Modern Art

Since 1984, The Tate Gallery concedes the Turner Prize, born with the vocation to reinforce its presence to nurture modern art in it's varied forms and structures. Mostly delightful or astonishing, and occasionally polemical, but never passes unnoticed.

Once a year it offers the opportunity to bring up to date the new tendencies of modern art, and last Monday was such an occasion. A board of prestigious judges had selected and pronounced the best. It's not always easy for the public to comprehend the paths present day artists take, more difficult still to penetrate the sensibility of the judges, and to discover why precisely this artist and not the others had been elected.

Let's see what is there in common the between the winners of the Turner Prize of recent times. In 2007. Mark Wallinger won, with his creation of a camp that a pacifist had installed in the Parliament Square, against wars, amongst them that in Iraq.

Tomma Abts was the selected in 2006; his were abstract forms on canvas of small formation. In 2005 Simon Starling put on his exhibits of objects already in existence, like bicycles, in sculptural pieces. And Damien HIrst got it with a cow and is one of the few artists, even in this period of crisis, sell his work in the sum of millions.

From simple deduction one can perhaps gather up the idea that

1: Art changes at vertiginous speed,

2: The judges of the Turner prize changes at vertiginous speed,

3: The public need to change the perception at vertiginous speed to adapt their sensibility to the ever changing revolution of art, and .....

4: The collectors have to save at vertiginous speed, because the winners of Turner Prize sell their art at higher and higher prices.

We all know scandals and provocation sell, also the exotic and media icons. But don't be alarmed. As mere public, all you need to know is that in 2008 the winning modern art is Felix and Garfield the Cats and Homer Simpson, by the British artist Mark Leckey, with his prize, apart from instant fame for his unknown work in the future, was €29,400 for 'promoted and deepened' visual communication.

I have since stopped following the trend, not a fan of Simpson and the like.

Tags:Tate,turnerprize

• Current Mood: Artistic

Psychopaths, Thriller Books And Horror Films

I certainly wouldn't say I enjoyed seeing blood and gore in films, or reading all the minute details of horrendous tortures, or any kind of barbaric things that done to people or animals. But, for some inexplicable reason not at all clear to me, I seem to always get drawn to picking such films to watch. Or books that are thrillers, mysteries, detective tales. Even though that means I often have to close my eyes part of the times during such a film when I sense the brutal scenes coming, or have to skip a few paragraphs of the book. Dead silly isn't it?

Psychopaths, with their distorted or criminal minds, intrigue me. I have a strong urge to analyse and understand the what and why of their action, so often without any just cause. Naturally I am not alone in this curiosity. That's why there are so many authors and script writers specialised in this type of story telling, even able to invent their own brand of warped minds and crimes.

Rafael Dalmau is co-writer, together with Jordi Batet, of the book 'Reality is Worst', about the top 50 serial psychopath killers. In his opinion, the character with the most devious and perturbed mind was Albert DeSalvo, played by Tony Curtis in 'The Boston Strangler', the film directed by Richard Fleischer in 1968. The reason? 'Because he was a 'normal' man, husband and father of a family like most others, living a discreet, even boring life. But the sight of a certain kind of woman would provoke him to put his normal personality on shelf and took up one of a psychopath that 'obliged' him to kill.

Another typical psychopath is Hannibal Lecter, a pleasant and agreeable character, intelligent, well educated, and very charming even, the kind of man you like to share a coffee and chat with. Yet he was utterly cruel and extremely dangerous. This also was told in books and films. Who can forget 'Silence of the lamb' & it's sequels?

In another book, 'Images of Madness' by Beatriz Vera Poseck, quoted the line of Irving Schneider: "If psychiatry had not existed, films would have to invent it." Dalmau thinks we all know some psychopaths, maybe a neighbour or family member, sometimes a bit weird in manners or actions. In fact we all have a certain manic obsession but we manage to control it, while psychopaths let themselves be dominated. Hence the saying 'there's but a thin line between sane and crazy'.

Our present day society relates and communicates less and less with other people, although Internet leads us to believe otherwise. Too many people go out less to be with friends, even families, finding sending email or a few words in the Messenger easier and quicker than making the effort, and spending more time taking transport for visits.

My favourite entertainment are going out with friends, restaurants, cinema, theatre, concerts, dancing, visiting each other, chatting face to face ... but recently I often find myself with fingers busy on the keyboard of my computer, but my eyes focused on horrors playing out on the screen, or murders dripping blood in prints. I think I have gone hopping mad!

Tags:horrorfilm,psychopath

• Current Mood: Crazy

Alas, Poor Yorick!

This must be the most original story about a testament or a will, the most extraordinary representation of Hamlet and pure theatre. While on his death bed dying of cancer, Andre Tchaikowsky, a polish pianist, donated his skull to the Royal Shakespeare Company for them to be used in some of their productions. Twenty six years later this peculiar wish was made into reality ... without the audience knowing the truth fact. The skull of Andre Tchaikowsky - who had survived the Holocaust, escaping from Poland with false documents and help from his grandmother when still a child - had stayed all that time in a box, taken out only a few times for rehearsals. Until the young actor David Tennant (protagonist of the series 'Doctor Who'), dared to defy the superstitions of his profession, and used it in the famous scene of the cemetery, during the representations a few years back of the play in Strattford-Upon-Avon, England. The production company and the people responsible for the stage scenes preferred not to say anything about it, to avoid the morbid nature of the matter, that might overshadow the show, placing it's publicity to 2nd place. Now though, after the enormous impact from the media and lots of free publicity, it had been decided to include Tchaikowsky's skull as protagonist, when 'Hamlet' was performed in London on the 9th of December, 2008. So now the pianist is also of Shakespearian actor fame! Tags:hamlet,skull,Shakespeare

• Current Mood: Accomplished

Creation Of The 3rd Gender

I had been for long quite sure that nothing - or at least not much if anything -would surprise me any more, but something more than bizarre did ... about this man, rock star, Genesis P-Orridge, who decided to change his body to be identical to that of his wife, Lady Jay, also personality in entertainment, by way of surgical operations.

Together with Lady Jay, they actually went through the operations, to erase the differences between the 2 sexes, to acquire, or become, what's called 'Pandroginia' - never heard of this word before. Save yourself the bother, it doesn't figure in the dictionary; I looked. it means the 3rd sex, or gender; so they are neither men nor women. Why on earth they wished to do that is nobody's business, but I, to say the least, personally think it's pretty absurd. For the life of me, what advantage could that proffer is totally beyond my comprehension.

Anyway, he declared: "One should create new values (?). We are masters of ourselves and responsible for our own evolution. I now have breasts, my face has been changed, and I had never had fear or regret about the whole procedure. Nor did Lady Jay."

 

All this was actually in the past. Lady Jay, his wife of 14 years, died quite suddenly of acute cardiac pain. He says now that "The process is going to continue, although without her; the physical appearance is no more as important, but the procedure continues spiritually" (?).

Genesis P-Orridge as he is today.

What can one say? "Good luck" - I suppose. He might just need it.

Tags:Genesis,3rdSex

• Current Mood: Confused