For all its obscene excess and turgid backslappery, I rather enjoy Oscar night-it transports me back to watching Bob Hope on a Black and White telly, with my old man in the Seventies.
Tonight we were treated to a remarkable Oscar themed dinner at our friend Shawna's- hors d' oeuvres manicured to resemble crowns and pig faces in honor of 'The King Speech' and 'Toy Story', Irish Stew for 'The Fighter'.
Delicious.
Some good contenders I believe, although so busy was I during the past year, I only caught two of the nominees- 'Inception' and 'Exit through the gift shop'.
Am rather relieved that the latter didn't win, the last thing the insufferable Banksy needs is further legitimacy. That's the joke of that entire thing, the fake authenticity of street martyrdom attacking the establishment, applauded by a groundswell of sycophantic media,collectors and artist's.
Which reminds me, I've been wanting to encourage anyone and everyone who is an artist to forget Banksy's droll wankfest, and watch Robert Hughes's exquisite diatribe about the contemporary art scene-'The Mona Lisa Curse.' As far as I know, It's only available on YouTube for the moment, and will probably be snagged for copyright in a month, but I implore you to watch it while you can, if only for the moment he eviscerates a collector for his expensive taste in bad art.
Discontent at squandering his artistic aspirations as a bartender, in 1994-Billy Pappa's decided to embark on a work which would be ten years in the making-a life-size, hyper real portrait of Marylin Monroe.
Using pin sharpened graphite and a magnifying glass, he painstakingly reproduced Richard Avedon's famous image to include pores, peach fuzz, hair follicles and blemishes, boldly said to measure a 1000 dpi.
Upon completion, Billy hit upon the notion that he wanted to present his decade long labor to his hero, David Hockney, thus validating his exercise as well as finding a kinship and champion.
So, armed with his moms poppy seed cake and an entourage that included his pastor, Billy left his home town of Baltimore and secured an audience with Hockney at his Hollywood home. Fame and Fortune ensued.
Except it didn't, and following a former assistants crushing assessment of the meeting said to have been dismissed by the veteran artist as 'Still just that fucking photograph', the harsh realities of Billy's odyssey conclude with a heartbreaking spiral back into bartending, $300,000 in debt to his friend, and the notion that all those years amounted to naught, but a portrait that can only be appreciated when viewed first hand.
What struck me about the film, was that harsh universal truth that troubles every artist, that of aspiration treading the wafer thin line of self delusion,and the elitism of the establishment being anathema to provincial ambition.
Of course,Hockney himself could be said at one time to be a working class boy made good, except as a media darling, stoked with the gloss of Californian superficiality,working on set pieces for Puccini's Opera and champion of the IPad, one would be hard pressed to recall his menial Yorkshire roots.
That said, for all Billy's earnest endeavors, the final results appear disappointingly sterile. Had Billy been acquainted with the work of say Dennis Peterson or even Ron Mueck before he embarked, his perspective could have focused on a subject more worthy of his odyssey. In that regard, Hockney's scathing assertion is right-Monroe as a cipher is ubiquitous to the point of cultural insignificance. Rauschenberg and Warhol, both understood that the visage of her celebrity had become a euphemism for the superfluous, and so trying to imbue new life into the subject could only ever be akin to shining a torch into a black hole.
As Brian Eno once concluded the journey is often more enjoyable than the destination,but as an artist one leaves the film wondering what price the ticket.
"I have of late,--wherefore I know not,--lost all my mirth, and indeed, it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory"
Hamlet
And a plague on both our houses-Lani and I are still sick, head colds having now relocated to the southern hemisphere of Chesterton, as we nestle like two bags of old washing around a barely adequate air heater.
A good a time as any to crack open my annual New Year double bill-'Withnail and I' and the 'The Man who fell to Earth' then.
Perhaps I should cover myself in deep heat and protest dramatically that 'My head is numb'
In fact, any number of eminently quotable soundbites from the former could sum up the years end.
"The greatest decade in the history of mankind is coming to an end and as Presuming Ed here has so consistently pointed out, we have failed to paint it black."
"Even a stopped clock tells the right time twice a day."
"Look at my tongue; it's wearing a yellow sock."
So-2010-what a year...fifteen shows-four featured.
Eighty six paintings-twenty of which are some of the best things I've ever done.
A veritable year in paint then.
And the best of it? Visiting England in the Spring, holding my grandchild for the first time. Standing by a waterfall in Yosemite and watching fireworks from a boat on the 4th July with my wife. Spending time with friends and meeting people who came to my shows.
Peering through the fog of Benedryl, I'd rather not recall the worst, but the Raw show, almost cutting off my hand with a hedge trimmer, the entire month of August and losing our beloved cat Pepper are particular low-lights.
Looking forward then-I'm a couple of weeks from putting my book 'Dead Ends' to bed.
And whilst I shalln't be doing anywhere near as many showings in the coming twelve months, my appearances shall be more prestigious.
Then there are the new works which I am beside myself with excitement about.
So Happy New Year to you all, and In the final words-this time from 'The Man who Fell to Earth'...
"I think perhaps Mr. Newton has had enough, don't you?"
I finally got around to seeing 'Exit through the gift shop.' I've always felt like Banksy's work was a little too polished, a little too contrived as if it had been designed by some committee in a Canary Wharf agency boardroom.
Anyway, The film is supposedly a clever, clever, mockumentary that turns the tables, in that as opposed to being about Banksy, it is instead a biopic about the French filmmaker who follows our eponymous hero from guerrilla graffitist, to contemporary cult.
Except the documentary maker is nothing more than a hobbyist, and though I shalln't reveal the gag, (oh how I laughed) at the eleventh hour, the whole thing tries to cack-handedly make some high brow statement about the nature of contemporary art.
That Modern art is a con and any charlatan can make it-really? What a revelation.I had no idea.
It's a sort of Spinal Tap for artists if you like.
I didn't. I mean, even as parody, is there anything more depressing than seeing a rich collector ebulliently talk about adding a Banksy to their Picasso's and Klee's? Some would argue the point-that the joke is on the collector, that it's holding up some sort of distorted mirror, but I believe in fact that the joke is on the artist, because ultimately what you get isn't smart, just the equivalent of a dumbed-down Twitter sound byte, about the sorry state of it all.
I rather hope the ghastly street scene returns to where it belongs, defacing the gutters as opposed to any legacy future artists can hope to aspire to.
For all its obscene excess and turgid backslappery, I rather enjoy Oscar night-it transports me back to watching Bob Hope on a Black and White telly, with my old man in the Seventies. 
