The Tate Modern: a new definition of “Art”

A Guest Arts and Culture Review by Doctor Anthony Beauregard Peabody (BA Arts, MA Fine Arts, PhD Feminist Brush Theory)

Walking through the twist and turns of this hallowed gallery, you might be tempted to look around, regard the ingenious shapes and striking blobs of colour and bits of string, and loudly proclaim “are you serious, mate?”

If you’re a troglodyte, that is. But, however, you’re not some moaning, murping, whingey, artless, illiterate, soulless, blind, uneducated, lower-middle-class scum, just as I am not. And so you – just like me – would be refreshed and invigorated by the breath-taking display of modern art pieces in this fine curation: a bold and daring redefinition of what “art” really means.

Jean Helion (1904 – 1987)

My review begins - as all great reviews of timeless work do – at the beginning, with French abstractist Helion’s Abstract Composition. Skillfully thrown together in 1934 using bold oils, contrasting schemes and shapes etched using a wonky ruler, the piece is as challenging as it is beautiful. Far from the photo-realistic oil paints of a bygone era, Helion focuses his brush to devastating effect in a neo-performative critique of the Marxo-social feminine ideal. Using his mother as a model and sniffing deeply of the turpentine, Helion’s simplistic shapes remind us of a childhood era of peace, innocence, and fucking around in MSPaint drawing ovals and filling them in with that paintcan thingy. Marvellous, isn’t it?

Piet Mondrian (1872-1944)

Following Helion’s genius is Mondrian’s 1935 seminal chef d’oeuvre, Compostion B. While the name might be lacking in sophistication and hidden meanings, the painting itself is not: he uses white. He uses black. He uses squares. He uses lines. To the untrained eye, it might appear a lacklustre effort – something painted when the crackpipe is empty and you have nothing to eat but dry pasta and butter. But its mastery lies in the white space. We’ll get onto white space in a bit, but rest assured that this is just the first gobsmacking example of artistic brilliance.

Joseph Beuys (1921-1986)

A too-often-heard criticism of art is the requirement for colour, innovation, technique, and “making it at least nice to look at”. However, Beuy’s impromptu oeuvre in 1974, the infamous For the lecture: ‘The Social Organism: a Work of Art’ does away with such retrogressive limitations. A frenzy of chalk and animal-like, kinda-looks-like-a-person-I-guess shapes are drawn together with furious zeal, outlining the social construction of the world and man and beasts places within that ever-shifting, complex web. It’s, like, deep.

Beuy’s profound discontentment with the limitations of conventional art – such as being able to just draw a horse that looks like a goddamn horse – are not capped at his bestial designs: his obliteration of basic writing and spelling that makes your doctor’s script look like calligraphy cement the movement’s deep revolution away from the restriction of the Old Masters.

Unknown author

This next piece is awe defined. While abstractists and modern art turns away from the sour conventions of old, this piece turns that discontentment on itself. Welding and silver-washing steel into a centrepiece, the artist scatters recreations of excrement around it. However, in a galling and audacious shunning of contemporary modern technique, the scat is not, in fact, made from his own faeces. Rather, he makes the puzzling choice of bronze. Why a modern artist would use metalwork when there is a perfectly good belly of shit inside him, ready at any moment to be couched and splattered in a glorious, counter-contemporary cascade into an oily, thick puddle of brilliance, or smeared with his own hands - perhaps mixing it with the period blood of his wife - onto a canvas, is beyond me – but his efforts are, indeed, commendable.

Ceal Floyer (1968)

Simplistic pieces that leave the audience reeling and gawping at the wall are this exhibition's forte, and no piece is no different. Since its creation in a Sainsbury’s in Holborn in June of 2009, Monochrome Till Slip has been leaving audiences gobsmacked. Using just 49 all-white items that cost about 55 pounds sterling, this 30 000-pound masterpiece challenges the viewers conception of not just colour, but value. “What is colour?” he muses; “Is white a colour?” he ponders; “Jesus, have I been binning 30 000 pounds every time I go shopping?” he queries.

