The storied legacy of British pranksterism gets a new chapter with a tidbit of highly entertaining news concerning our favorite box mix-master Gavin Turk. One of the original YBAs, Turk is known for his highly irreverent found-object installations and sculptures featuring his own likeness. One of Turk’s pieces — a brick signed by the artist and worth an estimated £3,000 — was featured in an exhibition called (appropriately) “Bricks.” Only at the end of the show did curators realize that Turk’s original had been swapped out with a run-of-the-mill brick from another section of the gallery. Estimated worth? 40 pence.
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The Turner Prize committee has announced this year’s winner for the top art prize in Great Britain, and it doesn’t involve text-based art, bodily fluids, minimalism, or performance. Instead, artist Richard Wright uses classical fresco techniques learned from Old Masters tradition to create temporary, site-specific installations like the gold-leafed piece currently residing in an empty room in the Tate Britain. The Rorschach-like mural is a far cry from the sensationalist circus of Turners past, and a dark horse winner in this year’s contest.
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Could this be the future of books? A new kind of library has popped up in the village of Westbury-sub-Mendip (population 800) — the phone booth library. According to the Guardian, “When the mobile library stopped visiting, it was a blow for the villagers of Westbury-sub-Mendip. And when they found out they could lose their beloved red phone box, there was something of an outcry.”
Something of an outcry indeed! To combat the forces of evil, the villagers met (at a village tea party, of all things — could this whole scenario be any more British?) and voted that the phone booth be turned into a sharing library for all their beloved classics.
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CLICK HERE to view our gallery of female artists to know right now>>
Say the phrase “female contemporary artist” and you’re likely to conjure, via Google or collective memory, images of Cecily Brown’s writhing bodies; Tracey Emin’s messy, suggestive bed; Lisa Yuskavage’s kitschy soft porn; or Vanessa Beecroft’s nude installations. The financial success of such in-your-face sexuality — whether viewed with icy remove (Beecroft), humor (Yuskavage), or brassiness (Emin) — dovetailed nicely with the Third Wave feminism popularized in the early nineties. So what’s next for the double-X chromosome creative set in our current period? Photo evidence and a few words from art critic Jerry Saltz after the jump. Read More »
