The Great Art Debate

[Prufrock]

. And easily distracted. Was always astonished by housemates at uni who said they couldn't study unless they had music on in the background. I might just have got away with something quiet and instrumental, but anything with lyrics and I was fooked. I also spend a lot of train journeys dearly wishing for a gun so I could shoot the prick talking on his mobile. I don't know whether it's the fact that only half a conversation jars but it drives me to distraction. So no. SILENCE.

[Beefheart]

. And easily distracted. Was always astonished by housemates at uni who said they couldn't study unless they had music on in the background. I might just have got away with something quiet and instrumental, but anything with lyrics and I was fooked. I also spend a lot of train journeys dearly wishing for a gun so I could shoot the prick talking on his mobile. I don't know whether it's the fact that only half a conversation jars but it drives me to distraction. So no. SILENCE.

This sums my feelings up pretty well. Always studied in silence (so could never study in the library). Try the quiet coach on your train journeys though, then if someone does speak on the phone you can at least tell them off for it. It still amazes me the types of conversations people are willing to have on the phone whilst on public transport.

Trains are full of people I can't understand. Such as people who simultaneously read a book whilst listening to music. I can only imagine that diminishes both experiences? Unless, they're listening to the audio book of whatever they're reading to see if there are any differences.

I also once saw a guy on a train, take out a cheese string, then eat it like it was a normal piece of cheese. What a weirdo.

Oh, and don't breathe or eat loudly near me!

[Prufrock]

I've found a kindred spirit!

I'm going to give myself an aneurysm one day with the internal rage at people who eat with their mouth open.

[jaffka]

. And easily distracted. Was always astonished by housemates at uni who said they couldn't study unless they had music on in the background. I might just have got away with something quiet and instrumental, but anything with lyrics and I was fooked. I also spend a lot of train journeys dearly wishing for a gun so I could shoot the prick talking on his mobile. I don't know whether it's the fact that only half a conversation jars but it drives me to distraction. So no. SILENCE.

This sums my feelings up pretty well. Always studied in silence (so could never study in the library). Try the quiet coach on your train journeys though, then if someone does speak on the phone you can at least tell them off for it. It still amazes me the types of conversations people are willing to have on the phone whilst on public transport.

Trains are full of people I can't understand. Such as people who simultaneously read a book whilst listening to music. I can only imagine that diminishes both experiences? Unless, they're listening to the audio book of whatever they're reading to see if there are any differences.

I also once saw a guy on a train, take out a cheese string, then eat it like it was a normal piece of cheese. What a weirdo.

Oh, and don't breathe or eat loudly near me!

How did he eat it?

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

Vincent appears to be taking the early brunt of the change....

[thebish]

snob!

[LeverEnd]

Vincent appears to be taking the early brunt of the change....

I really like the angled view of the 2nd. Reveals a whole new aspect to the work, as does the slight blurring.

[bobo the clown]

Vincent appears to be taking the early brunt of the change....

I really like the angled view of the 2nd. Reveals a whole new aspect to the work, as does the slight blurring.

Yes. Blurring intimating the essential imprecision in his life whilst allowing his underlying agony to still present the warmth of his underlying spirit.

Especially when seen at that exact, acute, angle.

[thebish]

Vincent appears to be taking the early brunt of the change....

I really like the angled view of the 2nd. Reveals a whole new aspect to the work, as does the slight blurring.

Yes. Blurring intimating the essential imprecision in his life whilst allowing his underlying agony to still present the warmth of his underlying spirit.

Especially when seen at that exact, acute, angle.

[LeverEnd]

Beautifully put Bobo, you have crystallised my thoughts on the subject perfectly.

[thebish]

here's Mummy being photographed in front of some art...

.......sigh

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

Ha. It was cold, wet and deserted in that particular bit of the Hayward that morning. As I say, I don't decry the taking of photos as such - just the way the activity of getting the shot gets in people's way.

[thebish]

Ha. It was cold, wet and deserted in that particular bit of the Hayward that morning. As I say, I don't decry the taking of photos as such - just the way the activity of getting the shot gets in people's way.

ahh - i thought you were also decrying the art-selfie...

and - you can go online and find pictures... or buy a postcard

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

and - you can go online and find pictures... or buy a postcard

As it happens I don't think that's true in this case.

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

Was in town yesterday so popped into the National Gallery to see what the fuss was about...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IROXqn_JCpo" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[TANGODANCER]

Was in town yesterday so popped into the National Gallery to see what the fuss was about...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IROXqn_JCpo" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Google Images: Van Gogh-Sunflowers. Right click: Print: Frame: Hang in hall. If Carlsberg did art work...

[Prufrock]

Maybe no-one is taking photos, and everyone there is only there to record all the other people recording .

[TANGODANCER]

Sacre Bleu...the maestro will be spinning in his grave....

http://www.fastcocreate.com/1683457/see ... -your-eyes" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[General Mannerheim]

delighted to be the proud owner of my own Thierry Poncelet

[William the White]

The Kazimir Malevich exhibition at Tate Modern (saw it in Saturday) is a powerful distillation of an artist's progress. From an eager embrace of Western European innovators at the turn of the 19th/20th centuries, to the most abstract (but dynamic) revolutionary abstractions coinciding - more or less - with his embrace of the October revolution. We then see an artist struggling to abandon 'form' entirely, to 'dissolve' it (the Black Square, the White on White).

In the end, a sick man, with a cancer that will kill him, the artist is forced to abandon his ideas to conform to Stalinist artistic thuggery. He is arrested twice, his work described as anti-revolutionary, and returns to figurative painting. Even here, though, he disguises his 'capitualtion'. The result is a sly, but unconvincing, attempt to subvert his submission to official demands - by the painting of peasants and workers as quarter-abstractions, often devoid of faces, colours always non-realist, far from the conventional depictions of Worker and Peasant 'heroes'.

He died of cancer before the launch of the great Purges in 1936. If he hadn't I have no doubt that Stalin would have had him executed and the terrorised artistic community would have applauded.

I really liked this exhibition (even if several of the abstract works whooshed over me) and totally applaud its chronological ordering, allowing the observer to see the development of the painter over decades.