← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Robbie
Thread ID: 7341 | Posts: 3 | Started: 2003-06-14
2003-06-14 14:12 | User Profile
[url=http://www.cbc.ca/artsCanada/stories/scat130603]http://www.cbc.ca/artsCanada/stories/scat130603[/url]
New excrement art exhibit stinks: Alliance MP Last Updated 2003-06-13 00:00:00.0
ArtsCanada
OTTAWA - An exhibit devoted to excrement that's being staged at a government-funded contemporary art gallery is an affront to taxpayers, the Canadian Alliance critic for heritage says.
"It's the kind of thing that drives taxpayers crazy. I think Canadians find that kind of stuff neither poetic nor artistic," Chuck Strahl, MP for B.C.'s Fraser Valley, told The Canadian Press.
"This has been left on the taxpayers' hands and I don't imagine they're going to be too amused."
The five-week show Scatalogue: 30 years of crap in contemporary art opens next week at Ottawa's Saw Gallery.
The contemporary art facility received a two-year, $72,000 operating grant last year from the Canada Council for the Arts - an arm's length government agency that administers and awards prizes and fellowships to over 100 artists and scholars annually in the arts.
But a spokeswoman for the organization said no grant was made for the show itself.
A press release says the Scatalogue exhibit - described as an interactive show - is "a critique of the conservatism affecting most artist-run centres."
The release adds that the subject of excrement "has been an important, tenacious counter-voice to the institutionalization of art, beguiling artists such as Duchamp, the Viennese Actionists, Manzoni and Hammons.
"Fascism, anti-semitism, sexism, homophobia, racism, consumerism and globalization are some of the issues tackled by more than 30 international artists working with painting, sculpture, photography, multiples, book works, film, video, performance and creative writing," the press release states
For more arts news, listen to The Arts Report weekdays at 7:12 a.m., 8:12 a.m. and 5:55 p.m. on CBC Radio Two.
2003-06-14 14:30 | User Profile
The exhibit I want to see is **"Jews: 5,000 years of :dung:" **
2003-06-16 20:44 | User Profile
I don't even want to think about what the "interactive" part of the feces fest is.