Picture if you will, a very large wooden shed, or, for anyone short on imagination, see the one below:
Shedboatshed (Mobile Architecture No 2) 2005. Simon Starling.
I saw this piece of 'installation' art, whose 'artist' won this year's Turner prize, at Tate Britain yesterday. Now call me an old fashioned Philistine if you like, but when this shed, which was dismantled, converted into a boat, rowed down the Rhine and re-built, is described as "a kind of buttress against the pressures of modernity, mass production and global capitalism" I am reminded, more than somewhat, of Hans Christian Andersen's Emperor's New Clothes .
Much more rewarding was the exhibition, elsewhere in the gallery, which explores the works of, and relationships between, Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec and Sickert and other contemporaries. Their work is not only interesting, visually pleasing and stimulating but also demonstrates great artistic skill and technique, rather than just an avant garde imagination. Judge for yourself at the wonderful Tate website:
http://www.tate.org.uk/Britain/exhibitions/degas/roomguide.htm
A painting that stood out for me was CMS Reading by Gaslight by William Stott of Oldham (1857-1900) :
It is a portrait of Stott's wife and, being hitherto unfamiliar with Stott's work, I was interested to learn that he exhibited regularly at the Paris Salon and that Sickert described him as ‘one of the two greatest living painters of the world.’
As for the birthday breakfast, a special mention, and thanks, to younger daughter who prepared a fine one for me this morning.
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