the smell of death!

Bunny, in comments, yesterday:

it must be a bit of an historical and indeed geographical peculiarity for people to find putrefaction so remarkable, surely? And would our great-grandparents really have seen any point in a lamb in a vitrine - other than lamenting the waste of a perfectly edible lamb?

Mmm, tasty lamb.  Anyway, point well taken on both counts.  And yet, our ancestors may not have found the smell so remarkable, but they would have had a quick answer as to what to do with anything that carried it: bury it, burn it, or get the heck away.  I just chose the latter.

Comments

[Bunny Smedley]

I'm told that the trick with A Thousand Years is to see it either just after it's been installed, or alternatively, right at the end of the show when all the meat is gone and the flies have been dead for a while - or, better still, when Sensation went on tour and they used a fake piece of meat. The smell may not be something Chanel would want to patent and put in a bottle, but it's a lot less, well, insistent.

Anyway, while we're on the subject of smelly art, let me put in a good word for a work that I, at least, quite like smelling (and believe me, you can smell it a good hundred yards before you can see it): Richard Wilson's 20:50 at the Saatchi Gallery in London. Not everyone's cup of tea, really - but being reminded of filling-station forecourts is an improvement on overripe road-kill!

[Miguel Sánchez]

I have to clarify - I haven't been mentioning the name of the malodorous fly piece because, well, I didn't get close enough to read the wall label. I had read it somewhere else, but couldn't remember. But it isn't a version of A Thousand Years - thank god, in my opinion. No, I'm more squeamish than that. It's one of his Cancer Chronicles "fly paintings" - a canvas covered with resin-adhered dead flies. In the words of one critic, they present "a spirit-lowering, black, smelly mess." The author, however, approves, saying "if you are going to make a piece about pestilence, it should be repellent." A legitimate argument, though it doesn't necessarily follow that Hirst's work succeeds in its metaphor (why flies, after all?) or that all art concerned with disease must mimic its condition. Anyway, whatever the title or ostensible subject, the work reads more as another (yes, another) critique of modern abstraction.

I rather like the Wilson installation - or rather, the idea of it sounds neat. Not earthshattering, but neat. An art gallery/organization in Providence has an annual fundraising party; for years, one woman involved used to (and she still may, I haven't been in a while) make a sort of turf installation on the floors throughout part of the space. It was sort of fun. Wilson's piece is different, obviously, but it reminds me of that.

[Bunny Smedley]

I really do like Wilson's piece - not as much as a good Titian, but much more than most contemporary work.

Maybe I'm just that little bit slow on the uptake, but when I first encountered it I hadn't read about it and so, despite all the warning notices about smoking, the distinctive odour of petrol etc, I didn't really understand what it was - what the ultra-reflective surface was made of - until I was out on the gangway, noticing the slow langorous ripples that my footsteps created. I'll never forget that shock of realisation. It's not earthshattering, but on the other hand, there's a strong and surprising metaphor there for all sorts of real-life experiences. It's a rare case of Saatchi-type art rising about gimmacks and shock-value. It's also sort of beautiful in its County Hall setting (I first saw it in Boundary Road) even if you've already 'got' the story.

Those flies, though - not new, not entertaining, I think I may have seen one of these pieces at County Hall, but I don't remember, which probably tells you all you need to know about how exciting I find them!