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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.