From Steve Sales, who was not keen on ‘melancholic jokes’.
That doesn’t bother me, but Grayson Perry as ‘national treasure’ does. I can’t believe that people keep buying the shtick. But then it appears that the granting of national treasurehood often turns out, further down the line, to have been some form of collective delusion.
Yes yes yes
I’m generally left a bit cold by art with no sex in it. Not that every work of art need preoccupy itself with meditations on the subject or be confined to representations of the various physical acts. Quite the contrary; the world is already overstuffed with clichéd recreations of the blunt and bland doings of the flesh. What I mean is that I find it hard to rouse any interest in art or literature that relegates the life of the body to some lesser status than the goings-on of the mind or emotions.
[first paragraph]
We may live in sexually liberated times, but as the media moralises, the internet demonises and pornography compartmentalises almost every form of sexual expression, how liberated do any of us really feel? In the sexual realm, vulnerability, imperfection, naivety and the search for joy have become the new taboos. Fortunately, they remain the basic tools of art. Keeping sex and art together, to push against humanity’s increasing alienation from itself and the physical world, looks likely to soon become the most transgressive act of all.
[last paragraph] [my emphasis]
Yes yes yes!
Full article here: Guardian 20.05.17
Vulnerability, imperfection and naivety. In practice, it is difficult to be confident enough to display these. A paradox, perhaps. A bit like the embrace of failure. What is ‘good’ failure as opposed to ‘bad’ failure and how can the former be rewarded?
Good failure, I would suggest, is recognising that we don’t know much, while bringing total commitment to whatever it is we are doing and taking risks, i.e. making ourselves vulnerable through the performance of our imperfection and naivety.
This, tangentially, speaks to the over-use of jargon-heavy theory, my current hobby horse. See this post on academic hoaxing from Graham Harman.
I’ve been circling around Anna Maria Maiolino for a couple of years now – a very interesting artist, and I love what she does with clay (more later). The following, though, is an amusing, if barely credible, example of the extremely limited knowledge of process possessed by many theory / history types (more later), i.e. the editor, who shall remain nameless.
26th May – 11th June
Each year Bath School of Art and Design, MA Ceramics and MA Textiles students engage with and respond to the Holburne Museum’s wonderfully eclectic collection, developing knowledge and skills through research, making and exhibiting.
This year six students have created a diverse exhibition, collectively responding to the architecture of the building and its internal and external spaces; to the social history of the collection and to specific objects within it. Students have used a broad range of production techniques to research and develop ideas, including embroidery, hand building, video and laser cutting.
In Muse: Reflections in Place students have sited works in and around the existing collection and the exhibition is launched as a Holburne Up Late event. On Friday 26th May (6-9 pm), you are invited to experience the museum anew and locate the six temporary additions to the collection.
Muse: Reflections in Place will be on show at the Holburne Museum until 11 June.
I went into our studio the other day and saw this lovely combination of order and chaos:
nice tray use Emily (Harnett)…
BSAD Ceramics 
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