return to worldwidereview.com,
the home of critical reviews
From: Roger Miehardt Category: Art Date: 05 September 2009 Time: 01:24 PM Review: But is it Art? no good asking a beleagered Rolf Harris about art as he stumbles along the steep cliffs of Snot Art with mummies boy Matthew Parish barely concealing the fact that he's really only ever been a political animal in cheap clothing on Radio Four at about 10.00pm on Friday night. Matt and Rolf's Big Adventure was a scary reciprocal adoration of Sir Keffyn Williams, a Welsh Art Icon albeit of the stuffy Snot Art so very prevalent in the water-colour brandishing Windsors or their wives cousins who do Interior Decoration for the royal household's holiday let's on Tresco. Discussing a Welsh Icon with only one Welsh Professor Morgan for authenticity and a self made Australian Renaissance-entity is very disappointing for Matthew as he tries in vain to steer Rolf away from talking about himself all the time. Occasionally Professor Morgan throws a line of sanity but there is little to save these three drifting marooned broadcasters. Rolf thinks his father is Welsh because he came from Bristol, he bemoans critics of his apparell, Matthew talks to Rolf as if it's one of his Grandparents anticipating making some racist gaff about Aboriginal Art or similar, after much clunky editing there's a bit of time to slag off the conceptualist's, "Sir Keffyn did'nt approve of video art..." And of course Sir Keffyn is'nt around so he cannot object or even ponder why he's being discussed by a T.V.Vet. No mention of Australia's Ken Done, Jimmy Pike, Lloyd Reece, Arthur Boyd,Fiona Hall,Sidney Nolan, Ian Fairweather, Donald Friend, Brett Whitely....if Rolf is as the introduction states, an icon in both Britain and Australia how come we did,nt get treated to some of his Snot Art rolf-models back home, theres even a genuine Gordon Bennett to reference. When conspiratorial theorists bang on about the Windsors versus the Spencers I wonder if Rolf was used to put Royal-Refusalist Lucien Freud's portrait of Reality out of reach for the dumb majority. In which case the dumb majority can tear up their application forms for the Royal Garden Farty, The Chelsea Flower Show or the opening of parliament, we can all get on one of the remaining kendy buses and head for South London's Elephant and Castle because we will go to what was known as a Council Estate in Falmouth Road SE1 and we can look at Roger Hiorns Seizure until October 18th open Thursday - Saturday 11-7pm, Sunday 11 - 5pm, big blue chrystals of ultramarine cobalt blue hanging, stuck fast to everything that remains of this little council flat, every wall, any details that may have existed in this difficult to visualize origin, the experience is peculiar, like a visit to a tomb or a Bronze Age site, even though it is a blatantly chemical reaction somehow the masked original appears to have fed these massive crystals as though the ordinariness of domestic life has expressed this exotica and is telling us "Yes, there is a value to this stuff that happens everyday, maybe obscure values, but EVERYTHING is transformative, And this is all we need to know.