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Re: Interim Show, Prince's School of Traditional Arts, Charlotte ...
Reviews

From: blp
Category: Art
Date: 15 March 2005

Review

Forward we go? Who are you? Tony Blair? Stalin? Ease up on the bright, brave future stuff, dear. Seriously. Nostalgia is a canker, yes, but that's not the same as historical awareness and there's nothing more phillistine or ignorant than the arrogant belief that your own time is so far in advance of any other that you don't have to pay attention to history. Progress may not be entirely a lie, but it largely is in art, as much as is originality. And while contemporary art and theorists regularly debunk ideas of originality and authenticity, you appear still to be harbouring the ideal with your talk of 'the fierce energy and mastery of the original.' Let's get things in perspective. It's not all barbaric yawps hurled across the rooftops and these are STUDENTS for pity's sake. I resent Prince Charles as much as the next rightthinking art and architecture lover, but I'm not entirely convinced that there's anything fundamentally wrong with students spending a few years ripping off other, older, better artists. Maybe it should be encouraged more and maybe this is the contradiction at the heart of a lot of our art education - the idea of originality is debunked, but not apparently so we can copy and learn from anything pre 1963. Don't knock it until you've tried it.

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