Thursday 10 November 2011

Day of the Glowing Heads.




There is a seven mile walk around the grounds of the Yorkshire Sculpture Park so we thought we’d go and have a wander around earlier this year.

However, on the day we arrived the entire North Sea had evaporated into one enormous cloud, trundled over to the Sculpture Park and then proceeded to unload all over the place. This put the blocks on our walk so we decided to look at the galleries inside the buildings.

Now I’m not university educated and never know quite what I should be looking at or saying when I visit art galleries so what I usually end up saying is stuff like ‘I like/don’t like that’ or ‘What the hell is it’?
One of the exhibitions pandered to my knee-jerk, reactionary attitude to modern art by basically looking like a rubbish dump.

Bits of torn up cardboard glued to a wall and an old mattress shoved through a window frame don’t say anything to me other than ‘Shit, I’d better get something ready for that art exhibition tomorrow. I know, I’ll drag some old crap out of the bin and give it a name that makes it sound meaningful.

However the next gallery was excellent, a room full of giant heads in a white room, bedded in white stones and lit from the inside so the entire thing glowed.

It was like being in an old 1970’s science fiction film. One where people in the future all walk around in floaty clothes looking all serious and communicating by touching each others palms while listening to synthesiser music.

I don’t know what this installation was called and to be honest I don’t really care. All I know is that I got to run around pretending I was in Logan’s Run for awhile and hiding from the Sandmen.

Simple pleasures.


33 comments:

Outcast said...

Excellent post as always buddy. Sounds like a great place to go and visit to me.

Janie Junebug said...

You don't have to be educated about art to know what you like or don't like. However, when I visited the San Francisco MOMA last summer I really enjoyed the device I could wear around my neck and it had headphones so I could learn more details about the art than the little signs on the walls provided. It was cool. It's also fun to talk to someone who knows about art and isn't an art arse, someone who can tell you, I think Andy Warhol is important because . . . Then I go to the museum and I know why I like Andy Warhol, which I really do.

Love,
Lola

dirtycowgirl said...

I hear you.
I've been to the Tate Modern a few times, it was great for getting kids to realise that just because they're not junior Monets they can still produce something that can be considered art, but most of it is beyond me.
But the last time there was one huge room with an uprooted palm in the middle and these pics on the walls filled with sand. It was like being in one of those moving sand pictures. For some reason I loved it.

Vapid Vixen said...

It got your imagination going and that's what matters.

Pat Hatt said...

that's awesome, heads up!..haha

Yeah can't say I find garbage much of art either. Yet they sell for thousands of dollars, no wonder the economy is in the toilet. Wish someone would buy my garabage, I can make it look pretty..haha

Sub Radar (Mike) said...

Woah, that would be pretty surreal to walk around giant sculpted heads. I remember seeing something like that at Burning Man but the head was made out of wire and not nearly as realistic.

Belle said...

I'm the same as you in Art museums. I'm pretty sure I know crap when I see it and I know what I like. Love the heads and the reference to Logan's Run- an all time favorite movie of mine.

Anonymous said...

I'd like to go there.

The Angry Lurker said...

I must admit those heads look great, I'm the same with what people call art but now and again something catches my eye and rocks the world.

Jimmy Fungus said...

Somehow my online calendar failed to inform me it was the Day of the Glowing Heads...and I am really bummed about it.

Lindsay N. Currie said...

Oooh, I like those heads. They kind of creep me out. The other stuff though...sounds ahhh, strange at best. This is why I write though - no eye for art in non-text form LOL!

Stephanie D said...

Yah, the heads just don't do it for me...art wise...but I love exploring different kinds of art.

Anonymous said...

So you're telling me you went to an art exhibit and got some head?

That picture is epic. I was thinking "Wow, that's weird" and then I realized that a full grown adult is standing behind the one and the whole scale of the picture changed. That's when I thought, "Wow, that's really weird."

Tony Van Helsing said...

atthew: It would have been even better without the rain.

Lola: Art arse, I like it.

Dirty: I hear you, a bit like punk. Anyone can do it.

Vapid: that it did.

Pat: It's worth a try.

Sub Radar: I think these were plastic.

Belle: Do you remember the TV series as well, not as good.

Interweb: It's just outside Huddersfield, West Yorkshire.

Lurker: I suppose that's the nature of art.

Jimmy: Get a new calendar.

Lindsay: For some reason I found them soothing.

Stephanie: would you have preferred the mattress?

Joshua: They were a fair size.

lowfrequencies said...

i like your take on it, would be a lot similar to mine haha. are the heads supposed to represent any people any particular?

Al Penwasser said...

How cool would it have been to have the picture taken where it looks like you were coming out of the head's nose?
Yep, that's the way my mind works.

Britta said...

Dear Tony,
in Germany we have a cute little book with a comic on the front page: a man standing in front of a modern picture says "I can do that too!" and the picture answers back "No, you can't!". Then we have the case of a charwoman who cleaned away a Joseph Beuys work of Art - consisting of a lot of lard - because she thought it was just dirt. And these day a caretaker in a museum "cleaned" away the dripping part of a work of Art (I have forgotten by whom it was).
I think that your approach of "like it/dislike it" is not a bad one!

Bart said...

pretty big heads...

Baiba said...

haha. I actually say the same things when I'm in galleries. I see a red square, others see passion,hope,dog...whatever ;D

but these heads look weirdly interesting ;D

Anonymous said...

Oh god, I have so many bad puns for this one that I'll just shut up.

Anonymous said...

Nice big heads.

Tony Van Helsing said...

lowfrequencies: I didn't recognise them.

Al: I didn't plan it that way, I was just standing behind it.

Onion Gypsy: OK.

Britta: I'm with the cleaning lady.

Bart: They weren't pretty.

Baiba: Well said.

Alta: Just give us one.

Pesos: Big, not nice.

Jilda said...

Galleries can be really fun, or really intimidating.....but art really is how you see it, some of it is beautiful, and some does appear to be garbage! But no matter, kudos to the creative spirit! I love those big heads too!

Hannah {Culture Connoisseur} said...

Very cool!

I studied Art History and I have the same reactions as you to some of those "pieces." I guess I'm supposed to come up with something really profound to say about these exhibits, but some things are just silly no matter who you are.

Jules said...

The thought of you running round sounds fun! I visited a contemporary art museum some time back and I too didn't get it. Not one bit. I seriously considered the possibility that I could become an artist my just emptying my handbag on the floor and calling it "inner turmoil' or something equally as stupid.

Samantha Vérant said...

How freaky and cool! I wonder how the artist came up with this concept? A big idea!

Tony Van Helsing said...

Jilda: Nothing intimidates like a giant, glowing head.

Hannah: Exactly! I think in some instances it is the Emperors New Clothes, everyone agrees about how good something is because the don't want to look like an idiot.

Juliette: That's pretty much what Tracey Emin does.

HARRY: Gee.

Samantha: Maybe the arist has a giant glowing head.

Margaret said...

Now, after trashing Star Wars, you're jumping on the Logan's Run bandwagon. I'm appalled.

Anonymous said...

Oh we are similar creatures my friend. That is the exact some reaction I have to have art/shit out there.

Bart said...

hahha yeah man, the stories. last year we drove to the east coast, through hurricane earl. we made it and it was awesome.

level85nerd said...

I like these heads, they look really good when they glow.

Padded Cell Princess said...

The giant heads are pretty cool but as to playing Logan's Run, I don't know...I'm getting too close to the age of going to carousel *Yikes!

Anonymous said...

Happy Thanksgiving