Last night I went to see Jerry Sadowitz at the Leicester Square Theatre. What an exhausting evening. It was one and a half hours of relentless tirades against everyone and everything. The ratio of swear words to, so called, decent language was heavily in favour of the swearing. In fact, decent language was in very short supply. How he keeps up the constant stream of verbal (and, occasionally, physical) abuse is beyond all understanding.
It should be pointed out that he is an equal opportunities abuser. No one escaped his attention and no subject was taboo. Everyone was treated with the same level of disrespect.
A tough act to watch and not for those of a fragile temperament but very, very, funny!
Saturday, 22 January 2011
Wednesday, 19 January 2011
The Fourth Plinth
So, we now know what the next two occupants of the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square will be. The 2012 winner is a child on a rocking horse, titled "Powerless Structures" by Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset. The 2013 winner is a giant blue cockerel by Katharina Fritsch titled "Hahn/Cock". Neither of these would have been my choice. I favoured either "It's Never Too Late And You Can't Go Back" by Mariele Neudecker or the ludicrously outrageous "Battenberg" by Brian Griffiths, a huge, brick , copy of the pink and yellow cake of the same name.
Although the fourth plinth was never used for its original purpose, it has, in recent years, been used to display a variety of artworks with varying degrees of success. Of these, perhaps the most widely reported was “One and Other”, devised by Antony Gormley. Over the course of 100 days, 2400 members of the public each spent 1 hour isolated on the plinth. The hour was theirs to do, pretty much, whatever they liked. Some used it to protest or to draw attention to a cause. Some to talk about their favourite subjects. Others behaved outrageously and some did nothing at all. An interesting idea but was it art? Also, and perhaps this was just my bad luck, I always seemed to see the ones who either did nothing at all or were so badly prepared that they may just as well have been doing nothing at all!
To my mind, the most successful occupant of the plinth was "Alison Lapper Pregnant" by Marc Quinn. A challenging and powerful figure that I grew to like very much.
Going back to the residents for 2012 and 2013. Aside from a certain amount of comedy value, a rocking horse and a big blue cock do nothing for me, but I can’t help thinking that had the artists had got together and found a way to combine the two, that they just might have been on to a winner!
Although the fourth plinth was never used for its original purpose, it has, in recent years, been used to display a variety of artworks with varying degrees of success. Of these, perhaps the most widely reported was “One and Other”, devised by Antony Gormley. Over the course of 100 days, 2400 members of the public each spent 1 hour isolated on the plinth. The hour was theirs to do, pretty much, whatever they liked. Some used it to protest or to draw attention to a cause. Some to talk about their favourite subjects. Others behaved outrageously and some did nothing at all. An interesting idea but was it art? Also, and perhaps this was just my bad luck, I always seemed to see the ones who either did nothing at all or were so badly prepared that they may just as well have been doing nothing at all!
To my mind, the most successful occupant of the plinth was "Alison Lapper Pregnant" by Marc Quinn. A challenging and powerful figure that I grew to like very much.
Going back to the residents for 2012 and 2013. Aside from a certain amount of comedy value, a rocking horse and a big blue cock do nothing for me, but I can’t help thinking that had the artists had got together and found a way to combine the two, that they just might have been on to a winner!
Saturday, 15 January 2011
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