Attack of the Art World Death Star
Tim Blair brings terrifying news from the world of Australian taxpayer-funded art:
Readers may recall the brutal warning handed down last month by journalist and tax-funded art enthusiast Ben Eltham. “The arts are a powerful latent force in Australia’s political landscape,” Eltham wrote following Arts Minister George Brandis’s rearrangement of arts funding. “George Brandis and his colleagues would be wise to reflect on this, and whether they can win a war of symbols against some of the most creative and energetic people in our society.”
We Brits have of course endured the full brunt of such a clash. The references to Derrida were particularly distressing.
There are, however, signs of low morale among the art world’s would-be storm troopers:
“Maybe the best option really is to get out of the country,” Hobart-based sculptural artist Theia Connell told Vice magazine last week. That’s Connell’s response to news that previous Arts Start grants for emerging artists have been cut. “The likelihood is that I’ll find myself in a day job,” complained Sydney’s Luke Devine.
Ah, yes. Plan B.
Incidentally, Ms Theia Connell, the artist threatening to leave Australia, tells us that she “interrogates the divisions within social space itself.” As I’m sure will be obvious from a glance at her creations, staggering as they are. While Luke Devine, the artist dismayed by the prospect of getting a job and paying his own bills, prefers to expand our minds via the cruelly neglected medium of interpretive dance. These, then, are the artists chosen by Vice magazine as exemplars of struggling young talent. Presumably, their works are supposed to persuade readers that the cutting of taxpayer subsidy to such people endangers the very turning of the world.
The daring transgressions and cash-pocketing powers of Australia’s taxpayer-funded artists have been touched on previously. See the last item here. Particular attention should be paid to the Styrofoam stylings of Dale Gorfinkel.
Updated via the comments.
Somewhat related, this recent post, in which the tragically untalented Ms Zoë Coombs Marr grumbles about how long it takes to fill out a grant application.
At no point do his hands ever leave his body.
some of the most creative and energetic people in our society.”
Job hunting should be easy then.
“The most interesting reaction came from Brisbane’s Hannah Bronte. “I hope it makes us all the more resourceful and hungry,” Bronte said about the end of Arts Starts.”
Well, Hannah, I think it’s likely to achieve one of those things, at least.
Artist being ‘resourceful’:
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2015/jul/27/stoners-in-stitches-embroidery-goes-grunge-in-pictures
Artist being ‘resourceful’
Oh my. I see Ms Varrone took up space at Columbia University “to study cultural anthropology.” She tells us her yarn doodles are “influenced by history, culture, and the esoteric, with a focus on strong female characters.”
“I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of taxpayers had suddenly cried out in joy.”
I recently saw some tweets by an artist acquaintance who was upset by the prospect of funding cuts here in Britain, not least to his own projects. He denounced as “idiots” those who think that artists should earn their money, by producing things the public wishes to pay for directly, voluntarily, rather than just taking it via the state through coercion and cronyism. Passions were high and there were vague rumblings of militancy.
This struck me as a bit rich, given that the chap in question, along with his associates, has managed to screw from the taxpayer around £200,000 a year for several years. Such that the total funds extracted from the public – a public largely uninterested in what he and his associates do – is well in excess of a million pounds. A cosy gig by any measure. But despite years of being given money that other people had to actually earn by doing things of market value, there was no trace of gratitude, just an expectation of more, stretching indefinitely into the future.
“Maybe the best option really is to get out of the country[,]” Yet again: the tired old trope that artists/dissenters/radicals are to be forced into exile by The Man. But they never bloody do it, or if they do—in the case of Antipodean wasters—it’s usually to the UK where they batten onto the taxpayer even more vigorously than back home, and then you can’t winkle them out with dynamite. It’s amazing how many unlovely efflorescences of the sub-Marxoid Left in Britain originally hail from Down Under.
Incidentally, Ms Theia Connell, the artist threatening to leave Australia if her mooching is interfered with, tells us that she “interrogates the divisions within social space itself.” As I’m sure will be obvious from a glance at her creations, staggering as they are. While Luke Devine, the artist dismayed by the prospect of getting a job and paying his own bills, prefers to expand our minds with some interpretive dance.
And remember, these are the artists chosen by Vice magazine as exemplars of young talent. Presumably, their works are supposed to persuade readers that the cutting of taxpayer subsidy to such people endangers the very turning of the world.
As I’m sure will be obvious from a glance at her creations, staggering as they are.
Snork. Please God, don’t let her come to Britain.
Please God, don’t let her come to Britain.
But she’ll be a refugee, fleeing persecution by the taxpayers of Australia.
“But she’ll be a refugee, fleeing persecution by the taxpayers of Australia.”
Build a special refugee ship, just for people like her, and name it Golgafrincham Ark B.
“she interrogates the divisions within social space itself.”
“Interrogates” sounds like she has delusions of power (‘Ve haff vays uff making you talk, English pig’) but her actual “works” are hilariously pathetic.
“hilariously pathetic” = bathetic, of course.
Hmmm, if she has two like-minded “artist” friends they could bill themselves as the Three Progressive Musketeers: Pathos, Bathos, and Erroneous.
the Three Progressive Musketeers: Pathos, Bathos, and Erroneous.
*applauds*
“Maybe the best option really is to get out of the country”
‘Bye
“she interrogates the divisions within social space itself.”
“Interrogates” sounds like she has delusions of power
Attack of the Art World Death Star?
