A Life In Art

I really don’t have a problem with (say) Tracey Emin not being able to paint or draw. So what? When she declares that there’s no separation between her life and her art, she reveals herself to be a true artist. So, if she can do it, why can’t all of us?

It occurs to me I will probably never have enough room to display all my stuff. And it occurs to me I want to display My Life Of Crap. I want it out there. In public. Maybe just for a week or two (I’m not that much of an egotist). I’d been to see the Chris Marker exhibition at the Whitechapel gallery. He’d died recently and I thought the exhibition was like a celebration of his life, with his films, photos, travel guides but also letters, notebooks, sketches. This is how I want my stuff displayed in a similarly sized gallery. A huge space to display my life’s work: paintings, drawings, sculptures*, films, photographs, sure, but also newspaper clippings, books and magazines, records and CDs, posters, clothes, toys, bric-a-brac. But I actually want to be alive when this happens, and curate it. Everything will be for sale (there would be barngains galore).

The idea of preserving an artist’s or writer’s room exactly as it was, i.e. Charles Dickens’ or Thomas Hardy’s study or Lawrence of Arabia’s house, is how we should all be remembered. I’ve written about this before; that a gravestone is essentially a boring, impersonal reminder of a person’s life, and far more intimate and relevant would be a recreation of the dead person’s living room or bedroom (like Tracey’s unmade bed) with all their stuff. This is us now, right? Our stuff? (Even if it’s digital stuff, it’s still stuff.)

*Someone will have to recreate the giant plug switch I made out of leaves and grass and the huge cardboard light switch, the mini cinemas, palace of mirrors, etc.

Previously on Barnflakes
Head in the Clouds
The Museum of Everyone