Tuesday, October 16, 2007
I read Tate Etc, I don't want to but I have no choice, they send it free to
all Tate Members, I assume on the basis that no-one would actually pay for this heap of shit. I flick through it quickly, hoping against hope that there will be an article about an artist that has been written by someone who is excited by that artist and wants to show me why I should be excited by that person too. I'm looking for the art Fluxblog basically. They may not succeed, I may not think anything of that artist once I've checked the sample, but I'd at least appreciate the effort. Sadly thus far Tate Etc has failed to appeal to me every single time, pseud-art wankery spills from every page, if there was a ten page essay on a blind Jewish dwarf who worked entirely through the medium of crushed toilet paper between 1950 and 1952 I would not be able to guess whether it was a genuine article or a con by the editors. To someone like me who, like the Pope , doesn't know much about art but know what I like, it reads as deliberately exclusionary, making me feel like a dirty unwanted prole crashing the party of the bignobs.
I'm thinking of writing to the Tate requesting to stay a member but not have the magazine delivered. Whilst it goes in my recycling bin it would be yet more environmentally friendly if the paper wasn't wasted printing my copy in the first place. It's nice to see some of the companies that sell me products are starting to go paper-free, my BT bill and my electricity and power bills are now all seen through the tubes of the internets, hopefully soon all the organisations I'm a member of will take the hint and go paperless too. Why Unison or Liberty seem to think my membership of them means I want a small trees worth of literature sent to me each year is something I can't understand. Anyway, I'm getting away from my point...
When I saw my parents on Sunday for our little excursion on the
London Eye my Dad passed me a copy of Art World , the first issue of which was apparently given away free with the Independent on Sunday. I'm so impressed with it that I'm going to take out a subscription, and I haven't even finished reading the thing yet. It's not dumbed down, but it's inclusionary where Tate Etc feels definitely the opposite. Both magazines have articles on artists that I've never heard of, but it's only Art World that makes me want to go out and find out more about them.
all Tate Members, I assume on the basis that no-one would actually pay for this heap of shit. I flick through it quickly, hoping against hope that there will be an article about an artist that has been written by someone who is excited by that artist and wants to show me why I should be excited by that person too. I'm looking for the art Fluxblog basically. They may not succeed, I may not think anything of that artist once I've checked the sample, but I'd at least appreciate the effort. Sadly thus far Tate Etc has failed to appeal to me every single time, pseud-art wankery spills from every page, if there was a ten page essay on a blind Jewish dwarf who worked entirely through the medium of crushed toilet paper between 1950 and 1952 I would not be able to guess whether it was a genuine article or a con by the editors. To someone like me who, like the Pope , doesn't know much about art but know what I like, it reads as deliberately exclusionary, making me feel like a dirty unwanted prole crashing the party of the bignobs.I'm thinking of writing to the Tate requesting to stay a member but not have the magazine delivered. Whilst it goes in my recycling bin it would be yet more environmentally friendly if the paper wasn't wasted printing my copy in the first place. It's nice to see some of the companies that sell me products are starting to go paper-free, my BT bill and my electricity and power bills are now all seen through the tubes of the internets, hopefully soon all the organisations I'm a member of will take the hint and go paperless too. Why Unison or Liberty seem to think my membership of them means I want a small trees worth of literature sent to me each year is something I can't understand. Anyway, I'm getting away from my point...
When I saw my parents on Sunday for our little excursion on the
London Eye my Dad passed me a copy of Art World , the first issue of which was apparently given away free with the Independent on Sunday. I'm so impressed with it that I'm going to take out a subscription, and I haven't even finished reading the thing yet. It's not dumbed down, but it's inclusionary where Tate Etc feels definitely the opposite. Both magazines have articles on artists that I've never heard of, but it's only Art World that makes me want to go out and find out more about them.Labels: art, magazines, Tate Modern/Britain
