Arty Farty

I’ll just launch into this one. My partner is a Sculptress; she travels pretty much all over the world on private commissions, competitions, residencies or is in the UK on public commissions. As a result I pretty much have to spend 60% of my spare time in art galleries and exhibitions…..you can usually find me outside sighing, smoking with…I won’t go into that again.

Anyway, I’m currently doing the university final year shows. Goldsmith’s, Central St Martins, Royal College, Camberwell etc and one thing is a consistent thread throughout most which is that apart from an elite 5% of these shows I am distraught to the self indulgent matter that is produced. This may seem harsh and this may seem from someone who isn’t educated in art but then what is a qualification to critique? Essentially art is as subjective as the people you find attractive, the music you like and food you find tasty so I’m well in my right to say I find most university work quite appalling. On the flip side you are quite entitled to say you find it great…

…but let’s focus on it being so appalling. If you walk around these shows you’ll notice that the majority of the work has no appreciation of the end audience in mind whatsoever (a lesson taught on all art courses so I’m told). Presentation is bad, appreciation of space is lazy and even take away documents such a business cards are shoddy and ill thought out. Essentially a final year degree is to show case your best work to the public, it’s already marked so this is the beauty contest with the end objective to either get a scholarship to an MA course or get work. Why the fck then would you confuse the public with conceptual, self indulgent meaningless, ill presented wank? It just supports the statistic that 82% of art graduates aren’t working in the arts. I mean, one girl had a cardboard wall, with sand at the bottom and a projector at the top which gave a faint bluey effect – water I guess. She’s only put it in the most light part of the gallery so you couldn’t even see the projection. One had cut her business cards with blunt scissors, oh how very rustic, bin. One guy had filmed his shitty back yard in Stoke Newington with his bed in it and a lamp on the floor…..for 3 hours.

Final year degree shows make me really mad, they’re just not honest.

Go to one and I dare you to write your honest thoughts in their comments book. It’s liberating! No longer will little Johnny waste his time under the delusion that because he ticked all the right boxes with lecturers, got a 2:1 and his Ma and Pa said ‘great’ will he think that drawing the 12 most influential people in the world, 6 good, 6 bad and calling it ‘The Balance’ is any reason for him to think he has a pubic louse’s size of a chance of working in the commercial art world. Now when it’s good, it’s good. It does everything that art is meant to do, it engages by using some sort of drama or craft skill, it has a visual impact that registers making you curious and you always walk back to it.

I was then dragged kicking and screaming to queue for Damien Hirst’s recent exhibition at the white Cube, Beyond Belief. Now I like Hirst I was just tired and annoyed of walking all around Brick Lane seeing gash. However, when entering the White Cube, fuck me, that man is a genius. Knowing every single button to press when creating things that people will just gape in awe at is a bloody strong talent.

I wont get conceptual about how his work transcends from birth to death ending in a skull encased in £12m worth of custom cut diamonds (which strangely enough is shown first and not last) but I will say it’s just an amazing solo exhibition and should definitely be seen to instil confidence in the Brit art scene. It makes you angry that Tracey Emin is representing the UK at the Venice Biennale and that Hirst should be there destroying every artist that claims be the next best contemporary thing. It’s cliché to like the guy Saatchi made famous with the populist Shark and rotting cow head, but it’s a cliché because it’s true. He is populist because he’s just so fckn good. Anyway, I’ll leave it there. Just wanted to write how pissed off I get with degree shows and how much I melt at high profile, high budget and high expertise stuff. When put like that, don’t take any notice of the above, I’m clearly just a grumpy c*nt. ……but……  Deluze did say. ‘I don’t claim to be an artist, but knowing what I like puts me in a more powerful position than one’.