#230: Mine alone to disgrace

A name is written on a wall (for example, Taylor Swift) which is protected completely by a locked frame.  The means to deface this artwork is placed in a locked cabinet underneath.  Only the person whose name it is (for example, Taylor Swift) has means to access the artwork and cabinet and they (for example, Taylor Swift) have an open invitation to come and deface their own name, should they wish to.

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Snapes, Laura (2024) Breakups, fantasies and her most cutting lyrics: inside Taylor’s Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/apr/19/taylor-swift-album-the-tortured-poets-department-lyrics (Accessed: 19th April 2024).

Swift, Taylor (2024) ‘But Daddy I Love Him,’ The Tortured Poets Department [602465081343]. US,Republic Records.

Although the title and idea comes from a lyric in the above Taylor Swift song, it is thanks to the above Laura Snapes article that this idea came about.

#229: Society

A cage that we are all locked in together and cannot escape from.  

Imagine a fight breaks out.

What happens next?

How do we carry on?

#228: Homely Sounds

Close your eyes and think of home.

What do you hear?

#227: A Perfect Place to Grow

Your preferred environment.

#226: Proustian Window

A stained glass window in the shape of a madeleine.  The window depicts the triggers that would take you through and the memories you would discuss on the other side.

#225: Happy black days, this here’s the summer (here's the summer)

Oil on canvas.

Scene of someone in a terrible state (their eyes dark, their skin pale and sallow, their hair long and bedraggled) exiting a building into bright sunlight.

#224: You are not alone

Picture of the interior of a library.

#223: Which boxes fit in you? (Or would you rather burn all the boxes and their labels?)

A room full of boxes.  The majority with genders, age ranges, nationalities, religions, professions, sexualities, generations, races, cultures, etc written on them - the sort of words used in surveys to build you in their eyes, or to pigeonhole someone.  

Factual, kind, hateful or nasty.  All you can think of are present.

Larger boxes in the centre of the room have You written on the side.  These are big enough to fit a number of the other boxes in, once flattened.

Also in the room: a stanley knife, lighter fluid, matches and an incinerator bin.

#222: A note (What I’ve been thinking about today)

A blank postcard with the following typed on the picture side:

The mind transcends over all mediums

 - 

but something aesthetically or auditorily pleasing is best.

#221: Scratch off the surface and there is nothing there

A run of mass produced scratchcards.  The cards themselves are black with a white area that can be scratched off.  Above this area are the words, in white, “Scratch off the surface and there is nothing there…”  Scratching off the white area reveals nothing but black underneath, extending the border to the centre.

The reverse has a white background with black text reading: 

scratch me how you like: 

obliterate or create, 

or just imagine.

#220: The Current State of Things (Are there any absolutes in art?)

An artwork to be reproduced just inside the entrance of any gallery in the world, using their own collections in a potentially ever-changing display.

Six works of art hang on the wall in two rows of three with writing on the wall above the top row, below the final row and in between the rows.  (Or works and text are arranged in a way that suits the art being displayed).  None of the pieces are labelled in the traditional way, but instead with just one word that represents the current attitude to that work.

The text at the top reads:

David: "Is it all just… fashion? Are there any absolutes??" Mira: "Sure! In here…[she points to her chest]" Ollie: "Just not out there." from The Sculptor (2015) by Scott McCloud, p. 204 panels 1-2.

The three works of art in the top row are labelled, from left to right: Anti-fashion, In-fashion and Out of fashion.

The text across the middle reads: 

“God, it all seems… so shallow, though.  Like it’s all just about celebrity.  Not about the art at all.” The Sculptor (2015) by Scott McCloud, p.401, panel 7-8.

The three works of art in the bottom row are labelled, from left to right: Kitsch, Classic and Celebrity.

The text across the bottom reads: 

“Art is beyond taste. Leave your prejudices behind when you want to be uplifted.” from Kitsch art: love it or loathe it? (2013) by Jonathan Jones, published in The Guardian.

#219: Small black flowers that grow in the sky

Oil on canvas.  

A view of a bright blue sky, dotted with a few clouds, the sun shining in the corner.  Vines with flowers grow across the scene along the bars at the top of a cage.

#218: Self-portrait XVIII / Joint Self-portrait V

A film of you in a karaoke booth singing the songs that you feel most represent you and your life.  Or with your friends and/or family singing the songs that unite you and represent you as a group.

#217: I looked inside myself once and there was nothing there

A tumbleweed tumbling through a deserted desert town but in your mind.

#216: Lament for the weak for they will be crushed vs The weak die young and right now we crouch to make them strong

Oil on canvas.  

The painting split into three parts: two are alongside one another and feature separate images while a third contains words and runs along the bottom of the canvas below the two previous sections.  

The image on the left is of someone lamenting.  

The image on the right shows someone heroic lifting a platform on which many people are sat on the edge or standing behind.  

The text along the bottom reads, “Which would you rather?”

#215: Bliss

Oil on canvas.  A family sitting and watching television together.

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Clarke, Patrick (2021) A Quietus Interview: The Atoms That Made Us: Manic Street Preachers Interviewed. Available at: https://thequietus.com/articles/30411-manic-street-preachers-nicky-wire-interview-the-ultra-vivid-lament (Accessed: 15th November 2023).

#214: Love (Tom Allen)

Oil on canvas.

Black words on a white background, reading: Security.

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See: Greenstreet, Rosanna (2023) The Q&A: Tom Allen: ‘At an early corporate gig, they opened the buffet in the middle of my set – everybody left’. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/nov/25/tom-allen-interview (Accessed: 25th November 2023).

See also.

#213: Love (Paul Auster)

A well-cared for tree or plant.

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See: Wroe, Nicholas (2023) Interview: ‘This might be the last thing I ever write’: Paul Auster on cancer, connection and the fallacy of closure. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/nov/18/paul-auster-on-cancer-connection-and-the-fallacy-of-closure (Accessed: 18th November 2023).

See also.