Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. “It is written,” he said to them, 'My house will be called a house of prayer', but you are making it a den of robbers".
A sheer act of vandalism and disrespect for the Church and its authority. This man upset hard-working people who were going about their lawful business, just some beardy sandal-wearing liberal who dared to challenge the status quo. It is disrespectful to worshippers an must surely have upset some priests. Who did he think he was, for Christ's sake? (You know where this is going don't you?)
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The other "act of vandalism" relates to a rather enjoyable story about Charles Saatchi. Apparently he cannot give away his £30 million "art" collection, donated by him to the nation. The collection, which includes such masterpieces as Tracy Emin's un-made bed languishes in limbo because no gallery wants to exhibit it. Even the Tate, who started the ball rolling over 30 years ago with a pile of bricks does not want it. I would be interested if anybody is prepared to defend this collection of rubbish. These works, when you strip away the hype, are mostly a cheap juxtapositional trick; e.g., put any old crap in a gallery and hey presto, it's ART! No it is not. Art is a struggle between the artist and their medium. It is a struggle to convey a certain feeling, set up by highly complex interaction of painted or moulded shapes. The worst thing an artist can do is to fake his own work and believe me, it is possible! At the bottom of anything that resembles real art is honesty and integrity. It does not matter if you like it, but as long as it sets up an interaction with the viewer that is more than just a shrug of the shoulders, then it can be said to be art. Work that is made, merely to elicit a shock or some other cheap response is not art. It is a turd on the pavement that will give you a similar feeling if you tread on it.
I like, Gilbert & George, Rothko and Pollock; hardly chocolate box stuff. (Stand in a room full of Rothkos and the energy coming from what is essentially some large blocks of colour is astonishing.) I admire the Impressionists for their ability to create feeling and visual pleasure by the use of carefully placed brush strokes that are more than the sum of their parts. To me, our greatest living artist is David Hockney. His ability to sum up the spirit of the age is genius. Anybody who has observed the work of Anthony Gormley must surely see how he has cornered the market in presenting sculpture in an elemental environment. It is the quintessence of the struggle between man and nature.
The last few decades of Brit Art have been acts of vandalism. Let us hope that we can close the book on this sorry saga.
(Sorry if this has veered off into pseuds corner with the Art bit, but the language of art narrative tends to need it if you are going to go further than "it's nice".)
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