Lindsay Perigo
The Politically Incorrect Show - 28/02/2001
[Music - Die Fledermaus]
Good afternoon, Kaya Oraaa & welcome to the Politically Incorrect Show on the free speech network, Radio Pacific, for Wednesday February 28, proudly sponsored by Neanderton Nicotine Ltd., the show that says bugger the politicians & bureaucrats & all the other bossyboot busybodies who try to run our lives with our money; that stands tall for free enterprise, achievement, profit, & excellence, against the state-worshippers in our midst; that stands above all for the most sacred thing in the universe, the liberty of the human individual.
[Music up, music down!]
I must check to see if Tony Hancock's movie, The Rebel, is available on video. I saw it years ago as a kid, & remember being rendered paralytic with laughter. If I recall correctly, it was about a talentless wannabe sculptor who did a hilariously appalling statue of a woman which became hailed as a work of genius by the art establishment. At some point it was beheaded as it
entered a train tunnel, & was hailed thereafter as an even greater work of
genius (again, if I remember correctly). Tony Hancock possibly didn't realise how accurate & prophetic his pillorying was - things went from bad to worse after that. I wonder what he would have made of the two trucks parked as a "work of art" at the Viaduct Basin last year, or the semen-stained blankets that won a prestigious award a couple of years back for being "haunting, provocative & powerful"? One of our local arty-farties once stood me in front of a framed canvass that had been painted black - that was it - & told me how much he admired its "intellectual rigour." For once, I was speechless - probably just as well.
Now let me quote you from a posting on my SOLO site:
"I live about 15 minutes walk along the Thames from the Tate Modern gallery. It is an impressive building, and contains some brilliant works (eg Dali's Metamorphosis of Narcissus) but the emphasis is on 'some'. There is no end to the utter rubbish in the building masquerading as 'art'. It is a joke. If someone put a short video of a twerp bouncing up and down on a 'bouncy ball' I last saw in an episode of the Goodies on television it would be met with howls of derision, and rightly so. But because it is in the Tate, it is considered 'art'. So too with the rubbishy short films by a former Turner Prize-winner Steve McQueen (no not that one, he made proper films). And I haven't even mentioned Tracy Emin (she of the 'umade bed' fame). The trouble is that all the best jokes have already been made about this sort of nonsense: eg the Italian artist who bottled his own excrement in the 1960s, reckoning that some day, if the trend continued, someone would buy it (they did, for a lot of money, in the '90s). My question is: how can I break into this business? (If you can't beat em, join em. And besides, does it come as a surprise to know that this sort of crap receives state funding here as well as from Te Papa in NZ?)"
Well, I don't fancy this fellow's chances - congealed sweat or saliva are probably a little tame, given the other bodily emissions that have already been turned into "art" works. But if he's seriously looking for an antidote to the nonsense, I cannot commend highly enough a book called From The Fountainhead To The Future, and Other Essays on Art & Excellence, by Alexandra York. More from me about THAT at a future time.
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