Where to start? Well with Banksy of course. His playful take on Vemeer’s ‘Girl with a Pearl Earring’, ‘Girl With A Pierced Eardrum’ has got an overnight makeover by the master of stealth himself. Bringing her bang up-to-date into the Coronavirus torn 21st Century. She now dons a blue face mask, adhering to one of the recommended remedies to fight the virus. While still ignoring another. She’s outside. Silly noodle!
SofART? If the audience won’t come to art, art will come to the audience. With self-isolation the order of the day, events all over the world, have been cancelled. The arts have been forced to reinvent themselves, which could be, in the long run be a good thing. Artists who are ingenious by nature, have picked up the pandemic gauntlet and proved, that you can’t keep a good artist down. It’ll take more than a pesky pestilence, plague or pandemic to beat a creative mind into submission.
Creative Minds Always whirring! Beethoven’s uplifting ‘Ode to Joy’ was played by socially distancing members of an orchestra in many different venues dotted all over Holland. To borrow from Alex, the lead droog of A Clockwork Orange, who doesn’t love a bit of Ludwig Van! Then there’s the American children’s book illustrator, who started a quarantine art club, with daily assignments for kids and parents climbing the walls. Billboard has lists of artists currently live-streaming. Bravo technology and creative minds, we love you…Bravo!
Outstanding use of Photoshop! Of course, when a creative mind has too much time on their hands, things can take a turn toward the absurd. Like the Photo-shopper who’s turned the guns of Anti-Lockdown Protesters in Michigan, into giant Dildos. Brilliant! Of course, the giant Orange Dildo in the White House later tweeted that these gun-toting Militia, were ‘very good people’ and urged the pro-lockdown governor to ‘talk to them’ and ‘make a deal’. I think we can all agree where we’d like Donnie to stick his giant dildo. Squelch!
And here’s to you, Coronavirus. Now there is a vicious rumour going around that we might be drinking a wee bit too much during COVID19 lockdown. Apparently being walled in, with your nearest and dearest for prolonged amounts of time, are leading some to hit the bottle harder than usual and become P*** Artists. The stark reality of this ‘new normal’ is not being viewed by some through rose-coloured spectacles but rather through the haze of a few bevvies too many. Alcohol sales have spiked. So, the choices we have of emerging from this pandemic with a new skill are - a) a classical pianist b) a cordon bleu chef c) a hot yoga teacher d) an alcoholic with George Best’s original liver! Gotta be ‘d’ for me. Cheers!
Back to Banksy! Bristol’s Banksy has been at it again. Does that boy (girl?) never sleep? He’s obviously going through his ‘Lockdown Period’ too, with a plague of his signature rats, running riot in a bathroom.
Hockney has produced art on his iPad, while Hirst has produced a glorified window sticker in the shape of rainbow, made from butterfly wings. Gormley, Emin and Sarah Morris have all produced online artist diaries. Anthony Gormley wanted to represent life in lockdown with ‘quieter, smaller’ aspects of everyday life in his diary, during the crisis. ‘The shelling of peas, the darning of socks, the sort of thing my mum used to do sitting and watching the television... knitting.’ Bless his cotton socks. Peas & Love People. x
Comments
Post a Comment