Various Authors – white spaces

This aforementioned concept is a central theme in modern art. Indeed, just as famed masters of old were celebrated for producing spectacular work filled with vibrant colours, awe-inspiring figures, and bold techniques, so too do the new masters do exact the same thing just with none of that. Ellsworth Kelly’s (1923-2015) provoking 1974 creation White Curve is just one of these, but the gallery is bedecked with them: a moving tribute to the nothing. For after all, without nothing, how could there be anything? With no paint, no brush, no frame, no material, no content, is art defined in and of itself, or defined as a contrast to purity, to a null, blank nothingness? All technique can only be identified in the absence of such; and all art can only be identified in the absence of art. But then, is this now art? Does a nothing that defines a something make it, indeed, a something itself? I’m very smart. I hope you’re following.

It doesn’t end with Kelly, however: blank canvases bring negative space screaming into fruition. In one example, three blank canvasses hang side-by-side, a stunning riposte to the outmoded ideals of what constitutes a “body of works” or “portfolio”. Are they all just the same blank canvas? Or are they reinterpreted and their meanings recodeified with each subjective appraisal, “um”, “ah”, and “what the fuck is this bullshit”? These works are exquisite: a communico-performative social reconstruction that uses both negativeness and audience to reframe art as a conceptulisational referencing Jurgenialist non-adaptive recreation.

In some cases, it was just a blank wall, with a blanked-out explanation box. Bold. Simple. Beautiful. Genius.

Art as trash; trash as art

By now, many criticisms have been offered as to the value of this art. Not its literal value, as that has been established by art houses and taxpayers, but its value as an artistic project. “This is garbage,” some may cry, from their places at the trough. But this is the exact, surgeon-like accuracy of the artistic project: to challenge the hegemonic conventions of art by using a Thingymajigian approach to High-Balderdashian Obfuscationalism so as to instill an anti-traditionalist critique of the problematic oversimplification of art as “something that’s nice to look at” or “that makes us feel something”.

And they are right. Oft-times, the art is garbage. Crafted from the detritus of society and pulled from council tips, these recreations make us ask “is this really an old blanket?” and “is this really just a dirty bucket squeezed between a milk carton and a Styrofoam brick, a combination that uses elitist posturing and jargon to alienate those who don’t see the Emperor’s New Clothes?”

“What is waste, and what is wasted?” we must question. Regard this following piece:

The material is a bold choice. Flimsy and tacked together at the last minute – just like its premise – it makes the audience wonder ‘wire-we looking at this?’. Of course, the exhibit doesn’t stop there, as it is a cornerstone of modern art is to stray from cliché materials to recreate a new art.

Untitled (toilet paper, wooden floor) is one such offering. This piece, by an unknown author stops you dead in your tracks. Situated not on a wall or in a demarcated area, it breaks the boundaries of the limiting gallery context, a space beleaguered with rules and restrictions. Where you cannot touch other pieces, this sturdy construction from simple toilet paper and the artists excrement is not beset by such limitations. You can even, if you want, touch it, or rub it against your cheek – as I did, several times. A sublime challenge to demoded conventions.

This simple creation is just a fraction of a larger setpiece. Hidden in a smaller tiled exhibition space demarcated merely by traditional signs for males, females, and disabled persons, a series of miniature sculptures in porcelain, paper and steel carry this anti-conventional message to powerful new heights. By drawing on real life gender divisions in society, enforcing them on the audience, and creating a performative space that critiques human waste creation, it makes for truly puissant art.

You see, that is the Tate Modern’s true success. Walking out, the audience is left perplexed and deeply unsettled, questioning the very definition of art itself. Alas, I must admit that this is a feeling that is muted and spoiled by the curators decision to ruin the unilateral, message-laden exhibition with lackluster works by Degas, Monet and that plebiscite's abstractist, Picasso. What is this, the fucking Louvre?

9/10 stars except for the floor for Georgia O'Keeffe

“Of course I’ll work for free” says no person ever

Shock and awe this morning, after literally no one in human history came to you today and agreed that they would work for utterly no pay whatsoever.

The man – 26-year-old Jake Henderson, whose name and age we made up because he is purely fictitious – made the startling announcement this morning, saying he’d do that thing you want him to spend several dozen hours this weekend doing for you without being fairly compensated.

