THE geniuses who run the art world in London are getting their just deserts. They awarded the prestigious Turner Prize to Martin Creed for his work titled “The Lights Going On and Off,” in which a pair of gallery lights were programmed to go on and off at regular intervals. Now Creed has installed “Work No. 401″ in London’s preeminent museum, the Tate Modern, which reverberates with a nine-minute recording - playing on a loop - of the artist breaking wind. As art lovers try to admire paintings by Claude Monet and Mark Rothko, they are bombarded with Creed’s flatulence, The Times of London reports. But the museum’s curators defend Creed’s work. “This kind of acoustic - you hear it every day of your life,” said director Vicente Todoli, who must live in a noisy neighborhood. “This is not a cathedral with the relics of a saint in which you’re supposed to kneel down in front of it.”
(via Page Six, a Henwood daily fave)
Conversation, overheard:
Jim Devine: “what _is_ art, anyway? how do we distinguish art from non-art?”
Doug Henwood: “If you look vaguely bored while listening to a recording of a fart, it’s art. If you guffaw, it’s not.”
I am told by someone who has heard it that it is actually a tape of him blowing raspberries. Either that, or he has something seriously wrong with his arse.