Forgive me if this has already been referred to here but it made me smile…so much:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3164073/Naked-artist-stuck-tree-three-hours-filming-performance-won-award-video-called-Hanging-Woods.html
“Give us your money or we take away our art,” they threatened.
Forgive the OT, but it’s too late for this Friday but too soon for next and just the title made me smile:
Footage From ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ Set to a Heavy Metal Cover of ‘Yakety Sax’
Well, I suppose it does show that some art can be worthwhile.
p.s. See if you can spot Benny
One word, my friends. Skywhale.
“Give us your money or we take away our art, they threatened.”
One is easily reminded of the joke about the contest in which first prize is item X, and second prize is two items X.
“Yakety Max”
Thanks, Kevin, that was fun.
“Give us your money or we take away our art,” they threatened.
Nearly choked laughing.
A large glass of red should clear any obstruction.
On it. 🙂
One word, my friends. Skywhale.
. . . Wow. Entire countries go on tour? Is this continent scale, or just the people of the country? One does note that if the former, that has been known to go badly . . .
On the issue of “artists” threatening to withhold their…product…if denied other people’s money, I’m reminded of a, possibly apocryphal, effort in California to Unionize panhandlers.
The threat of a strike somehow failed to inspire fear in the hearts of passers-by.
Seems apposite.
From here.
I’m sorry to say this is not a Guardian sentence, but one from the Washington Post:
Air Conditioning is Sexist
It goes on like this.
“Artists are workers…and we need to eat too”
Get a job: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysKhbaLyIFw
The most energetic people in our society ought to be able to handle both getting a job and still find the energy to balance cardboard boxes on some coloured tubes.
The most creative people in our society should be more than capable of figuring out a way of making their art pay for itself.
This is the problem with arrogance and self flattery – ultimately all you’re doing is setting a conspicuously high standard for yourself to live up to
I think that the number of comments on that youtube of Luke Devine’s interpretive dance (2), and the fact that they are both from him, sums up the situation: Get a job, young Luke. Your future is not in interpretive dance.
Surely Ms. Varrone could make a few bucks on etsy with her little embroideries.
Theia Connell…Nope, I can’t be nice to this untalented git. Who’d she bang to get exhibition space?
Call me old-fashioned, but one has to wonder what sort of ‘art’ bobble-hat up there is going to turn out after displaying such atrocious penmanship.
Air Conditioning is Sexist
Oh, belated thought that one, and I’m male and rather agree with the observation—the issue isn’t male vs female, the issue is lunatic air conditioning settings and those of us who dress sensibly for the general weather vs hipsters who can’t clothe themselves and wear surreal costuming instead.
Me, I carry a warm coat in a shoulder bag with the day’s reading and whatever other odds and ends I need, get to the paycheck, get settled in, and then as the A/C kicks in, put the coat on ’cause it gets bloody cold in there. And then when I go home, I take the coat off again before going outside. Yes, there are complaints, such as are made in that article, and still the A/C temp settings leave the room I’m in rather frigid all the time . . .
@ Theophrastus, What a wonderful link! It inspired a bit of my own “art”. Go to the link below, and follow the instructions I’ve posted in the comments (Maximus Minimus).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDw9QvjsC64
The entire experience is essentially a bitter indictment of England under Thatcherism, or something.
” “The likelihood is that I’ll find myself in a day job,” complained Sydney’s Luke Devine.”
It is sad to witness the man who could have bequeathed to the world the next Cezanne will instead be folding tee-shirts for 9 dollars an hour. Societies’ loss.
I’ve always held a day job. In Government. The statement wasn’t a complaint, rather a response to the question of what will I do in lieu of not having access to the grant. The answer is what I’ve always done. This money hasn’t been withheld from artists it has been redirected from young people to old people crap like ballet, Shakespeare etc. You know, work made for people who are nearly dead. You guys might be so old and so conservative that you don’t get it, but there is a necessity for modern art to be produced in Australia, and people who want to see it. Thanks for linking the vid btw interpretive dance is hell fun.
I’ve always held a day job. In Government.
So taxpayers are paying your wages *and* paying for your hobby.
*golf clap*
work made for people who are nearly dead. You guys might be so old and so conservative that you don’t get it,
Ahh…You can just smell the “humanity”. Technically speaking, Shakespeare was made for people who have been dead for centuries. It’s people with an appreciation for the arts that have worked to keep his works alive.
No one is stopping you from producing modern art. Even fascist states produce art. By all means, art away. If it’s the “necessity” you claim, someone will buy it or pay to see it. Necessity is the mother of invention not its product.
Yeah on a level I can appreciate Shakespeare but you can’t deny the laziness involved with the attachment to that canon. the incessant rehashing it at the expense new work is yet another trope of conservatism, void of innovation and once again, pitched at old people. I didn’t claim that anyone was stopping me producing ‘modern art’ (the correct term here is contemporary but I’ll let it slide this time gramps) however the ageism is going to catch up with this Government and cost them the seat of power. you guys on that bandwagon will be the losers. And yeah as Anna said grant or not I get tax dollars anyway from, you know, working. All in service of you kindly old bits of crust.
Oh Christ I just realised you people were from ‘the mother country’. So you are authentic bits of crust, peddling vintage Thatcherite crap! Nothing better to do than troll the antipodes? For a second I took this a bit seriously but I cannot countenance inbred twats from Britain. Colonialism is over dudes. Fuck off.