kounellis' goldfish - wow, gay history month!

21st Jan, 2005 at 5:11 PM

This picture (taken in Brentford) reminds me of the of the coal pictures downstairs in Modern Art Oxford at the moment. Large sheets of rusty metal, balanced on second-hand chairs, have irregular limps of coal wired to them in lines. Kounellis claims it's about currency, but to me it looks like language, as do these irrgular scratches and cup-marks made on a bathhouse wall by waiting pennies. The big gallery is a fantastic tangle of girders floating on magic carpets, but the rest would probably talk more to someone more aware of the arte povera movement. Although I do kind of like his "timeline" -- and I'm glad I saw it before the goldfish were returned to their tank after allegations of cruelty -- it makes you wonder what yours might look like.

Gay History month will doubtless have the naysayers frothing throughout February, but I'm kind of charmed by the idea. Shadow Home Secretary Tom Collins describes Gay History Month as (along with the usual bilge about protecting the "innocence" of children) achingly politically correct. Mmmm. I don't know about you, but that's a slogan I want on my t-shirt.

Science Festival Time! Don't you want to take part in Static Statistics? All you need to join in is an inquiring mind, a balloon, some hair or clothes, a wall and a stopwatch.

Fun for all the family.

Current Mood:must... go... out...
Current Music:fat boy slim - break it on down

Comments

( 15 worms — Feed the birds )

mzdt

21st Jan, 2005 17:29 (UTC)

;-)

I'm sure I recall

jinty posting excitedly about the penny holes too, a while back...

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cleanskies

22nd Jan, 2005 00:50 (UTC)

Re: ;-)

I'd been meaning to photograph that wall for a while, but never seemed to have light and equipment in position together. I was looking at a lot of photos of cup-and-ring marks and ogham (sp?) when I was up in Scotland, and they seem to have drifted back with me as an idea ...

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benchilada

21st Jan, 2005 17:57 (UTC)

You know, I've had a CafePress store just WAITING for me to throw up t-shirt designs on it for ages.

If you want, when I get the designs finished, I'll put ACHINGLY POLITICALLY CORRECT up and give you the profits.

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cleanskies

22nd Jan, 2005 00:54 (UTC)

you're so organised!

I keep meaning to do some cafepress stuff and, um, not getting round to it ... I'll trial it on my velcro t tomorrow maybe (if I can bring myself to stop wearing my new awesome levi's spacerocket t for five minutes) and see how it goes ...

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celestialweasel

21st Jan, 2005 22:37 (UTC)

I went round it when the goldfish were still in the shallow bowl with the knife in it, on the guided tour by the director of MAO, Andrew Nairne. Someone asked if the fish would be replaced if they died, Andrew said they weren't going to die. There was also a notice up saying that they had asked experts who were happy with their conditions.

Nairne is usually quite interesting, the first time I went round it was to be polite because they were trying to round people up for him, but actually he is good value so I try to catch his tours.

I cannot really say that the tar pictures fixed to the walls with girders really spoke to me.

Next up is Fiona Tan, i.e. more video installations. Oh well. (to each their own, but I tend to find video installations rather banal).

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cleanskies

22nd Jan, 2005 00:59 (UTC)

video installations = not really my bag

Those were the goldfish they retired. I guess they couldn't quite silence the complaints ... they'd gone into the tank at the end ... shame, I thought. They were pretty, and strange.

Did they have the model train working when you were there?

I've never made a tour there, I think it's not on at a good time for me or something (Sat afternoon?)

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celestialweasel

22nd Jan, 2005 01:16 (UTC)

Re: video installations = not really my bag

No, the train wasn't working when I was there. Andrew Nairne said that they had got a model railway buff to set it up and that it had been working at some point.

Yep, The tours are 3pm on Saturdays.

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cleanskies

28th Jan, 2005 13:10 (UTC)

who got the goldfish banned?

It was Animal Aid. They're linked from this story, I think I'll avoid linking to them directly.

This quote gives a good flavour of them:

"If that was a puppy or kittens in a cage with a giant knife, people would be very upset," said Animal Aid.

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bluebellrock

22nd Jan, 2005 12:49 (UTC)

Hi, I wandered in via

crunchcandy's LJ and I like what I see so much I had to comment. So here's my comment's raison d'etre: I thought - when you said "pennies" - that it must've been some British slang for "pensioners" I'd never heard before. I was picturing pensioners waiting for buses, defacing that brick wall with... god knows what. Knobbly walking sticks? With round scalpel-type blades on the end of them? (That's a statement - not a question; it's just that I'm Australian, so please excuse the question marks?)

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cleanskies

23rd Jan, 2005 19:21 (UTC)

heee hee hee

bonkers! ... it would have been old pennies. Much bigger than modern ones.

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bluebellrock

23rd Jan, 2005 19:36 (UTC)

Re: heee hee hee

Ahhhh! We had big pennies too once. Now I get it. :)

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ceciley

22nd Jan, 2005 17:15 (UTC)

Making a pro-political correctness t-shirt is infact on my very long list of things to do. I don't especially mind people being unpolitically correct, say, if they're being funny, but what I really really really HATE is when people saying things like, well, "achingly politically correct", and "Political correctness! Now I'm prevented from hurling racist abuse in the street, it can only be a matter of time before they ban breathing!" (I've stolen that line from the Guardian, if you think you've heard it before.) Politically Correct is just SUCH a right-wing term ANYWAY. What if we called it courtesy? 21st Century Courtesy. How about if someone counted all the times "political correctness goes mad" and took it away from the number of reported cases of racist and homophobic attacks, sexual harassment and disabilism. I bet we'd all want abit more Crazy Political Correctness then! Bring on the Baa Baa Green Sheeps, if the alternative is Tim Collins.

Phew. Sorry. Feel kind of strongly about this one. Maybe I should tell Tim Collins about it.

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cleanskies

23rd Jan, 2005 19:22 (UTC)

woo!

you tell em, tiger!

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(Anonymous)

28th Dec, 2005 16:04 (UTC)

The whole PC thing

well well well, we have yet another barking mad person who is quite obviously offended way too easily. Fact is, people like you, who are too busy meddling in other peoples affairs to look after your own self our usually, no scratch that, ARE, the most irritating people in todays society. Now has it ever crossed ur mind, that perhaps people who dont obied by ur pc way of thinking, are infact driven to shout the odds from time to time due to being forced into this supposed utopia of 'all is well in the world' political correctness. I don't like 'offending' people, but i don't see anyone going out their way to make sure they dont offend me. In fact being politically correct offends me, it's an insult to my intelligence, and changing words like 'brain storm' to 'thought shower' just because it MIGHT offend a tiny minority is quite frankly a joke.

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