Re: Silbury Hill | Forum — The Modern Antiquarian

Stoneshifter Mar 8, 2009 07:47:21

Replying to nigelswift

No, no, conceptual art isn't like that at all! (And it should be capitalised). Who said anything about adding stuff, or indeed even altering, burial mounds in any way? It's somewhere between recognising and describing the things that is the act of art. Before they're a bit of someone's moor and after they're an ancient sarcophagus (or whatever) - that's the fine art. I construct them by describing them. It's my drystone walling that must end, or has ended, because of injury. And anyway if I tried it this year the keepers would probably try to kill me - I've had a couple of threats through the winter already. And you have to be under fifty for the Turner Prize - which doesn't have a connection with JMW Turner. I've got some 8mm film, in the can, of these found monuments. Also a needs-renovating 16mm camera and seven reels of fresh antique film. And the very last coherent - but unreleased - track that Sid Barrett recorded. (I've made some words for it). Put them all together and what do you get? (Chaos!)

nigelswift Mar 8, 2009 09:51:08

Replying to Stoneshifter

Ah right, so you're trying to get them to expand their idea of conceptual art from ideas expressed though works to works as a basis for ideas. The committee meeting would have been worth hearing.

It might be that the pendulum is swinging against conceptual art and back towards craftsmanship. The establishment have started swearing about it -
"In 2002, Ivan Massow, the Chairman of the Institute of Contemporary Arts branded conceptual art "pretentious, self-indulgent, craftless tat" and in "danger of disappearing up its own arse ... led by cultural tsars such as the Tate's Sir Nicholas Serota." Massow was consequently forced to resign.
At the end of the year, the Culture Minister, Kim Howells (an art school graduate) denounced the Turner Prize as "cold, mechanical, conceptual bullshit". "
;)

thesweetcheat Mar 8, 2009 21:29:30

Replying to Stoneshifter

Stoneshifter wrote:

the Turner Prize - which doesn't have a connection with JMW Turner.

So who's it named after? T. Turner?

And I would just like to thank you and Nigel for brightening my evening no end with the way this thread has gone all tangential (is that a word?).