“Of course I’ll do it for no money,” he said taking time out of his busy schedule being a nonentity to speak to reporters. “DJ-ing at your birthday this Friday, playing guitar at your club event on Saturday, or even coming up to your wedding to take photographs, edit them, and then email them all to you – I’ll do all of this, and you don’t even have to give me a dime.”

“I know it takes hours of my time to design a website entirely from scratch, and that this is a skill that has taken years of study, practice, and hundreds of dollars’ worth in software, tuition and time to master, but you don’t have to pay me,” he continued in a statement that does not exist because you’d be crazy to write it. “I’m pretty sure my landlord and the bank accept the exposure I’ll get from doing this as legal tender for paying rent or my various living expenses.”

And Jake is just one of thousands of people who are not alive, and never have been, who share this controversial opinion.

“Jake’s totally right,” said Eric Smith, who, even if you were to look through the annals of human history, delving into even the most ancient records of our species, you would not locate because he has never existed and never will. “It’s like I said to my boss the other day: of course I’ll come in this weekend and at 7am on Sunday and not claim overtime from you.”

And scientists now say research shows that this is merely the tip of the iceberg.

“You think people would say, ‘what the hell, what kind of idiot would ask me to come in this Saturday when I clearly asked for this weekend off three weeks ago?’ or, ‘no ways, I’m not doing that shit for free – at least respect me enough to pay for my transport to the venue halfway across goddamn town’,” said head researcher for the Institute of Shit No One Says, Thomas Everson. “But our research indicates that of course I don’t mind if you went to the fridge and drank the last of my milk without asking, and that it’s totally okay if you borrowed my car without my permission and then didn’t clean up the burger crumbs or even contribute towards petrol costs.”

This study also suggests that yeah man, go ahead, change the channel right in the middle of whatever I’m watching, I don’t mind.

“It might sound like we’re living in a crazy world,” said Everson, “but you know what, if we agree to split the bill equally at a restaurant, you don’t have to feel guilty about ordering the $17 spare rib special, or even throw in a tip for the waitress.”

Archaeologists discover ancient Greeks had “some pretty fucked up fetishes”

The archaeological world is stunned today, after a team of scientists unearthed new evidence that proves that the ancient Greeks and Romans “had some pretty fucked up fetishes”.

The revelation came to light after a dig team found dozens of naked statues in the buried ruins of a home just outside Rome.

“We’ve been digging all day, and already we’ve found several armless naked statues of men and women stashed underneath or inside what we’ve figured out are Roman-era mattresses and sock-drawers,” said dig coordinator and program overseer Doug Biggols. “These artefacts – which are very similar to those on display in museums across the world – prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that these toga-wearing deviants had a pretty depraved sexual appetite."

"I mean, I’ve watched some fucked up porn in my life, but armless amputee porn? That shit is pretty hard-core, man.”

The dig’s findings have since been corroborated by ancient scrolls authored by two young Greek men who – it is thought – lived in the house.

“The dialect and language structure is certainly difficult to decipher from these fragile, faded papers,” said leading translator for the program, Jess Ingames. “But the document clearly translated to something along the lines of, ‘whoa dude, check out the knockers on this one! Phwoar, I’d definitely bang her even though a handjob is totally out of the question.’”

The findings, however, don’t stop there.

“We’ve also found several other statues that prove that most Greek women had a thing for ripped guys with tiny dicks,” said Biggols. “Basically they were turned on by the ancient equivalent of flat-cap-wearing, ‘roid-abusing body builders who go to the gym four times a day.”

This is not the first time such a stunning discovery has been made. In 2013 a similar study unearthed other unsettling indications of strange sexual appetites.

“Back then, we found hundreds of urns and wall murals featuring side-on portraits of men and women,” explained Biggols. “These sick bastards obviously had a massive fetish for one-eyed pornstars."

"And let’s not even get started on the snake-haired ladies and minotaurs and stuff.”

The Greek government has since denied the claims, saying it that that part of their history was “just a phase” and that “anyway, it’s normal for any developing nation to experiment with their sexual fantasies”.

“Besides, they’re not even our statues,” they said in a statement, “they belonged to the Byzantines, we swear, we were just keeping them for them, we’d never look at that kind of stuff, promise! Anyway, at least we aren’t as bad as the Egyptians: those thick bastards communicated entirely in Emojis. Seriously, our data now suggests that the average Egyptian was a 15-year-old girl called Tiffany.”

