Sunday, January 16, 2005
he looks a proper 'nana in his great big hobnail boots
you might have seen this piece of news earlier in the week:
Back to school for binmen who thought modern art was a load of old rubbish
To the dustmen of Frankfurt, they were a mess that needed to be cleared from the streets of their spotless city. The yellow plastic sheets were swiftly scooped up, crushed and burned.
But the diligence of the rubbish collectors was little consolation to the city's prestigious art academy, which is now ruing the loss of an important work.
Unknown to the binmen, the sheets were part of a city-wide exhibition of modern sculpture by Michael Beutler, a graduate of Frankfurt's Stadel art school.
Thirty of the dustmen are now being sent to modern art classes to try to ensure that the same mistake never happens again.
it's a classic, right? turns up as a newsworthy story over and over again, and i guess it's a message to thick working class guys that they'd better pull up their socks and learn the style-ways of the cool middle classes. it got me thinking of the guy who started it all:
the great kasimir malevich. he was the first guy to paint stuff like this:
you see it everywhere now but malevich was doing it in 1918, in moscow. and i'm sure there was an element of humour involved. "red square", get it? i doubt very much if kasimir would have been offended if the dustman had carted off his stuff by mistake. i reckon he would have laughed. my favourite things by malevich are these:
"white painting". also known as "white on white", and this one:
"white cross on grey". it was a joke right? you had to laugh and all that. he even made a nice teapot:
you can just imagine that trish, from brighton using one of those for her afternoon tea buffets with her style buddies, right?
anyway, kasimir is ok in my book. one of the great chancers in culture. imagine how much stalin must have hated this guy when he took power in 1926. in fact, he didn't like him much at all. old uncle joe had malevich arrested and brainwashed and made him paint figurative paintings till he died in 1936.
old kasimir, old uncle joe. two funny guys, right?
Back to school for binmen who thought modern art was a load of old rubbish
To the dustmen of Frankfurt, they were a mess that needed to be cleared from the streets of their spotless city. The yellow plastic sheets were swiftly scooped up, crushed and burned.
But the diligence of the rubbish collectors was little consolation to the city's prestigious art academy, which is now ruing the loss of an important work.
Unknown to the binmen, the sheets were part of a city-wide exhibition of modern sculpture by Michael Beutler, a graduate of Frankfurt's Stadel art school.
Thirty of the dustmen are now being sent to modern art classes to try to ensure that the same mistake never happens again.
it's a classic, right? turns up as a newsworthy story over and over again, and i guess it's a message to thick working class guys that they'd better pull up their socks and learn the style-ways of the cool middle classes. it got me thinking of the guy who started it all:
the great kasimir malevich. he was the first guy to paint stuff like this:
you see it everywhere now but malevich was doing it in 1918, in moscow. and i'm sure there was an element of humour involved. "red square", get it? i doubt very much if kasimir would have been offended if the dustman had carted off his stuff by mistake. i reckon he would have laughed. my favourite things by malevich are these:
"white painting". also known as "white on white", and this one:
"white cross on grey". it was a joke right? you had to laugh and all that. he even made a nice teapot:
you can just imagine that trish, from brighton using one of those for her afternoon tea buffets with her style buddies, right?
anyway, kasimir is ok in my book. one of the great chancers in culture. imagine how much stalin must have hated this guy when he took power in 1926. in fact, he didn't like him much at all. old uncle joe had malevich arrested and brainwashed and made him paint figurative paintings till he died in 1936.
old kasimir, old uncle joe. two funny guys, right?
# posted by manho @ 4:46 PM 
