Unit 14 Art 2 Recommending
Listen and check your answers.
Conversation 1
I went and saw an exhibition at the Hayward Gallery earlier in the week.
Oh,did you?What was it?
It was a collection of photos from the first lunar landing.
Oh,readdy?It sounds quite interesting.What was it like?
Quite good,actually,the photos were really great,quite amazing-some of them.
So,you'd recommend it,then?
Yes,you should go and see it.
Conversation 2
I went and saw that new exhibition at the National Gallery the other day.
Oh,did you?Which one's that again?
Oh,it was this collection of Flemish paintings from the seventeenth century.
Oh really?What was it like?
Well,I didn't think much of it myself.It was all a bit dull,you know.
So,you wouldn't recommend it,then?
No,I'd give it a miss,if I were you-
unless you really like that sort of thing,of course.
Recommending expressions
Listen and check your answers.Which expressions recommend an exhibition?
Which do not?
1.It's OK if you're into that sort of thing.
2.It's a must.
3.I really recommend it.
4.I'd give it a miss if I were you.
5.It's well worth a visit.
6.It's not worth the entrance fee.
7.It's not really my cup of tea.
2. While you read Art Attack
It's November,which means it's the time of year
when the papers are full of acticles by people who are shocked about art.
This is because in November the Tate Gallery on London
holds the annual Turner Prize exhibition of modern art.
Each year four of the best British artists
are selected from all those who have exhibited during the year
and of these,one is chosen.
For the most part,the shock journalists express is not moral outrage,
but more of the 'You call that art?!'variety.
We are treated to string of the usual complaints and cliches:
'Anyone could od that!''My five-year-old daughter could do better than that.'
'A bed in the middle of a room!Where's the skill in that?'
'Whatever happened to people just painting pictures?'
'Fifty thousand pounds for that!You're pulling my leg.'etc.etc.
Well,personally,I'm sick of it-the journalists complaining,that is-not the art.
The only thing which is predicable,boring,and money for nothing is their writing.
These people just want art to be pretty pictures.
For them,it's just an extension of interior design
-something which will match the sofa or look good in the bedroom.
For me,the worst thing anyone could say about art is that it looks quite nice.
Art should make you think.
Art should be the result of artists thinking about the world
they see and their reactions to it.
It shouldn't be about seeing something and saying,
'Oh,that looks nice.I'll paint that and make it look just like a photograph,
and I'll take ten years to do it,
'which is what these journalists seem to think is required of art.
I have made a selection of some of the previous Turner Prize entrants
-I know journalists do not like to spend time doing research for themselves,
so I've done it for them.
Perhaps they could ask the question Wolfgang Tillmans,a previous winner,poses.
'These scenarios might appear strange to some people,
but I try to ask through them,what is so strange here,
the scenario in the picture,the would around you,
society,your ideas about beauty or my ideas about beauty?'
Richard Long caused outrage with his work,
which was a line of bricks laid on the floor of the gallery.
He made a similar piece with bits of slate,a kind of grey stone,
which he'd found on a walk in the countryside.
Martin Creed won the prize with a piece which involved the audience
walking into an empty gallery space and the lights suddenly being turned off
and then sometime later turned back on again.
Rachel Whiteread uses common objects as a mould.
She fills the inside with concrete
and exhibits the sculptures with the objects removed.
She has used tables,chairs,bookcases and,most famously,a whole house.
Simon Patterson,in a work called 'The Great Bear',
painted a replica of the London Underground map,
but repplaced the names of the stations with the names of famous people from history.
Chris Ofilli paints religious figures,
and as well as paint uses other media such as mud and elephant dung.
Mayor Giuliani in New York once tried to ban one of his works of the Virgin Mary
because he said it was an insult to the Catholic religion.
Tracy Emin was famous for making an installation
of her slept-in bed in the middle of a gallery.
She also made a tent and pinned on the inside the names of all the men she'd slept with.
Douglas Gordon won for showing Alfred Hitchcock's thriller,'Psycho',
which he slowed down so much that it took twenty-four hours to play instead of two.
Personally,I don't really care if you don't like these pieces;
that's not the point.
What should be absolutely clear,though,
is that these ideas are not the work of five-year-olds,
but of creative,intelligent adults.
It's a shame we can't say the same of some journalists and critics!
1. Oh,that reminds me!
Listen and check your answers.
1.I visited Alan in hospital last Friday to see how he was getting on.
Oh,did you?I keep meaning to go and see him myself.How was he?
2.I spent all day Sunday catching up on all my mail.
Oh,that reminds me.I must send in my passport application.
3.I went and saw that musical,Chicago,last week.
Oh,I've been meaning to go and see that for ages.
Was it as good as everybody says?
4.I went round to Mike and Sue's the other day to see
that new car they've been telling everyone about.
Oh,that reminds me.I must give them a call.
I haven't spoken to them for ages.
5.I went down to Bristol for the weekend a couple of weeks ago.
Oh,really.I've been thinking about having a weekend away myself.
Were you camping or what?
6.I just stayed in last night and watched TV.
There's a great thing on on Fridays at the moment about Antarctica.
Oh,that reminds me.I must record that new thing on Channel Four tonight.
It's meant to be really funny.