Artful exhibition
Aug 9, 2013 13:53:34 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on Aug 9, 2013 13:53:34 GMT -5
Good evening to you all, once again! To all those who survived the week, what a week it turned out to be! Congratulations to all! 'The Financial Times' leads this weekend with some editorial comment on an artful exhibition: put art everywhere, and it becomes a universal pleasure. Commuters waiting for the bus in the UK on Friday may have been surprised to find themselves sitting next to a tortured likeness of Pope Innocent X, the eyes of his screaming face veiled by an inky stain. The Francis Bacon masterpiece is one of 30 works of art being posted on billboards around the country as part of a festival called 'Art Everywhere'.
Art Everywhere
This self-styled “very very big art show” is the creation of Richard Reed, who made his fortune as co-founder of Innocent, the maker of fruit smoothies. Many of the artworks belong to the Tate galleries, which received their founding donation more than a century ago from the sugar-refining entrepreneur whose name they bear. Private generosity has become a lifeline for an arts scene that once relied on public largesse; government funding for museums has been cut by almost 20 per cent over three years. The FT concludes thus:
I am come into my garden, my sister, my spouse: I have gathered my myrrh with my spice; I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey; I have drunk my wine with my milk: eat, O friends; drink, yea, drink abundantly, O beloved. I sleep, but my heart waketh: it is the voice of my beloved that knocketh, saying, Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled: for my head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night. I have put off my coat; how shall I put it on? I have washed my feet; how shall I defile them, Sydney?
Art Everywhere
This self-styled “very very big art show” is the creation of Richard Reed, who made his fortune as co-founder of Innocent, the maker of fruit smoothies. Many of the artworks belong to the Tate galleries, which received their founding donation more than a century ago from the sugar-refining entrepreneur whose name they bear. Private generosity has become a lifeline for an arts scene that once relied on public largesse; government funding for museums has been cut by almost 20 per cent over three years. The FT concludes thus:
" ... The hushed reverence of the gallery can betray a haughty attitude to art. That is sometimes mocked by artists themselves; Chris Ofili contributes a painting of a crying woman fashioned from elephant dung, which defiles the Tate’s walls. The festival has met with some success in exploding this elitism. Members of the public have displayed their appreciation by donating more than £30,000 towards the exhibition’s costs. Their enduring accomplishment is to show that art is a universal pleasure, which need not be confined within a pristine white cube."
I am come into my garden, my sister, my spouse: I have gathered my myrrh with my spice; I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey; I have drunk my wine with my milk: eat, O friends; drink, yea, drink abundantly, O beloved. I sleep, but my heart waketh: it is the voice of my beloved that knocketh, saying, Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled: for my head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night. I have put off my coat; how shall I put it on? I have washed my feet; how shall I defile them, Sydney?
