Tuesday 7 December 2010

Palimpsest is worth £1500

UK, taxpayers have paid £1,500 for a foreign painter to exhibit invisible pictures. Artist Agnieszka Kurant got the Arts Council England grant for a show that included “a painting that hasn’t been painted yet” the exhibition also had “an invisible sculpture” and “a movie shot with no film in the camera”.

A council spokeswoman said: “Our funding allows artists and arts organisations to take artistic risks and make challenging work, which is part of the reason why the arts in this country are so vibrant. In this case, the artist Agnieszka Kurant was given a Small Grants For The Arts award of £1,500, as a contribution towards a two-part installation seen by approximately 20,000 visitors." Council officials insisted there were “substantial benefits for English artists and audiences”.

One art review website said "Agnieszka Kurant's works stem from her interest in exceeding human logic and the existence of elements of the future in the present. Oscillating between visibility and invisibility, truth and lies, past and future, magic and everyday news, her pieces prove how something invisible can also become political and how un-existing objects can influence reality even more than existing ones." Maybe we should give her un-existing taxpayers money!

Another art review website described them as a “conceptual game” and pointed out that “since the works were invisible, at least transport was not required”. The Arts Council England handed out £147,755 to overseas artists in the year to April.

If a picture is worth a thousand words. Then here we have whole new concept to the Emperors New Clothes. However, this time I can't help but feel it is the taxpayer who have been framed.

Now you might be wondering what has this got to do with canals and boats. However, back in the real world, The Canal and River trust are already running with this invisible, un-existing objects concept. Which includes invisible dredging, invisible bank erosion and  invisible lock leaks. I say this because CaRT are obviously unable to see the full extent of the much needed infrastructure repairs.

Another web based art site said "The word 'palimpsest' comes through Latin from Greek and meant "scraped again" In Kurant's work the paper, just like parchment in the first ages AD palimpsests, is reused incessantly since whatever is written on it vanishes within a few seconds and the paper remains a visual tabula rasa, a blank monochrome."

Yep I was right - just like letters and emails to CaRT - that just seem to disappear like a palimpsest.


Later....




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