Modern art is rubbish?
Damien Hirst, “master of the modern British art scene”, had a launch party recently for his new work. At the party he arranged some of the rubbish — beer bottles, ash trays, candy wrappers — into an impromptu art installation. The next morning the gallery janitor arrived and promptly threw it all into the garbage. Ha! The gallery had a cow, of course, and workers had to dig through the trash to reclaim everything and rebuild the “artwork” from photographs. Hirst apparently found the whole debacle quite funny.

Personally, I just love the way the British press crow about this stuff. “Cool Britannia” was a great marketing slogan, but the reality over here is quite different. Sure, Londoners are pretty modern about most things, but there are certain topics guaranteed to bring out the conservative side in most Brits: joining the Euro and scrapping the pound, laws the force the use of the metric system, genetically modified foods, and modern art and architecture. Of course, having seen the Lloyds of London building up close and personal, I’ve got to agree with them on the last one…