However, the Greek government now says it has a simple solution to avoid future embarrassments.

“We’re going through our libraries and museums just burning and smashing all the evidence of what our forefathers got up to at 10pm after locking the door and drawing their curtains once their parents had finally left for dinner with the Mulligans,” they said in a prepared statement. “Right now, we think that’s our safest option: just delete our history.”

Fire causes millions of Rands' worth in improvements to local art gallery

Residents of Cape Town's bustling and bohemian suburb of Observatory were overjoyed today after a massive fire that broke out in early hours of this morning caused untold improvement at local art dealership and gallery Blue Iris.

"We're overjoyed," repeated resident Jake Holder, who is too uncreative to think of his own bloody word to describe his reaction. "Before, it was just all this pseudo-critical, politically-aimed abstract art - like bunches of red and black paint lines smeared across a torn South African flag. Junk, basically."

Meanwhile, even scientists agree that the new, improved artwork is chemically and agriculturally a thousand times more useful and valuable than it was before.

"Ash - or as we're calling, 'Post-improvement art' - has many purposes," said Ashologist Bernie Cinders. "For example, you could make homemade make-up out of it, or plough it into an arid piece of land to make it more fertile. You could even use the charred remnants of the artist's creativity as graphite stick to make other, less crap, art. The possibilities are endless," he said, before adding that, no, literally they are not endless, that's just an expression, you shouldn't take everything I say so seriously, why are you writing this down, I thought the interview was over, stop writing, I mean it, stop writing in that little notepad, stop right now, stop, just stop, okay, get out of my office, security, security, please remove this man.

The art installation, which is now actually worth something, has an estimated value of about R1.6 million in rough alternative fertiliser or charcoal art supplies - that's at least three tanks of petrol in today's economic climate.

However, some residents believe that the place should be turned into a new art exhibition.

"The tableau depicted in that tragic scene - a man who has lost it all, all his time and effort and passionate creativity, in one stroke of terrible luck, lying amidst the ruins of everything he ever owned, his hands stained by the dark ashes of his past and potential future - is actually a lot more comprehensible and emotive that that previous 'quasi-Imperialist socioeconomic critique of South African cultural-political zeitgeist' garbage," said John Xolile.

According to expert art critics, such a venue could pull in some much-needed revenue for the area.

"This could really benefit everyone in that region, as the art is considerably more valuable than it was before," said art connisseur Rip Toff, "and it's certainly more valuable that shoddy free-to-read satire written by humourless ex-students who don't even use their Journalism degree for anything meaningful or worthwhile."

Prices at the new gallery start at R2600 for the elaborate and haunting 'Burnt Memories' (Charcoal, ash, family photographs) all the way to R12 450 for the stunning and intricate 'End of a Generation' (Ash, soot, charred furniture, beloved family pet).

Artist now confirmed as “true genius” after dying

The life’s work of painter, artist, novelist and poet Edward Rosterford is being hailed as “irrefutable genius” this week, following his death in a terrible road accident last weekend. He was 34.

Since the news of the artist's tragic passing - which police suspect could have been suicide - tributes have been flooding in from across the world, mourning the “lost master” as “one of the true experts of his trade.”

“Now that he is gone, I can really see the poignant weight of his works," said one fan at the large memorial held in Rosterford's memory. "When he was alive he was a bit of a prick, really, and I never really liked anything about his writing, but I think death is quite becoming of him. I think this new phase is making his works blossom quite nicely in a way that being alive could never really do for him."

The work, which was once branded “useless,worthless trash that only a total moron would ever pay money for” is now being auctioned off, with chief pieces fetching as much as 12 million rand.

"His style is very hot on the market now," said auctioneer and arts expert Maika Sithall-Hupp. "If we look at the central, seminal pieces in his body of work, such as Rain and Gilded Dream, we can see pertinent themes of the artist battling to having his work noticed. Exposure, a series of oil paintings on canvas, shows the evocative disparity and bitter irony of never being paid for one’s art, while suffering from the elements in a shoddy apartment that the portrayed character can’t afford to have heated. In effect, the artist seeks two kinds of warmth: the warmth of love, of recognition, of celebrity for what is most dear to him, and the warmth of a radiator that is keeping him alive in the dead of winter. So we see the visual representation and human embodiment of the cruel play on words of 'Dying for Exposure'."

