Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Karl Pilkington on art

Karl Pilkington, as I might have mentioned before, is something of a hero of mine. Here, he visits the Hayward Gallery, and chats to some artists. His interview with one David Shrigley, in particular, is priceless. Shrigley tries to argue at one stage that an artist doesn't need to be able to draw well, in the same way that a guitarist in a band doesn't need to be able to play the guitar well.

Now, I'm no expert on music, but I reckon that Brian May, Jimi Hendrix, and the woolly-capped fellow from U2, can probably all play the guitar quite well, and that they had to learn their craft first, and then build the art upon the craft. A concept which seems to find little favour in modern art...

2 comments:

Selena Dreamy said...

Shrigley tries to argue at one stage that an artist doesn't need to be able to draw well, in the same way that a guitarist in a band doesn't need to be able to play the guitar well.

As I have said elsewhere, that the artist must conquer his craft, and the craftsman master his subject, is the principal critical casualty, it seems to me, of an age whose concern has been to revolutionize skill without craftsmanship and to revitalize art without producing creative things. But, regrettably, just because they don’t like to be craftsmen doesn’t mean that they don’t want to be artists. No sir! Far from it. The result has been the nullification of art, a new expression of emptiness - in (pop) music as well as in the visual spheres - that has come to replace the beautiful in a period of creative sterility.

The great majority of pop artists are peasants, ridiculous and not worthy even of figuring in an beggar's operetta!

Dreamy

Gordon McCabe said...

An excoriating denouncement of modern art, Selena.