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Them vs Us

The Old Masters are outselling the Contemporaries. The first time since 2004. Recession based? Like everything else, yeah. They say people are just discovering the beauty of a classic oil once again but I think people are just downsizing their houses and no longer have room for a suspended shark in formaldehyde.

Contemporary art is a fairly big gamble. A speculative buy. A Da Vinci may be a solid blue chip but would I want one otherwise? Yes. But only for the sake of it. It's really no different asking me to go see Shakespeare. I can't see how anyone going is getting anything out of it besides the novelty factor and having an excuse to pretty up for the night. Back then I wouldn't have had a rant about it, it was the only way to entertain. I just can't see why anyone bothers with it now we have come such a long way with the telly. The same applies to watching sport. You have no idea what's going on with that WR line if you're actually at the swimming event. Save yourself the hassle.

Back to the finer arts, those old masters are beautiful. But there's places full of them. The National Gallery in London looks like it's been filled by the one artist. Take the plaques off and you can't tell them apart. That's why I love Contemporary art. Creativity is more times than not the intention behind them. They make you think, question, hate or love things. An old master served a purpose and was meaningful to that time. You can't say it's meaningful to this time other than in the context of a historical record. You can admire the skill and beauty but in the end what can it really mean to you? Which is why any purchase of one I see as fairly pretentious or an investment. I guess you could argue they're a genuine match to ones decor. If that's the case, I'll let it slide.

Fashion through the Phases

An artist made it onto VF's 09 Best Dressed List. 81 year old Cy Twombly who's personal style they describe as: Rumpled artist. Yawn, it's Old man Chic basically. I can't really talk about artist fashion collectively because depending on the type of artist it's either fabulously inspired or tragic.

There's what I like to call Monroe Eccentrics who can throw on any random thing and look good. Inspired by Marilyn who wore a potato sack back in the day and still looked the sexist woman alive. Bold black rimmed glasses are commonly featured with the more adventurous branching out into Jerykll and Urkle, a close cousin with added suspenders.

The Yoko OhNo's: conceptually based, ambiguous and believing they're on a higher level of conscious than you. Their dress is simple, somewhat classy, mostly mono-tonal. Dark glasses are an extension of their body and the fact they never smile intimidates the hell out of you.

A Lippy Hippy never shuts up. They have a cause or two hundred which they incorporate into their art. Their dress is based on two things: the aversion towards consumerism and lack of money. The material used for their ponchos is ecologically friendly and their hair colour is as natural as the plantations they live off.

The Cloney Pony. A group of artists - often with rich parents who support their way through a 18th Century French Literature course - who go out of their way to separate themselves from the masses but end up looking exactly like each other. A man's jacket atop a long vintage tee, stockings and ankle boots. Straightened hair, too much blush and pursed red lips sipping on Chai tea. Tend to hang around in packs or over their muso boyfriend.

Frank Banksy's channel all their creativity into their art. A reclusive type who goes to little fuss over their attire. There's no ego involved - what you see is what you get. The most down-to-earth looking of the lot. You can spot their shadowy figure through their window hunched over in a duffle coat brooding over the complexities of life and how nobody understands them.

Vicarious Various. Mothers, High School art teachers, the unemployed and various others who missed the boat and now live vicariously through their children, students or deluded dreams. They dress like a Monroe Eccentric except they can't pull it off. They think wearing different coloured socks is avant-garde, their paintings are of sunflowers in the same vase as last time and they sign up for watercolour lessons on the weekend.

Swoon the Koon

I have a love/hate relationship with Pop Art. I admire it. But in the way you would Paris Hilton. Not for who she is but what she gets away with.

You have to acknowledge what they say is the greatest art form of all time - marketing. Idiots fall victim to it. Intellectual people don't, they have something to prove to the world. A genius buys into it because everyone else does.

I can't think of Jeff Koons as an artist. He's a brand. But forgetting that and looking at his work exhibited at the Serpentine in London I was still impressed. With most modern art you need to take in account the entire package that encases an artist to appreciate the work but this stuff was capable of standing alone. Its craftsmanship and mind-trickery playfulness was enough for me. I had heard about Koons before but if I hadn't it wouldn't have taken away from the work.

You need to touch the artworks to believe them. Which is where the genius of a gallery comes in. There's too many queer gallery assistants hand gesturing while telling you "...any closaar to the werrrk, and I'll have to athk you to leeave." so you leave the place pondering the work, as well as homophobic.

Koons is a Warhol type figure. It's his vision and other people's work that makes him so famous. It's the Hilton thing again. A part of you condemns what they do but given the chance you wouldn't do any different.

If I just sit here, listening to Karl Pilkington's monkey news...

Rita

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Elizabeth

www.facebook.com/stephchardart

When Fine Art + PS + Breakfast Collide

Homage to my favourite meal of the day...

