It's that time of the year again, a favorite moment for all WU-vies. The shortlist for the UK Turner Prize is announced! We get to see a selection of the best and the brightest UK artists, those figures who contribute to humanity's glorious heritage of imperishable art that uplifts the soul and defines what it is to be human.
My personal fave this year is Lali Chetwynd. "She reworks iconic moments from cultural history in deliberately amateurish and improvisatory performances." Such as you see above.
Descriptions of white explorers meeting dark-skinned tribes who have never seen a white person before are pretty common in travel/exploration literature. So common they're almost a cliche. Leave it to the Germans to switch things around a bit: Teutonic tribespeople bewildered by the sight of dark-skinned travelers from across the ocean. From the Chicago Tribune, Apr 14, 1947:
Wu-vies--Originally, this nine-minute clip was viewable in its entirety. Since I created the post, however, it's been marked "private." So here's a two-minute trailer for it, to give you just a taste, unfortunately.
Now that I do a little more research, it appears that even the nine-minute clip was a fraction of the 76-minute feature. Might be worth searching out on DVD.
According to this LIFE magazine article, art collector Henry Clews had a taste for the bizzare, as seen in the statue above. His French Mediterranean home is now a museum, and you can visit, or even apply for an arts residency there!
Anyone who ever fell for Diana Rigg as Emma Peel--and judging from the comments lately, there are many such among the WU-vies--will have their heads (and possibly other body parts) explode upon viewing this clip, which was banned in the USA at the time of its release.
Category: Annoying Things, Art, Avant Garde, Performance Art, Science Fiction, Europe