Tonight:
4°c
To be fair, my hangover had given me the critical faculties of a sloth. Contemporary art came well below "water" and "a hug" on my list of requirements. But where's the fun in being fair?
Tate Britain was the destination, more specifically its Triennial - a three-yearly survey of the state of contemporary art. This year's exhibition is called Altermodern, altermodernism apparently being what comes under post-modernism. No one, except Nicolas Bourriaud, the fashionable French curator who came up with the term, seems to know exactly what it means, but its themes are globalisation, cyberspace and travel. It has been cited as optimistic art for a post-credit boom world.
How encouraging! In recent years, contemporary art has slunk down to a level below radio plays on my chart of unfavoured genres. I have paced Tate Modern wondering why spelling a rude word in neon lights should merit a place in a national museum. I have braved Frieze wondering why spelling a rude word in neon lights should merit copying - for there are always at least 15 artists who have done so. "It's a comment on the vanity of the art world" is a standard justification. Who except the art world cares?
Anything that might break this dosh-fuelled cycle of brashness, solipsism and cynicism sounded good to me, and Altermodern seemed as if it might.
Entering the exhibition, I discovered a pile of bean bags in front of a bank of TVs, which Spartacus Chetwynd had used to display some video art. The vids were incomprehensible, the beanbags lovely. I then spent a long time appreciating the Liquid Crystal Environment created by Gustav Metzger. This is a darkened room in which five projectors beam liquid crystals. It's like being inside a lava lamp. But again, it was the cushions I found most appealing - thus, according to another of Bourriaud's theories, I was enjoying the work's "relational aesthetics".
What else did I find? A ping-pong-inspired sculpture by Rachel Harrison so pointless I wanted to kick it over. A very ugly fluorescent room designed by Franz Ackerman. Then, just as I was beginning to crave the relational aesthetics of my own bed, I encountered Aleph's Head, by Charles Avery. This is a massive plaster bust of an amazing imaginary creature, half-man, half-elephant, with a smaller head growing out of his vile trunk. I tuned into a conversation between two very artistic-seeming tall girls.
"Yah, Charles Avery, you know, he's like very now, had that show at Parasol Unit."
He's wicked, I was thinking - weird, funny, accessible, fires the imagination
"I don't get him at all," said the second girl.
"Nah, me neither," said the first.
Richard Watched:
Jonathan Miller's 'realist' take on La Bohème at the Coliseum.
Does anyone go to opera for realism?
Richard Read:
Watchmen by Alan Moore (Titan Books, £17.99)
...in preparation for the forthcoming movie adaptation. Extraordinary!
