Wednesday, June 11, 2014

BBC Bullshit

I can't remember reading anything on the BBC website more annoying than this. Honestly, it genuinely made me rage and cringe at the same time. If you're too lazy to clink the link it's an article regarding a performance "artist" and her "art". Here are a few gems from the article;

The performance artist is spending 512 hours interacting with the public at the show, held in three completely empty rooms.Phones, cameras and even watches are banned, as Abramovic takes people by the hand and encourages them to spend time focusing on the bare white walls."Take in the silence," she whispered to one. "Just be present."

Fuck.

Participants closed their eyes and rocked on their heels, some assumed meditative positions, while others followed Abramovic around, hoping for a personal interaction."I really wanted to connect with her, so I said a little prayer," said Sophie, a student sculptor from London."Connecting with her presence was really special. She said, 'stay here as long as you like, take deep breaths, be present'."It was perfect, really." 

Me.

Geraldine, an art lecturer from Kensington, had arrived at 06:30 BST to be amongst the first to see the performance."It was like being at a very beautiful party where nobody talks," she told the BBC. "It may push me into doing some meditation, which is probably very good for me, so it changed my life in a very positive way." 

 Hulk smash!

It is her first performance work since The Artist is Present, at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, where she sat motionless, six days a week, looking directly at whoever sat down in a chair placed opposite her.
.....

Both shows lack the startling drama of her earlier performances, including one in which she systematically stabbed her hand with knives.In another, she whipped herself, before cutting a five-point star in her stomach with a razor blade and lying on a cross made of ice.
For fucks sake, this isn't art. This describes the ravings of a lunatic. An armed lunatic at that.

There's loads more of this kind of new-age, hippy type twaddle in the article, including references to religious experience's and the phrase "art of nothing" (not to be confused with the art of fighting without fighting). But my favourite quote comes from the "writer" of the "article" :

During the first hour of the first day of her performance, Abramovic seemed to be playing a giant game of cosmic yogic chess, with the public as her pieces
You may need to read that quote a few times and let it really sink in. I suggest reading it two or three times and then going to take a nice shower or bath, maybe enjoy a glass of decent red, or, if it's sufficiently late, a good single malt.

Then read it again. Out loud.

512 Hours runs at the Serpentine Gallery in London until 25 August.

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