"Drawn largely from the Arts Council Collection, this exhibition explores how landscape and nature came to be key concerns of Conceptual art in Britain in the 1960s and 70s. Many of our most significant British artists used landscape and nature in radical new ways and reconfigured one of the oldest subjects of art into one of the most dynamic and vital forms of art today."
I have just returned from my second visit to the above exhibition at the National Museum of Wales, Park Place, Cardiff. It is meant to be a relaxing and meditative experience and it was until the spell was broken by children and their parents. Now I am fast turning into a middle aged melancholic! What happens to those jobless, worthless pieces of shite not propping up city centre bars? Well they go to Art Galleries and Museums hoping for a bit of meditation and inspiration. I should have known better with it being half term. With this exhibit below I think they were asking for trouble.
Anyroad up, the exhibition encapsulates the years perfectly when I was a child 1966-1979: those years... whilst there was still a little bit of magic and mischief to be had in life. Wood, Plastic, Branches, video installation encapsulates the decade very well. It made me realise that art and culture and 'wot not' was going on whilst the three day week and the winter of discontent were in full throw. As a layperson I tend to think about music and politics being synonymous with the decades of our lives but not art and in this case conceptual art.
This may sound grandiose on my part but I needed a private viewing. Myself and the general public just don't get on, they never have done. "Bbbbut you are a member of the general public"...a politically correct defender of the great unwashed might stammer. No I would reply, "I stopped becoming a member of the General Public at the age of 13, in the year that this collection came to an end. My unconsciousness ended in that year and I was propelled in amongst them kicking and screaming against my will. It is hell and has always been hell in amongst other human beings".
As I left and disappeared into Bute Park, like a wounded fox, I realised that there is a lot of uncommon ground between me and other people.
.jfif)
No comments:
Post a Comment