Uh-oh... Someone's come along and burst our bubble.

A friend recently told me about an art documentary they had seen on tv late last year, and urged me to watch it. 'The great contemporary art bubble', follows a guy called Ben Lewis, whose aim is to try and understand and figure out the reason behind the sudden boom in the contemporary art market, as well as the escalated price tags attached to so many contemporary art pieces recently, whilst the rest of the economy seems to suffer.

One of the first pieces of info you're hit with, is how much Andy Warhol's piece sold for... £33,000,000. That is just utterly, utterly insane. Think of all the good that could be done with that sort of money. It just makes you think all billionaires are mental. While the economy fell, contemporary art prices rose. Contemporary art has recently become mass produced, hitting 'new record prices'... Lewis found that during may 2008, banks had written off millions of pounds of bad debt, however, to Sotheby's (auction house), it' s as though the debt had never even existed! Sales were on the increase, not at a loss. Once prices are driven up, it creates a momentum that everyone wishes to get involved with. He found the likes of Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons's work, whether dead or alive, the prices continued to rise.

Art seems to have become a 21st century commodity, increasingly commercialised and the newest, hippest and most popular works are increasingly sought after. Risky and edgy art, like works completed by Tracey Emin and Damien Hirst are one of a kind, unique and controversial. People nowadays (well, I say people, what I meant was... millionaires/billionaires) have the capability and the means to collect iconic works. Gallery owners and dealers were being probed to escalate the prices and to fake bid on works of art to make sure they never fail to sell; after all... 'making money is art.'

We as fine art students are being gently prodded into becoming a part of this chain, but at what cost? We, as cravers of 'new art', are slowly deviating away from the notion of true, and truly fine art. It's nothing arty, it's just good business.
...Right? Well, I don't want to play my part!

'At particular times, a great deal of stupid people have a great deal of stupid money.' - Ben Lewis.

Keeping us on our toes.

It always seems at a point when the pressure is really on, something happens to bring everything into perspective, and rid you of all your trivial shit. Shit, that if not completed, would normally bring about the end of the world.
But instead, here I am. Sat in the garden begging the universe to make my mum well.

I can't draw or paint, I don't even want to. Everything just remains as it was, very... still.

A friend recently told me about the act of catharsis. After a quick peek on wikipedia and of course online dictionary, I found that it was defined by an act of cleansing, or more specifically - 'the purging of the emotions or relieving of emotional tensions, esp. through certain kinds of art, as tragedy or music.'

I thought about it for a while, but realised I was thinking far, far too much about it. My mood was dark, and my thoughts scattered. Which thinking about it, is maybe why everyone's work these days seem to be a scattered black mess. Why not paint a celebration, paint the end, when all this pain and confusion has left. Isn't that a better idea? What in god's name is the point of dwelling on it all? Dwelling and focusing your attention and energy on the bad things will only draw more negativity to you.

Having said that, I like the idea of an emotion release. I think even a bike ride would do it for me right now.
Jackson Pollock's work comes to mind now... crazy energy and sparks of colour.
Then again... look how he turned out.

Goya and the Chapman brothers.

I know what you're thinking... and yes, it is a very odd mix. I like comparisons, so hear me out...

Francisco Goya has long been considered one of the first to be labeled a modern artist. He favoured a very subjective element to his works and provided a pathway for the brilliance of painters such as Picasso and Manet. It would appear that Jake and Dinos Chapman; brothers who usually work exclusively with each other rely at times on artistic appropriation. Their work ‘Great deeds against the dead’ [1A] is an appropriation of one of Francisco Goya’s ‘Disaster of War’ etching prints. The series was Goya’s horrifyingly accurate portrayal of the horrors he had witnessed in the Peninsular war between Spain and France during 1808 - 1814. The work in question is a replication of ‘Plate 39: Grande hazaña! Con muertos!’ (A heroic feat! With dead men!) The graphic etchings were deemed too gory to be released during Goya’s lifetime, so were first published in 1863.


The work, which was originally their contribution to the ‘Sensation’ exhibition at the Royal Academy, was renamed ‘Great deeds against the dead’ (1994), and has been dubbed a ‘rectification’ of Goya’s earlier etches, and is overwhelmed with their own distinctive trade of somewhat pornographic surrealism. Goya’s use of art as provocation is what’s first thought to have sparked such a great and furiously obsessive interest from the Chapman’s; Jake Chapman has said, ‘Our work proceeds more by compulsion than by inspiration’. The Chapman’s, a much integral tool of Charles Sattchi’s Young British Artists movement, have long been known for their use of forceful shock tactics. The use of appropriation in this work can be judged from many angles; Goya’s works are a compelling anti-patriotic masterpiece that have been experienced not as a historic but a contemporary work of art; the images embody a sense of urgency and a demand to seek the truth. Goya’s works are ones that have never lost their power to shock. So much so, they were not published during his lifetime; not until 35 years after his death. Goya was one of the first to reveal and strip away the chivalry and idealism so apparent in earlier representations of war. He allowed succeeding generations of artists to witness war through his eyes, and as a result they have recognised in his disaster series a template for their own.


The Chapman’s incessant need to shock viewers with outrageous and often offensive works of art could be their goal, an audience in which they include themselves; the liberal, the humanist and the gallery going upper middle classes. According to the Chapman’s, Goya’s unflinching aesthetic was ahead of its time; they praised him as ‘the first modern artist to have psychological and political depth’. There are a number of reasons why these works differ and their meanings are so vastly different; the most obvious being the time in which they were completed. It is difficult to wrap our heads around the thought that during this point in time, a point when political correctness has literally gone mad, the Chapman brothers are no longer bound by the same restrictions Goya once was. If anything, they are allowed to test the waters and push the boundaries of contemporary art to a new level.