comments are closed on this review, click here for worldwidereview home
From: Rachel Adams
Category: Exhibitions
Date: 14 October 2004
Jamie Theakston (English tv presenter with a desirable nose) was there, so don't stare, he's quite plain and badly dressed in a purple coat. The fair is the unspeakeable (collectors, hangers on) in pursuit of the inedible (lots of bad paintings and dull photos). Occasionaly something jumps out from the morass of bog standard contemporary artifice, a few Andy Warhol drawings of cats, an Albert Oehlen painting, a little Matisse. It's dazzling the difference between what is good and all the rest. Makes you wonder whether those old buffs were right about their value hierarchies. Now the only diffentiation is between the various repulsive levels of personal success and respect to be obtained: vips, super vips, gallerists, celebs, important people, famous artists, those with special passes, those that shall not queue, those that walk along thinking others will move out their way, humble uninvited people who wait outside for reentry tickets to be discarded, the beautiful, the ugly, the rich, and the poor (not just artists).
That's the fun of this glorious bright yellow fair in the greeen cold treey park. It's a spectacle of society, and not for seekers of metaphysical greatness or sympathetic humans.
comments are closed on this review, click here for worldwidereview home