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From: Ben Zanoe Category: Art Date: 01 July 2009 Time: 01:45 PM Review: Life Drawing invented in the Renaissance, daughter of Byzantium Bisexuals and the triumphant mascara of cave dwelling baby sitters from Goth, Thracian and Vandal parentage. Abused as the toy of Empire and gentry as a universal inventory and as the earliest form of lead guitar by Holbein the Jungre who, feted by royalty and God alike for his twelve bar adoration of the spank addicted in-breeding twat-Heads of State slyly took a kings schilling whilst he ordered a new front loading Focke-Wolf 190 Drawing Obscura. Just why the bitter divorce rolled on between Mrs Catholic Landscape and Mr Protestant Portrait through the hearts and minds of typographic pamphleteers, horse thieves and Grotowskian Clowns we will surely, never, never admit that we were nations of bodkin steering tapestry moles, But like the children of a soured marriage we wander these galleried throngs with sarcasm, cynicism and "it is'nt fair" writ large with sable, with silver pencil and pouncing brush and a mahl stick across the withers every so often. Looking it is said, (sadly) for perfection without innocence. Everyone can draw and most can draw figurative likenesses if they really want to, like most things it's about choice (rhymes with Beuys) rather than ability. Dave Cockney , although a mega-star in my estimation, uses a pencil, some standard grade paper and a good old sprinkle of Semantics, the problem is that we interpolate Cockneys theories and views as fact - that painting is "better" than photography, he knows its a nonsensical statement about incomparable concepts but his world, his Psychotic Obsession with images as language is a dam site better than the po faced antics of say; Martian Parr's sneering through the class war with the soul stealing dageurotype , this is the other thing you can do with glass and sunlight. That other recent quickie= Abstract v Figurative was thought to be a sort of joke much in the vein of the roadside chicken, something advertised on daytime TV between a Sir Paul McCartney interview about his operetta and Rolf Harris' tearful eulogy to one of Madonna's newly purchased children but it keeps repeating indigestably like one of Charles Windsors organic pasties in the gut of yer average (marginalised) tax paying Cornish That both the figurative and the abstracted are abstractions seems larger than ten elephants standing in Highgrove House, so be it, lets not spoil the fun, after all The Royal Academy of Arse demand £50 for each Summer Show Submission, even though hardly a tenth get hung, The Threadneedle asks for several Puffins in tithes, transport companies and Parker get out the Rolls, yes M'Lady, and another thing Parker, everyones got a camera now, in their phone, on their heads poking up their trouser legs, this whole Golden Section legacy, forget it if you've only just started because Anthony Gormley cannot turn ambition into a transferable skill...yet.