I knew I had to go and see 'the bed', especially because it had been the subject of debate and discussion in our class. I wanted to keep in mind everything B had expressed about her frustration and anger especially with the imposter replica of the bed.
I was looking at a different part of the gallery when an old man, came over to me looking frustrated with the map and asked if i could show him where the bed was. I had not seen it yet but I led him to the bed. When we got there , there was quite a few people crowded round it looking intently (dont know if they were actually interested or whether they were just looking because they felt that had too). After a good 5 minutes of looking at the bed, the old man shouts loudly to me " Corrr, is THAT IT.... is THAT what all the fuss is about".... Everyone suddenly looked up and there was this really awkward moment where everyone sort of reviewed what they were doing in there head, scrutinising the bed, then within moments they went back to looking at the bed. I just laughed, then the man walked right up to the bed and the alarm went off, then he backed away and left.
I just found it so funny, this old man just seemed to undermine everyone, everyone for a moment realised the absurdity of the situation but then clicked back into it again. I do actually respect Emin's work, but I do think its funny as sometimes we forget what modern art has become as it is truly absurd when you think about it for a while, but then you think about it for a while longer and its not... Because I have grown up with 'the bed' as a normal ideal of modern art it is hard to take yourself away from it, for this man it must seem like an intrustion of sorts to what he thinks as art, which i find interesting....
No comments:
Post a Comment