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BNE pt.3 - Between you & me, Cat-alogue, Feeling Guilty

You ever heard of that theory where there's at the most only 6 or so people between you and someone else in the world? Like a friend of a friend etc would theoretically be pally with the Queen? If that's true, can you please pass on a message to Lily Allen for me. Proposing marriage and while you're there asking how her day is going I guess. And whether that third nipple of hers really exists.
Looked up the RSPCA website today to try and find a cat to adopt. Couldn't find one. I didn't know if this was a good or a bad thing because I could easily find a kitten and hoped that wasn't the cut off point.
Found another website with a big cat-alogue. Most were ex-old lady cats. Tried finding one that looked like my dead cat I hoped got reincarnated. Thought I should do the nobel thing and go for the ugliest one.
So Woolies have finally addressed the Cornflakes shortage. Only my happiness was short lived when I found out they weren't stocking my brand of juice shots anymore. I think I was the only one buying them to be honest. One month out of the country and they couldn't keep the company afloat without my business. Felt a tad guilty.
I like writing about mundane things. Brings my mind back to Earth. It gets away from me too much during the day contemplating all sorts of things. My nan hates talking to me on the phone. She has to listen to my dribble on things like evolution and the complexities of our fundamental being when all she wants to know is what I'm making for tea.
Googled weird art news. Came across a 50 ton pile of bananas and an etch-a-sketch for 100 thou. Felt like crawling back into bed. Racking my brain for a brilliant art idea. The Vegemite Queen thing was good. But I need something less delicious and more shocking that'd get the Vatican's and my future husbands attention.
Hypnotized by mind numbing infomercials this morning. Missed the 10:20 train because of a sponge. It was so worth it though. When Julie came home from work she agreed we were unlikely to see such absorbency again.

Not in LDN pt.1 - Pilkmania, Stuff, Cheese Please

Back to normallity. Back to dealing with the mundane things in life. There's a cornflakes outage at Woolies. A crisis usually averted with buying Crunchy Nuts but I'm too poor these days for the added luxury of honey. Stuck buying the small 250g boxes which I have to replace every 2 hours.

Full-time job hunting now I've deferred uni for 6 months. My old job doesn't roster me on enough so I'm leaving. Figure if they don't want me, I don't want them. Got called up for an interview at some law firm today at about 2. I'm still running on GMT so I didn't appreciate the late night call.

Started drawing again. I'm thinking it's come to that time in my career where I have to become a public nuisance to kick things along. Julie agreed to make me a cape and dye my underwear if I decide to go climbing buildings. Still waiting to hear from some fashion lady wanting to buy designs off me. Hoping that comes through so I can avoid getting a real job.

Heard today a question you can ask people to find out whether they're a psychopath or not. Testing it on someone I live with with later.

Found all the postcards in my bag I promised to send while I was over in the UK. Julie never would've got hers because I got our address wrong on it anyway.

Can't get over how perfect the weather and how comfortable my bed is. Still pretty proud of myself for being able to brave the English Summer. Almost died of vit D deficiency when I was over there. It's the only time I can remember craving a vitamin.

Went to the Met Up late at QAG with Julie last night. Walking around the exhibition it was pretty clear the French do Impressionism better. They hired a musician to perform. Couldn't really pinpoint the genre. He was just making a lot of noise made on his guitar and telling Jack Johnson to die. Couldn't find the free cheese. Felt funny asking people who would know where it was. In the end I never did find it so skipped dinner for nothing. Wondered how long until I had a suited up husband I could drag around these places.

There's well over 50 vintage Ricky Gervais radio podcasts I just discovered are in existence. I almost drowned in happiness stumbling upon that webpage. I love Karl Pilkington. Everything he says is so simply profound. I think the smartest people in the world can get across something in the least amount of words as possible and that's what Karl does. In London there was an artist who gave a talk on his art which you could only describe as.. ugh. He tried justifying it by throwing in a lot of fancy arty words but instead of coming across intelligent he come across ostentatious and unnecessarily queer. He explained one of his paintings as being so unique he could never duplicate again if he tried. I thought as he said this that if this was true he might not be able to but a lot of other people could. Pretentious of me to think but two pink strokes on a blank canvas I think I could rip off. I'm not against Modern art, in fact I love it but this was not art, it was a deluded attempt by someone with way too supportive parents. Plus flouncy talk shits me. There's no need for it. It's used by people to show off and distract from the douche they are. I'll excuse doctors, people in science and spelling bee champions. They can pull it off quite well. Although I don't quite understand the naming system for animals. If there's a billion different types of spiders in the world, don't think a name of over 11 letters will help us distinguish one from another. Parastratiosphecomyia stratiosphecomyioides is the name they gave to some insect. We couldn't get the general plot of it by the first 20 letters apparently. Use a numbering system or just forget about it. Standing there listening to this artists guys speech, Mia fainted from either dehydration or her mind wanting out, beating mine to it. It was enough to cut the speech short. We all thanked her afterwards.