What is art? Iss pitchers. Innit. Maybe skullptcha. Drawins. Nice. Pretty. Don’t’cha reckon?

Well you’d be wrong. You Neanderthal, philistine, anachronistic know-nuffink. Renoir? Tosser. Picasso? Wanker. Beethoven? Nob. Ok, musician, but sort of arty.

Because if you want ‘contemporary art’, you need ‘installations’. Tracey Emin does ‘em. Loads of people do them. And on the gorgeous little Japanese island of Naoshima, they love art installations like nowhere else. They take a whole house, an abandoned one, I presume as I didn’t see anyone in the middle of the installations, like making tea or watching Match of the Day, and they… they instal! And they’re brilliant. If you really like installations.

My favourite was the house that was a tribute to emptiness. Because you didn’t know if the house had been installed with emptiness or was waiting for it. Because you don’t know if a toilet is a toilet or a valuable and essential statement on existential nihilism.

But it is powerful. The over-riding emotion is ‘WHAT THE FUCK????’ but that’s just because, like you, I have preconceptions that looking at art should be easy, simply the admiring of an image or object, or a dislike of it. Not here matey. Here you have to work out what you’re looking at and whether its art or a brick wall behind that art. You have to understand the difference between… well, anything and anything else.

One house was in absolute pitch blackness. And you sat there, having felt your way around the walls to find the seats, and you dark-adapt. And that’s it. You can see nothing, then you can see almost something, and they let you go. Enlightened (very intentional pun) and blinded by the darkness.

How’s that fucking ART????

Then we reached a wonderful house that was made entirely from bits of old boats and it was spectacular. And brilliant. And wonderful. And fun. And I thought maybe… just maybe… art installations can be cool. But that was our 6th. And the other five were so obscure as to be totally impenetrable. Although some felt nice to be in, like the one pictured. A rock in a garden. You can’t get more inspired than that.

Well, Lucas Moura can, but I can’t. Still stunned, still amazed. Hiroshima never felt so good.

Happy Friday

A xxxx