Martin Creed, winner of the Turner Prize in 2005 for a conceptual work of the lights turning on and off in an empty gallery, devised a piece called "Work No. 1197, All The Bells In A Country Rung As Quickly And Loudly As Possible For Three Minutes" for the opening of the Olympics.
You can read about it here. You can hear it here.
I loved the idea of it--as many people as possible ringing bells in participation. Ringing in the celebration of the Olympics. Bells are potently associated with England--John Donne poem, The Great Bells of Bow (bells and poem), carillons, change ringing, Westminster chimes. I think the participatory aspect is awesome.
Make a joyful noise.
I'm curious--I suspect your art/kitsch line would put Work No. 1197 on the art side and the opening ceremonies on the kitsch side. Yes? And yet... massive participation, potent cultural associations (cricket, the Queen, Mary Poppins, bonfires, Bond, etc etc etc), reframing original artworks...
ReplyDeleteA couple of questions come to mind: first, is it the sentimentality that marks the line? Or perhaps the pandering-to-audience that makes use of sentimentality as a tool?
And then: how remiss was Danny Boyle not to more explicitly call it a Masque and tie it into the 17th-Century British tradition? I know, not your field, but still.
Thanks,
-E.
Definitely remiss not to call it a Masque. Because there should be more masquing.
ReplyDeleteAnd I want to say here, I'm only trying to get MY head around the distinction of art/kitsch--Greenberg, Adorno, and the modernist buddies I have would likely have other distinctions. This isn't exactly my field and I'm not that well versed.
Also, I didn't watch most of the opening, only clips in retrospect through the lens of what others are talking about so I'm seeing culture at a remove.
Sentimentality isn't the only art/kitsch line. There's venue: the mass production/televised consumption of this event is often understood as an aspect of kitsch. (It's the difference between arthouse film and summer blockbuster flik). For Adorno, the economics of it are an aspect of kitsch--it's designed to be consumed easily. But he's a Marxist. Creed is definitely less accessible--lots of folks responded by saying, "shut your noise, it's 8 in the ^%&*@#$! morning".
And of course, there's plenty of referentiality that is part of the Olympics opening. The layered appearance of Kenneth Branagh as industrialist ringmaster references him as director and reciting Tempest as Shakespearean actor of our day. Does it work as theatre?