Murder most fowl

It is a matter of public record that Claudius killed the King of Denmark. Lesser known is the fact that the king’s son, Hamlet, was murdered by the actor Michael Maloney. I bore witness to this crime as I sat in the front row at West Yorkshire Playhouse, several years ago, wondering if the stage daggers would shuffle me off this mortal coil. Maloney could barely have offended the audience more (save the clown who stood up clapping at the end while the rest of us wondered whether we should clap our hands or slap the midget on the stage across his chops) had he been rubbing an emery board across his finger nails as he began Hamlet’s soliloquy, pausing in his recital to blow the dust from his murdering talons and glance up at the saps who had parted with hard earned cash to watch such a pitiful performance. Mel Gibson might be a hard drinking religious loon but he at least made an effort when he took on the part.

 

This incident was brought to mind by another murder I was unfortunate enough to witness only last week. The scene of the crime was my own home. The victim was Samuel Beckett’s ‘End Game’. Now bad actors are ten a penny. I’ve had the pleasure to make radio commercials with actors of both fame and anonymity over the years; neither guarantees a good performance. In fact the only common trait of the performances that stick in my mind are the dour nature of the people who performed them. No matter. It was worth being subjected to a scowl to hear my work brought to life with such flair. I digress. The perpetrators of the massacre of ‘End Game’ were none other than Michael Gambon and David Thewliss, two thesps who would surely feature in any programme of ‘Britain’s 100 Best Actors’ that ITV cared to make. A trial date has yet to be set. I’m too busy at the moment to capture the segments of video that will show you what I’m talking about. The director, Connor McPherson, was just a pup when he decided to aid and abet the prime suspects. Being under the age of critical responsibility prevents him standing trial. Court is adjourned.

But is it Art?

The Tate Modern's Turbine Hall, often a scene of controversy is currently displaying a work by Doris Salcedo entitled Shibboleth. This is a groundbreaking work ('scuse the pun... you'll get it shortly!) even by Tate Modern's standards.

So what has Salcedo placed in the hall to tantalise us with in the name of Art? Well... nothing. In fact, she's taken something away. The exhibit consists of a 167 metre long crack, smashed into the concrete floor of the exhibition space.



According to the Tate's website:

Salcedo has created a subterranean chasm that stretches the length of the Turbine Hall. The concrete walls of the crevice are ruptured by a steel mesh fence, creating a tension between these elements that resist yet depend on one another. By making the floor the principal focus of her project, Salcedo dramatically shifts our perception of the Turbine Hall’s architecture, subtly subverting its claims to monumentality and grandeur.

And furthermore:

Shibboleth asks questions about the interaction of sculpture and space, about architecture and the values it enshrines, and about the shaky ideological foundations on which Western notions of modernity are built.

Maybe I'm old fashioned but is this really art? By my experience this would make Yorkshire Water a Warhol-esque factory of prolific artists, routinely shifting my perception of our local road system, subtly subverting its claims to monumentality and grandeur. The only difference as far as I can see is that Yorkshire Water would dig the 167 metre long trench and then sit around it drinking tea for three weeks before filling it in again, only to reopen it two days later when geysers of water begin to sluice out of the road.

By a similar note, Time Team regularly create similar artistic works in the grandest of settings and then further embellish them with a scattering of historical pottery, Cornish yokels and an overly-enthusiastic Baldrick. Now that's far more entertaining.

I'm not adverse to controversial art, but it has to have talent and creativity behind it. You can't just point some contractors with pneumatic drills at a bit of concrete and call it art afterwards.

The purpose of art is to make you wonder about the mind and the hand that created it, to push your perceptions or make you think in a different way about something. I'm afraid I don't think any differently of a hole in the floor whether it was created by an 'Artist', and Earthquake, or Yorkshire Water. It's a hole in the floor. I've seen them before. I could even make my own if I really wanted to - which brings me to the main point; Art should be unique. That's the whole point of it.

I've seen exhibitions by Henri Moore and Barbara Hepworth, both distinguished and renowned sculptors. But when you bring an exhibition together the art loses its impact because it is no longer unique. To see a whole room full of bits of stuff with holes through them (bronze or marble, respectively) just makes me think "Can't you do anything else?"

Contemporary artists seem to want to pander to eccentricity and court controversy because it is fashionable to do so - creating works to give the tabloid headlines something to take the piss out of ("Aah the plebs will never understand our art..") and the Broadsheet columnists something to wring their collective hands in despair over - just like a teenager dying their hair to annoy granddad. It's like the nutter who gets on the bus, or like Rick from the Young Ones. "I'm mad me. Look at me, I'm a bit crazy, You never know what I'm going to do, I'm a nutter!"

Proper artists don't admit to being crazy, they just are. They probably don't even realise it. That's what makes them geniuses. This point is made perfectly by the words of the great Salvador Dali:

"The Only difference between me and a madman is that I'm not mad."

Genius.