombies enter the train at every stop
the voices can not crash this mediocre day I am having
my smile hides beyond my faces need for solitude
when you climb the retracting stares and sit beside me
I ask you, do you know today is the last day
of the yesyoko exhibit at sfmoma?
&do you know that Alice is there too
Victorian sensibilities scream with delight at
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson’s photographs of ‘o so little girls
but today, in the 21st century we would throw his ass in jail
for corruption of minors. this ain’t no wonderland
we can’t even let the artists be corrupt,,,
at the entrance to a gallery on the fourth floor
on a platform raised 8 inches off the floor
painted all in white
sits a step ladder
painted all in white
a magnifying glass hangs from the ceiling above
the little card states that this is the very same step ladder
painted all in white
that John Lennon climbed up on at the exhibit
when he first met Yoko,,, all those years ago
I wonder if the imaginary money
that I paid the imaginary ticket seller
at the imaginary ticket counter
buys me the right
to imagine climbing up the imaginary step ladder
painted all in white
just so I can, imagine???
I try to laugh but can only feel sad when I notice on the wishing tree
someone wrote “they wish they owned abercrombie&fitch”
nearby the artguards all but tackle two eleven year old boys
making such a joyous noise smacking rocks together
in Yoko’s pile of happiness,,,
I can not break through the plexi glass
that is encasing the white hammer & nails
kept secure so I can not even pierce
the indifference
this sfmoma/mortuary reeks of
screw Rauschenberg, fuck de Kooning,
I just want to erase all of this, all of this art, all of these artists, all of these art lovers,,, just all of this
after taking in all the art I can possibly stand
I stand at the edge of the platform
painted all in white
with the step ladder
painted all in white
sitting up on it
& I wonder how many steps of the ladder I could climb
before the artguard decided he really was not all that happy to see me
and that I was not meant to climb the step ladder
painted all in white
at least this step ladder
painted all in white
at least today
at least while he was on guard
protecting me
protecting us all
from the art
from this dangerous art
‘cause if you think too much about the art
the dangerous art
your indifference might just fade away
the artguard will not let me stop in the museum store
as he escorts me out of the museum
all I want to do is see if I can buy a “know”
‘cause Yoko’s got plenty of “yes's” for sale
but it does not seem like any one here wants to sell me a “know”
so I turn to you,
sitting next to me on this indifferent train
look deep into your eyes
those eyes I have not seen for way too a long
and I ask you,
do you know???
Re: painted all in white
Re: painted all in white
i also have a bit of respect for the gent who "damaged" the urinal!
Re: painted all in white
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But what a beautiful Sunday it sounds as though you are having.
I am envious.
Thank you for painting this picture for me to read.
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admittedly, i would've been the breeze-through type. gimme a purrty picture to look at and analyze at my leisure.
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