GRUMPYART

Tate Liverpool, Oh dear!

Well, after a few weeks of quite intense work, I had the pleasure of a couple of days in Liverpool with my wife and a couple of friends. We went to the Maritime Museum, which has an excellent display of Liverpool’s past shipping connection, well worth it if you are in the area. We had a couple of hours to spare, so we decided to pop into the Liverpool Tate Gallery. What a disappointment, I am have quite an open mind when it comes to art and artist’s works, however on this occasion, and I think  it’s happening all over to be honest, I have never seen such a pile of pretentious crap in all my days. I cannot understand how such supposedly intelligent people can accept this sort of work as art (they would say that you are writing about it, therefore it justifies itself). If I wanted I am sure I could come up with some crazy piece, bullshit about it for a few minutes, using some posh dialect that only these people understand and hey presto.

The exhibition that I saw was split between floors,  Sculpture: the physical World, The sculpture of language, and Conversation piece. These were collections from many recognisable and some unrecognisable artists, Jackson Pollock, Frank Auerbach and Andy Whorhol to name a few. I am sorry but single pieces of art from these artists don’t stand up on their own, They only have significance when you see them as a whole, their lifestyle and how they worked, and also there traditional thinking behind the artwork itself. How can artwork from Richard Long possible be displayed in a art gallery, simple he makes a small sculpture of bits of wood on the floor, but that’s not Richard Long, his works are massive, outdoors and something that only he has the balls to do, or the first to do, should I say. So It’s his name that’s on display not the pile of timber that’s called a sculpture.

I call it the Kings clothes, some people are too scared to call it crap, or worst still, are so far up their own arse and want to be deemed as intellects that they are willing to believe that it is a fine piece of work. There were some familiar names that I did see and like what they had on display, Henry Moore for instance, His sculptures are displaying generally complex forms and emotion in fairly simple shapes, the art there is capturing that in a sculpture, fair enough. Salvador Dali was also represented, his painting have a narrative, a reason, and they are painted with his own experience of the subject. The rest with the exception of a few are basing their work on the backs of true pioneering abstract artists, without words to describe, in detail what it’s about, the work is useless, it doesn’t stand up on its own merits.

Now, how do I bring this short note to a conclusion, perhaps by saying if this is the way art is going, I had best quit now, No I don’t think so. Maybe if there was a way of separating this load of rubbish into a completely new class other than art, I think that would be a start. I don’t want my work to have anything to do with that load of tripe . It’s a shame as there are many contemporary artists out there that do not get the coverage or credit that they are due, because they work, not so much in a traditional manner, but they still have the belief in what true art is, and remain true to themselves. They do not wear the kings clothes!

Tags: contemporary art, frank auerbach, modern art, salvador dali, traditional art