Wednesday, August 05, 2009

awkward moments in canadian art

...or Bob and Doug meet Tom and Lawren. Check out the article here and make sure you view the slide show and read the comments. If Diana Thorneycroft's aim is to be provocative she has (if you go by the feedback) succeeded, using that decidedly Canadian tendency to be self-deprecating to do it. Whatever your opinion on the aesthetic merits of her work, though, I, for one, enjoy the fact that she doesn't take herself too seriously:

"I wouldn't teach photography if they paid me a million dollars, because then I'd have to learn how to do it.
— Diana Thorneycroft

9 Comments:

Blogger Ellen said...

Her point gets lost in cute craftiness, the paintings become nothing but a high school theatre backdrop, they just aren't iconic enough in the Canuck consciousness to make this series work.

Meanwhile, I sit here bitterly doing the math - $80,000 Can. Council grant money for 2 years to put this together?! The ugly truth is I probably would have liked this idea more if she (not the rest of us) funded it.

6/8/09 2:34 p.m.  
Blogger andrea said...

I think you're right, Ellen. The series seems incomplete somehow, or only partly realized. And I must admit that it has got the wheels turning re. applying for a grant for what I want to do next...

7/8/09 12:10 p.m.  
Blogger Caroline said...

Yes - apply for grants! Both of you!

7/8/09 12:52 p.m.  
Blogger dinahmow said...

Perhaps because I'm not a Canadian I don't recognise any of those paintings.So, as Ellen says, they are hardly iconic. (They are also bloody awful, to my eyes!)
I don't care much for cutesy tableaux(the off-scale is jarring), but what would really blow my fiscal fuse is the grant money-holy cow!
I know, it happens everywhere, but when funding for school books is pared to tuppence-ha'penny and some "artists" are given wads of the stuff...
Ooops! On the soapbox again...going now!

8/8/09 2:07 p.m.  
Blogger Ian Lidster said...

I like Ms. Thorneycroft's attitude.

10/8/09 11:04 a.m.  
Blogger smarcoux said...

ahh hockey ... what a great game .. love the art..I am the canadian bit that Laura in belgium mentioned going to birmingham to meet up with her.. and got to your blog from there .. nice work I can see the indian influence in your work. I will keep my eyes peeled on your blog
Sandy

11/8/09 10:49 p.m.  
Blogger Romeo Morningwood said...

She is our local "edgy" Artiste. Most people here haven't quite forgiven her for hanging dead Bunnies and calling it ART.

This is another one of those times when the average joe is going to say who the f*ck wasted my hard earned tax dollars on that piece of crap! Sure it's cheeky but I don't know..really?

Now the owners can launch their multimillion dollar lawsuit!
If she had scenes from a Disney movie how long would she have been in business?

27/8/09 1:04 p.m.  
Blogger Unknown said...

Have any of you guys seen the show?

29/8/09 9:53 p.m.  
Blogger andrea said...

I think seeing the show would be best before passing judgement. Not possible for me, unfortuantely.

30/8/09 8:15 a.m.  

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