ICA – It Was All Just A Bad Dream…

Two years after a certain ICA director canned the live arts department, the programme for Summer is full of, er…LIVE ARTS! And to add insult to irony, TIM ETCHELLS, who had previously produced a ‘virtual programme’ of live arts, called ‘True Riches’ http://www.ica-liveart.org.uk/intro.html, as a protest against the live arts closure, is one of the people producing the new live art strand! It’s like some extraordinary institutional-critical-hypocritical snake eating its own tail…between two infinity mirrors.

“I Shit Them Out And Present Them As Art Objects”

Like the rest of the nation, we at CoS can’t wait to see the documentary on the intense difficulties and pressures that come with a being an art student at Goldsmiths. Unfairly dismissed by many media commentators as a terrible bunch of wankers desperate for any glimmer of art world sprinkledust, this is the chance for students at the esteemed art school to show to the nation that in fact they are really decent people drawn together by wanting to make the world an ethically better place entirely populated by Jacques Ranciere. Or as the BBC website succinctly puts it: “All are desperate to create the kind of work that will propel them to centre stage in the art world, but only a select few will succeed.” Brilliant – makes you want to abolish all art schools and send them out to be electricians or something…..

East is Best…

As we’ve mentioned, we’re East-based in Victoria Park and Leyton, but here’s a reminder of what fellow East London-dwellers are missing over in the vibrant cultural hub that is West London.

Anthony Gormley’s Giant Knackers.

News just in from a reliable source… (first time for everything).
It seems that Mr J. Deller was actually one of three contenders for the tower project in the Olympic Park with the exteemed Mr A. Gormley being the other.
In the end it was a head to head between Kapoor and Tony, who proposed a £100milion figure of himself(!) complete with lifts in his legs(!!).
Allegedly Gormers is furious he was passed over for the Kapoor Helter Skelter.

Originally Tony’s tower design only had stairs, which is of course illegal, (he wanted the general public to walk up, presumably on their knees), but of course provision had to made for disabled access and lazy-as-fuck art dealers, so lifts would have had to be put in the legs. These then would have had to ascend at an angle which made them very pricey apparently.
More amusingly to CoS is the idea of ascending in an elevator towards Anthony Gormley’s giant metal balls. Dizzy heights indeed!

If anyone has any drawings/desgns they can leak to us of said ‘sculpture’ we’d love to see them. There £8.50 in it for you (see comment on one of the previous threads).
If anyone can confirm the Anthony Gormley does indeed have giant balls, there a fiver in it for you – that’s from our own pockets.

Collector’s Daughter to head MUMOK

Erm, the story is in the headline. Thank god we’re NOT AUSTRIAN!

get real you out-of-touch office monkeys

But come on – get real CoS in-house staffers. You’ve been reading left-leaning magazines too much. Us out-of-office CoS-ers (that looks like it might rhyme with ToS-ers) think its 19 million squids well spent. You wouldn’t get Mr Mittal doling out his money to poor arts organisations – particularly as most of the 19 million is ‘in kind’ for the steel which he is providing gratis. GET REAL we say! Come and pound the streets with us looking for stories instead of pontificating from your office in FUCKING BLOOMSBURY.

Thanks…

Thanking you your emails. Our inbox is bursting with 10 – 12 emails all from this last month. INCREDIBLE.
Here are the answers to your questions. I’m sure you can work out which answer is for you.

1) 35,000 views as of today. Not bad eh? If we actually had any real information we’d be a danger.
2) A whole team. Based in Homerton and Milton Keynes, the UK’s art epicentres.
3) Of all the people you have suggested, yes, one is right.
4) Simon Popper, Jasper Joffe, Eva Berendes, Ed Lipski, Mona Hatoum and Susan Collis, in that order.
5) Around 20 – 30, depending on the weather.
6) Strictly handbag house. Well, and Gerry Rafferty.
7) Around another 3 – 4 months.
8 ) Full-time
9) Artforum’s Scene and Herd.
10) No fucking way. In your wildest dreams my foul-mouthed friend.

Thanks. Happy Easter.

£19,000,000. That’s Right. 19 Million Pounds.

You know what – I’m going to say it. Don’t try and stop me, I’m going to spell it out.

Whilst the world (okay, Britain) goes doolally for the Olympics, the majority of art-fans, (particularly the art-world, who, let’s be honest, aren’t synonymous with sporting excellence) would love to see no tower at the Olympics, but instead 19 million smackers siphoned into arts organisations around the UK. There I said it.
We even wouldn’t mind if the ICA got a bit of that.

That’s for YOU Olympic Park people.

Just think what you could do with £19m…..
£190,000 for 100 British arts organisations.
1900 solo exhibitions.
237.5 artists’ monographs.
1731.2 dynamic gallery websites
380 worthy education programmes
42,222,222.2 Chunky Caramel Kitkats

Here’s that picture again. You choose – Tower or Kitkat? Tower or Kitkat?

Big Red Swirly Object Dominates News Shocker

Isn’t the world wide interweb a great thing? Back in the day, people like the British Council would make decisions and us, the poor public, would be powerless to say anything. But now with the information superhighway, everyone can comment on things. It’s great. Yesterday was dominated by the news that Anish Kapoor is going to build a large red swirly tower in the Olympic Park. Here’s what the public think:

Over at the Evening Standard blog ‘Mark from South East London’ ponders “How about a 115 metre high statue of St. George or even “Pie Mash” to represent London instead of this £19M quids worth of rubbish?” A depressed ‘Louise from Manchester’ rambles “I wonder how many will get trampled to death or suffocate on the tube in the summer of 2012″. Whilst Health and Safety expert ‘Dave from Chertsey’ sagely notes “Don’t glance up at this monstrosity while you are driving by, you’ll end up in a pothole” – although this could be a reference to Kapoor’s Void works from the 1990s.

Meanwhile the Guardian clearly attracts a higher class of art-bloggers who use both puns AND humour. “Misshero” clevely writes, “Eiffel tower? Awful Tower, more like” (geddit?). Meanwhile ‘Zepp’ feels cheated, “Towers are meant to reach for the sky.” Finally ‘ryko25′ sums up what we’re all thinking by this stage “How are these things decided? Do we (the people) never get a say?”
And the answer, is ryko25: NO, YOU NEVER GET A SAY BECAUSE YOU ARE GRUBBY, AND INANE. WE WILL MAKE THE DECISIONS FOR YOU. NOW GET BACK TO WORK!

Surly Searly

An angry and initially incoherent Adrian Searle dismissed accusations that he would stoop to reading his fellow Guardian art-hack Charlotte Higgins. When blogger ‘dvjm’ pointed out that Searle might have lifted his comment post on Higgins blog the previous day, an incandescent Searle temporarily lost the use of language before bitingly blogging back. Veteran commentator Searle, 83, belied his years by shouting over the interweb: “Dvjm! I didn’t see your comments, or Charlotte’s article, till today. I filed my article yesterday afternoon.”
HERE.