What this suggests to me is that Gove had someone prepare this poetic soundbite for release on the morning after the judging of the Turner Prize. The reason I say 'had someone prepare' is that this beautiful sequence of words is so far from his flabby-mouthed, blundering norm that I can't believe that it came from him. In fact, what this pre-planned "criticism" of Ms Marten and the Turner Prize in general have shown is further proof of that Britain is becoming a fascist state.
I am reminded - again - of Umberto Eco's essay, 'Eternal Fascism: Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt' in which he writes that for the fascist:
'[...] culture is suspect insofar as it is identified with critical attitudes. Distrust of the intellectual world has always been a symptom of Ur-Fascism, from Hermann Goering's fondness for a phrase from a Hanns Johst play ("When I hear the word 'culture' I reach for my gun") to the frequent use of such expressions as "degenerate intellectuals," "eggheads," "effete snobs," and "universities are nests of reds." The official Fascist intellectuals were mainly engaged in attacking modern culture and the liberal intelligentsia for having betrayed traditional values.'(Should anyone be interested in the trivial little driveller, Gove's full pronouncement, see this article.)
I had cause to think about these words on Wednesday night when I visited the Roger Hiorns exhibition at the IKON gallery, a real curate's egg of a show. I am going to ignore most of the first-floor gallery which was filled with paintings which I will confess to not liking and probably not understanding, paintings in latex and "brain matter" that reminded me of a late-career Matisse tackling images from Grindr.
The installation pieces upstairs, however, were incredible: most certainly a testament to the 'tragic emptiness of now'. I wasn't allowed - understandably - to photograph the main exhibition upstairs but the image from the invite to the private view will give you an idea of what it was about:
A piece for "jet engine, anti-depressants and youth" in which a live model walks about the exhibits, sitting listlessly on them or appearing to sleep next to them, this is simultaneously sublime and utterly miserable: strange half-human machines bubble away in one room, an x-ray machine is upended in another, the floor is covered in powdered anti-depressant medicine and this boy wanders about dehumanised, depersonalised, an element in a work of art.
Hiorns here questions the cults of the 20th Century which have brought us to this disastrous global situation: psychoanalysis, youth, speed, travel, eternal life and the result is deeply moving.
Lighter things also happened this week, including the annual Christmas lecture at the School of Jewellery, given by Professor Richard Taylor.
Professor Taylor posed the question of how it is possible for Santa to deliver all the presents to all the children of the world in one night:
And then proceeded to give us a whistle-stop tour of physics:
Travelling by way of Russian meteorites and the Large Hadron Collider with rather too many clips from the Dudley Moore film, "Santa Claus: The Movie" (which appears to contain a line about the quantum possibilities of the problem) he concluded that contemporary quantum physics proves that Santa CAN deliver all the presents in one night!
So relieved.
This was followed by a Christmas Karaoke for the staff and students. I am not the biggest fan of things Christmas and I loathe Karaoke, so left after the mince-pies has been eaten and the singing started. Not before catching our Head of School, Gaynor Andrews, and my colleague Sally Collins in some very silly hats:
A musical end to the week with the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group playing some works from their fantastic "Sound Investment" programme, a programme which allows members of the public to sponsor the commissioning of a new piece of music from a contemporary composer. The programme was all pieces commissioned since 2000, most notably a piece from the ever impressive Gerald Barry, "Wiener Blut".
Highlight of the evening was, however the most recent commission, the brilliant "Ceci N'est pas un Concerto" by Francisco Coll, described by the composer as "surreal" and "a fake piano concertino", it is, at least in part, a concerto for piano and soprano with a hilarious and difficult sung part. This was performed brilliantly by Elizabeth Atherton.
