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From: Deirdre
Category: Art
Date: 08 September 2006
Time: 11:10 AM
Review:
FEE-FI-FO-FUM...
What you've written seems a pretty accurate description of the turning of the cogs. I find your
response more believable that Mr. - 'they're all nice people really and isn't the beer good here (My! It's
dark in this little hole!)' Pye.
Yes, its enough to make you want to top yourself: the conditions of making work and evaluative
criteria have become so alienated and alienating that the affective landscape is totally flat (and bright,
shiny and 'mmm. interesting' at the same time). To produce work outside that seems to demand an
extreme tragic-romantic gesture. Ultimately perhaps work can consist only in that. High romanticism
as a cri de coeur, as a riposte to the contemporary anaesthetisation of all areas of life in not only of
the public, but also the private domain, through your emotional core right down to your soul. And its
got so bad that it demands real blood and bones ('real-romanticism') - no more 'edgy' landscapes
embroidered with sturm und drang or ashen faced tuymansesque victims for this ogre, just the real
stuff. The thing is, the more polarised the two sides become, the more inadequate the sacrifice is
deemed, the more viscious the demand. Its a situation which both produces extreme responses and
nihilates them as on it rolls: its endlessly capable of making even the most tragic of romantic gestures
disappear. Its poking us through the bars - are we fat enough yet? Yours makes us doubt: is it real?
Is it not? Am I pushing you over the edge? Making a fool of myself? Its a response which actually
draws out the real because its teetering on the edge. Review or suicide note? Review or suicide
note? Is that an A++, or 'could do better'? Masterwork or pull yourself together?
Of course we want success, but on what terms and defined by what values? - Not all the little pyes in
the world are worth it.