Scene from a movie, untitled # 4
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
(The following was emailed to me from a source calling itself 'a bloody bastard'. Bitterness can be so much fun.)
Fade from black. On a battered couch a figure reads. The camera zooms in and we see ‘Of Grammatology’, a second figure enters room, right, with magazine, six-pack and a large bag chips (saltn’vinegar)
Clive Bellamy: (notes magazine,puts down book, excited) the Winter Art South Africa … what did Sean ‘O’ Toole write about Tracey and Andy’s shows*?
David Bellamy: Nothing. He left us out.
CB: (disappointed, grabs art/southafrica and quickly reads it) and after that surly miserabilist bugger came all the way to Riebeek Kasteel to stay over at our expense to review them and us!
DB: Well we weren’t trying to buy him. He clearly didn’t want to …obviously thought we were all a great big pile of messy-arty-pretentious-rusty-arrogant crap … though he did almost immediately afterwards give us a mention in the Sunday Times with that picture of Tracey’s that the National Gallery bought**.
CB: (unfolding a crumpled news-clipping) Ja … ‘in the makeshift gallery-cum-storeroom on the battered couch I looked at the jumbled display of photographs covered in swallow shit …’***
DB: An accurate description of course.
CB: Well, the local farmers and their blondling children certainly think so ... one look and they rush hastily back to the 4 wheel drives, frowning …
DB: ‘fokken deurmekaar kak’
DB: His visit did get off to a rather bad start. We did’nt have D S T V so he had to IMMEDIATELY-BUT-IMMEDIATELY unstrap his bike and leave to try to catch the football match. Unsuccessfully.
CB: And then you asked him what he does at artsouthafrica!
DB: Whatablups! Ohmigoddy-god.
CB: Then sat him under the mulberry tree and stupidly tried to talk about ideas, art and South
DB: Nuffink.
CB: Imagine wanting to talk about art at an art hotel! To an art editor … ridiculous!
CB: Or to expect him to look at it … it was excruciating when after breakfast and Tracey was on her way, he still hadn’t got round to seeing her show.
DB: Even though the rest of the world has … I had to remind him to bother.
CB: Well to be fair, he did say that he doesn’t consider himself to be an art critic …
DB: …instead, an art journalist, but if he isn’t an art critic, why did he send himself … ?
(perplexed silence)
CB: And then you went and argued with him by email about the Sunday Times piece.
(more scrunching )
DB: It IS presumptuous to argue with the editor of art/southafrica.
CB: But then for some it’s presumptuous to BE the editor of art/southafrica.
DB: He’s a puzzle …not really a fish out of water … more like a fish in the wrong water.
CB: A salt water fish that’s found itself, by dint of competence, trapped swimming in fresh water. Uncomfortable.
DB: He is very productive tho, gets lots done.
CB: Ja, produces strillions of words all over the place, spreads his butter on huge numbers of slices of toast… Very thinly.
DB: It would have been worse though, to be dissed by someone who had actually bothered to engage
CB: True, true
(reflective pause)
CB: Do you think he got the arthotel?
DB: Possibly, maybe
CB: Possibly not
(exit left, sound of bakkie)
* Tracey Derrick’s ‘Earthworks’ 14 part photo-essay, concurrently touring globally in Africa-Remix and Andrew Lord’s ‘Air Instruments’, both at The Cape Francolin Art Hotel, Riebeek Kasteel, February 2006
** ‘Oom Paul Heynse holding a cauliflower’ SANG permanent collection
*** Sunday Times, SA, 26 February 2006, The Big Picture
Unedited transcript recorded and transcribed by a bloody bastard
posted by Robert Sloon at 11:09 AM
7 Comments:
Its interesting when someone who is recognised by all and sundry as being spread too thin, begins to be seen to be spread too thin.
One feels compromised when one realises that the "art critic" is also a "journalist" and an "author" Trying to be two fish at the same time is just that: Trying. And trying is not doing. It is compromising. For all concerned. To be fair though - there is no one else currently willing or capable of compromising on such a level.
You desperatley need another person who can compromise on the same level, so as to create some competition and more importantly dialogue. Otherwise it becomes the sound of one hand clapping!!!
As it currently is.
sean's right: it's a fucking ugly hotel
sean's just won the big short fiction prize. What I don't get is why 'bitter bastard' is running an art-hotel - obvious talents lie in the lucrative and product hungry film industry: great dialogue, "bitter..." But I can think of nothing more vomit inducing than being stuck in a hotel that has been desecrated & personalised by art. surely a hotel is best when a 'found object', not FUCKIN' art-directed.
come on, ladies. if mr and mr bellamy want to practise their gay art behind closed hotel doors - that's their right,
these boys should get the"non-aggressive blog" award for shameless self-promotion
Hey David and Clive, congratulations on your art hotel initiative. I am always excited to see people creating more platforms for artists.
I'd just like to point out though, that on your website you say that the floors are oregan pine what you mean is Oregon pine (like the US state.) Then in your what's for breakfast section you mention olive and tomato cooked with what would seem to be the same substance as the floors, - oregan (origanum? or oregano?) Either you’re feeding your clientele wood-chip floor sweepings or you have some pretty flimsy floors.
Good Luck with the project.
thanks warren for the enlightening info about wood and herbs.
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