comments are closed on this review, click here for worldwidereview home
From: Imogene Foss
Category: Art
Date: 01 March 2005
I think that review for was right on. Modern art/ Brit art has imploded into becoming the new Establishment with all the attendant snobbery and self regarding promotion through the ranks of their own circles. Even Charles Saatchi is bored with it and has stopped collecting. With everything that's going on in the world we need artists who can lift our eyes from our own fascinating navels and make us pampered Westerners look at the bigger world picture.
It’s true also that they’ve worked really hard to kill the fantastic architectural features of the ICA building with all the minimalist white hardboard and that computer room with it’s unusable programmes/games/art and sticky keyboards. I’ve never seen more than one person in there and the attendants are too cool to show you how to use the programmes or tell you what they’re about. They just admonish you to ‘read the instruction’ which is generally a 10 page smudged leaflet in point 8. Great a manual!
The whole ‘minimal is pure’ vibe is accentuated by the staff who are all pasty miserable, and dress in the ‘I’m an ex art student’ washed out trendy uniform. Have you ever managed to get a smile out of one of the bar staff - however pleasantly you pitch your order?
The good thing about the ICA, with it’s holier than thou, art isn’t fun attitude, is that after a visit one feels atoned for all previous cultural sins 'I have been to a Modern Art establishment' I can now go and enjoy life. Hurrah!
comments are closed on this review, click here for worldwidereview home