(bad)ger artworld

November 15, 2015 - whoneedslove - staff stuff

we visited another art show opening, expected something, experienced something different and got surprised after all . . .

Hamilton, Ontario is another crap hole that is turning into a hot spot of the art world (for cheap living reasons and other ‘gentrification-sparking’ factors). A locally based collective invited us to a show in a rather fucked up downtown area. we brushed our hair, polished our nails, picked our fanciest clothes and blew glitter in each others faces. ready to go we hit the road and crashed into a recently re-purposed factory building that is now a modernized hub for the arts and their audiences.

we entered, we were shocked and we were definitaly over- and underdressed at the same time.

you know, when you expect a kind a ‘do-it-yourself’ punk show in a bunker and you find a yuppied brick stone warehouse where people (can) wear jeans and suit jackets without tie but a nice pin somewhere (and a scarf, but it’s not cold) you know you shouldn’t have put the glitter on.

artists have to make a living besides welfare, that we understand, but putting up stands with all and everything for sale is trying much too hard to sell you something.

anxious wandering around in stealth mode looking for our friends we felt like being sucked into a amusement park with a lot of attraction we weren’t attracted by until …

tucked away in the corner of the event the collective finally convinced us that art was actually there. they had a spot reserved and mocked the entire show by citing famous works of Magritte, Matisse, Picasso, Koons and others, labelling the works with big cartoon action bubbles that said ‘special’, handing out price lists to question the profit oriented set up of the art world as a whole, represented by a bunch of moneymakers here in Hamilton. but we respect any artist who drags a six foot shark out from a dumpster and suspends it from the ceiling still smelling like backalley piss.

the collective fucked with the event showing off and selling out, uniforming themselves as connoiusseurs of a higher class of business art, meant as a joke: the audience is blind, believes everthing and buys the product. and the badger, running around as an icon of public idiocracy gets photographed together with us the drunken spectators for the local newspaper – are you serious?!?!?

[photos by April Winter / Konica XP3 on Fuji400]

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