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Can Art be Taught by Grotowskian Clowns? The Saatchi Gallery 1st July at 7.00pm

From:     Rodney Ward
Category: Art
Date:     09 June 2009
Time:     03:05 PM

Review:

What in the Lords name ? (Lord Mandleson or Lord Bragg, it matters not) What in the Lords name is
Saint Joan of Bakewell attempting to achieve by cosying up with the tackiest bunch this side of the
Post Telegraph installed Government at the behest of the Saatchi Mob, The Daily Telegraph and
something very quangoesian called Intelligence Squared.

 So Joan you must think that Facebook is aimed at one generation?, perhaps you are using the term
Generation to mean "cohort"?, You must think that Camilla Batmanghelidjh has attended so many
flippin' courses that she has some gem of wisdom to bestow upon this poor febrile community of
losers? No? or that Cardiffs best export (better for Cardiff) Stephen Bayley, who once tried to palm
himself of as Britains second most intelligent man - don't laugh, we the haplessly unlearned
Facebook subscribers are media savvy enough to know that it was'nt the Guardian who decided Stephen
Bayley is the second most intelligent bivalve in Britain, it was of course himself, his PR , or
agent or friends in the press, just as Anthony Gormley spends a lot of time trying to convince the
BBC Radio four to keep mentioning his rediculous fourth plinth concept stolen and downgraded from
Mark Wallingers genius, so we now hear Gormley being repeated over and over in the Archers,
seriously - its very embarrassing. Why don't the Archers mention Yinke Shonibare's fabulous ship in
a bottle . Oh No! thats post-colonial art chum and we just tolerate that for our European funding,
we don't actually believe in it....not on the village greens of olde Englandular Fever. Why does
Gormley keep on making an issue out of Westminster Planning Departments late approval of his
debauched social commentary? is he hoping we will all plead for his fourth plinth project to proceed
so that he can scoff at the proliterian facebook generation standing there for four times more fame
than  Andy Warhol predicted ? Does he think Britains got Talent? or could he be just as obsessed by
the concept of "throughput" as the tastelessly modern Tate, for it is their quoted phrase from the
ambitions of the Tate administration destined for the Turbine Hall, they do not give a stuff about
any spatial dynamic and hey, Tate, Its our culture you just happen to be presenting, hard to sell
something to those to whom it actually belongs.
So can Joan Bakewell redeem herself? Should I mention Grayson Perry ? he is part of the "panel" and
is just as besotted by his own tedious psychosis as Alan De Botton is at everyone else's Sound Bite
Psychology - we will have to wait see. Are you thinking of attending? £15 says you might consider it
for slightly longer than if it were free, 
lets not immerse ourselves in the paradise of them paying us to attend. What is an Artist and is
there one in this debate?


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