And While We're On the Subject of Art...

Edward Black reports from Scotland on a team of cleaners who desecrated an artwork, or perhaps the "art" was itself the desecration.

[C]leaners were shocked to see the mess left behind in the toilets at the Arches in Glasgow, following the National Review of Live Art festival the night before. They found soap stuck to walls, toilet paper littering the floor, and unpleasant stains on the tiled walls and immediately set to work.

Yet after scrubbing the bathroom from top to bottom the head cleaner realised they had accidentally removed the live art performance of Angela Bartram, an English visual artist who specialises in showcasing "extreme bodily functions".

The cleaners can at least take solace in the fact they are in good company. Last year a bag of rubbish that was part of a work by Gustav Metzger, said to demonstrate the "finite existence" of art, was thrown away by a cleaner at Tate Britain in London. A Damien Hirst 2001 installation was also mistaken for rubbish by a cleaner at London’s Eyestorm Gallery.

I bet Alma-Tadema never had this problem.

Hmmmmm, the art of "extreme bodily functions." What does that mean? Here's a hint:

[The artist's] performance forced the audience into contact with the more "dysfunctional and impolite uses of the mouth". She spat, dribbled, licked, choked and chewed soap in a series of bizarre rituals.

Oh, I see, it's "Performance Art" -- well, that makes all the difference..., doesn't it? Well, doesn't it?

And, isn't performance art supposed to be an "in the moment" kinda thing? Why shouldn't they clean up afterward?

And, since when has being impolite been a form of art?

I must be getting old....