And so, this weekend when a bunch of us trooped off to take a look at Damien Hirst's new murderme collection at the Serpentine- "In the darkest hour there may be light", my first few moments, spent gazing at Sarah Lucas' "big silkscreen print of Sunday Sport porn shots and a neon casket (in the darkest hour there may be light, as it were)" threw me somewhat, but then after some meandering around the somewhat random collection, we ran up against the first Angus Fairhurst.
I saw it - huge photograph against a stark white wall and it hit me...
because it's big and strange and stark but then I bent down to take in the name of the piece and the artist and then it hit me even harder because the piece is called The Pieta and a print of that other, original, Pieta has been hanging in my father's room ever since I was 12. Right above the desk I studied for computer exams at so I really have it etched in my mind and the contrast couldn't be starker because, of course, the original Pieta (Michelangelo's) looks like this:
That done I was completely hooked. Of course for a long while I pondered that eternal favourite "what is art" question because to me it wasn't the piece that was engaging in itself but my subsequently being jolted by the comparison of mood and representation between the two pieces and that occurred only after I read those two words - "The Pieta", not from the piece itself.
Unfortunately not so much excitement after that, except of course for a Banksy right across the room: the iconic image of the Vietnamese girl screaming and running after the napalm bombing- except in this representation she's being led on either side by Ronald McDonald and Mickey Mouse. Her terror is particularly contrasted by Mickey Mouse's bland smile and McDonald's goofy grin... imagine to find Banksy in an art gallery after chasing him around all over the damn place. The irony.
