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Modern art show means we can all see the joke...
By Alex Stephens, Evening Standard 31.12.07
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Modern art can be a joke, according to the Hayward Gallery, which next month hosts an exhibition dedicated to humour.
The show, Laughing In A Foreign Language, will explore jokes, slapstick, irony, wit and satire in modern art.
It will bring together more than 70 videos, photographs and interactive installation works by more than 30 artists from around the world. Installations include a clown-faced Joke Master Junior Joke Box 2, created by American artist Doug Fishbone. When punched on the nose, the clown will tell one of 200 jokes.
Work by Jake and Dinos Chapman also features. Previous examples of their black sense of humour include copulating blow-up sex dolls cast in bronze, in their Turner Prize show, and genuine Goya prints with cartoon heads. The exhibition runs from 24 January until 13 April. Despite its light-hearted theme, Hayward officials say they are deadly serious. Director Ralph Rugoff said: "Laughter is universal, it is something people in every culture can relate to. Humour, however, is socially specific."
As part of the exhibition, curator Mami Kataoka has asked the artists to contribute national stereotype jokes. Each joke will be enclosed in fortune cookies which the gallery will sell during the show, but a huge cookie will be needed for the 500-word shaggy dog story sent by Matthew Griffin from Australia.
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