Posts Tagged ‘art’

Kabbalah, Tony claims, has given him the technology of creativity. “The Kabbalah has a very healthy attitude towards sex – it’s an important thing!”

Now we’re on the way to Tate Britain in the Nissan Cube.

The Tate is a mystical place for Tony. He took a homeless man called Roger off the street and installed him there. The first place of Roger’s installation was at the Saatchi gallery – he was thrown out of there so Tony housed him at Tate Britain. People came looking for him, were intrigued by the idea – and at times outraged.

A homeless woman installed in an LA gallery wasn’t quite so successful – she was wanted for misdemeanors and was taken to court. When the judge asked why she was in the LA gallery, she told him she was a work of art to much muttering and disbelief.

“It made people more aware of homelessness,” says Tony. “If you cut through the ridiculousness, I gave a guy a home and taught him about art. It’s about being if benefit to mankind, something I learned from the Kabbalah. I have to find a cure for pain, suffering and death – through art and expression. If I can’t do it, I believe that by trying I will inspire someone else to do so!”

He’s also been leaving art around LA like movable graffiti. “I asked Damien Hirst how he became an artist. Damien said ‘You are a fucking artist!’”

@nissancubeuk

Jade Goody’s not cold in her grave and already a “controversial” artist is leeching off her celebrity to generate some quick and dirty PR. News broke in the Hackney Gazette last week that performance artist Mark McGowan is organising a re-enactment of the final hours of Jade Goody’s life.

It’s a pretty typical scam; the two-hour show will feature a performer lying on a bed donning a cardboard box as a head and will also feature artists playing the roles of Jackey Budden, Jade’s mother, her publicist Max Clifford and Jack Tweed, her husband. And, what a surprise, it’s opening in the most pretentious area of artdom – Shoreditch – on May 18th.

McGowan obviously enjoys boosting his name with takes on controversial subject matter – back in 2005 he created a re-enactment of the shooting of Jean Charles de Menzes by the police. To achieve this, he sat in a bath filled with baked beans with chips in his nostrils, and then he went dancing outside Scotland Yard in a pink tutu and a pig mask.

Surely, Mr. McGowan, you can come up with something better this time round? We understand that art is difficult to define, but if the piece on Jade is anything like the Jean Charles de Menzes re-enactment, it will simply be an obvious and, more importantly, insensitive ploy to get publicity for an otherwise unknown and, seemingly, totally talentless person. Sensationalism and exploitation are easy to achieve – it takes a certain kind of genius to create something really infectious and inspiring out of the misery of others.

It does not appear that your show will be art in the traditional sense of skill or mastery, nor does it look like you have any intention of stimulating thought or emotion. This seems to me to be merely a vehicle for the artist (and I use that word loosely) to communicate his desperation to be noticed.

Well, I suppose it’s suckered me in to giving it ink.

These are exciting times for The Fame Formula; the book is due out in paperback in a couple of weeks and I’m enjoying seeing proofs come in from the publishers (it’s looking good!) and also the Fame Formula competition is coming to a close.

What’s particularly pleasurable about the competition is that not only is it very difficult to decide a winner – there are several entries that are strong contenders and, as a consequence, the choice is going to be very hard indeed – but there are also a number of strong, exciting entries still coming in.

A good example is the artist whose video you can see below.

The winners will be announced on April 1st.