Other art experts agree.

"Where before his the major pieces of his oeuvre, such as Impassioned Passing and Inner Turmoil were just random colours mashed up and tossed haphazardly onto canvas, this major break-through in his career brings to them a new context of reception," said gallery owner Jake Henderson. "Gone are the blase brush-strokes and careless composition - instead, we see masterpieces that not only define a generation, but could make me very rich indeed with a much lower royalty payout.

These and other stunning works by the late and great Rosterford will be showcased all weekend at the De Bruin's ArtHouse Gallery, alongside the dreary talentless bullshit made by other artists currently still alive.

Artistic tendencies turn piece of crap into theatrical genius

It was a close call for local theatre production company UpStage Productions this week, after theatre critics’ and art reviews’ tendencies to obsess over themes and metatextual references made their latest show Glass Grey Sky an “insightful, profound piece that evokes a self-aware critique of postmodernism” instead of just a piece of really crap theatre with no real point or production value.

The show, which was written and directed by Arya Dzjoking and featured out-of-tune violins, out-of-sync choreography and seven instances of actors forgetting their lines, has been hailed by reviewers and physical theatre experts as “just ambiguous enough to be called ‘spectacular’”.

“To the lay man or woman, it might have looked really awful,” said reviewer and long-time Physical Theatre expert Harold Cress. “I mean, if it wasn’t for my ability to look past the flat, dead soundtrack and interpret this as a direct symbol of the paucity of life and lack of vim and vigour in the post-modern subject who inhabits an abyss of futile dreams, or my training which has prepared me to look into those expressionless, bland faces with too much make-up caked on their cheeks and read within them a scathing critique of the deadness of our Self in the modern digitalised era and our obsession with socially mediated appearances no deeper than a thimble that in no way form a meaningful representation of our true selves and beings, then it just might have been the worse, trite piece of shit of I’ve ever watched. But like I said, below the surface, it was genius.”

The show, which has purportedly gone over the heads of over seven thousand people without Dramatic Arts degrees or Arts Journalism training since its opening last weekend, will now tour the country, debuting at R150 a ticket.

“Some people have gone to see our show and been all like ‘oh, I totally didn’t get that, what the hell did I just watch?’,” said show director, producer and choreographer Sim Bolism, “but then again, what would those artless, ignorant pricks know about dance?”

South Africans excited for their one day they can afford at Arts fest

South Africans across the country have expressed their unmitigated excitement this morning, saying they cannot wait to travel halfway across the country to enjoy the one day that can spend at this year’s National Festival of the Arts without declaring bankruptcy.

“I’m very excited,” said one Johannesburg resident. “There are hundreds of shows, dozens of food stalls, and a whole range of different clothing stores and other outlets selling stuff that is quite blatantly overpriced. I’m having difficulty deciding which three things I can afford to do.”

Much fervour and hype has met this year’s Festival, with many leading art critics saying that this one is going to be “the fucking weirdest one yet.”

“We know that in the past we’ve had guys in glass boxes sweating blue paint while music plays in the background, and we’ve had contemporary interpretive dance pieces that make you think ‘okay, what the fuck did I just watch?’," said a critic working at Art Times magazine. "Not to mention we've seen in the past a whole bunch of higher-concept plays and theatrical performances that went right over your head, after which you had to pretend to have understood their underlying postmodern and postcolonial thematic bases and socioeconomic critique to not look like a moron in front of your educated friends - but this year is set to make all of that look like a bunch of Leon Schuster films.”

Grahamstown and her inhabitants are now up in a flurry of preparations to get everything ready for the yearly fun and festivity of the NFA.

“I’ve filled up all my bottles and water tanks at the spring, I’ve bought candles and petrol for my generator for when the power goes out, and I’ve made sure I have enough basic foodstuffs in the fridge and pantry before Pick ‘n Pay invariably ups the price of bread, milk and other necessities by 28% each,” said one Grahamstonian who has also moved out of her own bedroom to rent it out to strangers so that she can afford to eat during the NAF week.

“I think everything is ready for just another typical festival week.”