What is the most negative reaction you can have to a piece of art?

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And is it reviews or singles or paintings or what that provoke it?

I ask this cos I read a piece in the Irish Times last week which was just all this insane polemic about the Clash and how they apparently invented dance music aswell as everything else and "todays pretenders wouldn't dare do the things they did" blah blah blah. And I mean afterwards I just thought maybe I'll email the guy who wrote it cos his address was there. But then I decided no I won't. Because it's just not worth it, these assholes with nothing better to write about than how great the music daddy listened to was make me sick. The Irish Times has the worst music coverage I have ever read in my life and for a paper of such repute it's a fucking disgrace. I think about writing letters but then who gives a shit in the Irish Times, noone I doubt, it's hardly known for the standard of music writing.

It's just the most annoying and crushing thing, in the end I just think what's the fucking point. I mean I can ignore bad records or a crap film but crap writing just seems to hammer home the point that no matter how much you write or talk or really make an effort there will always be that massive weight of accepted wisdom recycling itself over and over. And I mean if people can just read this stuff and think "oh yeah ok" then it just devalues all the good stuff aswell, I might as well be writing about how pop pap is killing real music or how pop idol is like eating a big mac, delicious but unfulfilling, because are the vast majority people ultimately able to tell the difference?

Anyway what is the worst reaction you've ever had to something? When I read this on thursday I threw a banana skin across the kitchen in disgust. I still might email the guy just to say "what the hell are you doing" because I have no doubt in my mind that he knows what a fucking chancer he is just spinning off some totally ott thing about the Clash cos he's got nothing better to write.

― Ronan (Ronan), Monday, 13 January 2003 10:13 (twenty-three years ago)

Oh and the journalist in question is Brian Boyd, so Brian if you're googling I hope your career is short.

― Ronan (Ronan), Monday, 13 January 2003 10:22 (twenty-three years ago)

While I'm at it, Shane Hegarty, Jim Carroll, Kevin Courtney are all fucking abominable aswell.

― Ronan (Ronan), Monday, 13 January 2003 10:22 (twenty-three years ago)

hehehe i thght it wldnt happen again but i had a row over modern art with my mother and grandparents. in the end i said: "well it's fucking art because it apparently MOVED you." hehehe

― nathalie (nathalie), Monday, 13 January 2003 10:26 (twenty-three years ago)

i can't top the banana skin, unfortunately, although there have been times when i've been so disappointed or annoyed at a music magazine or newspaper that i have immediately thrown it in the bin. so that, probably.

― michael wells (michael w.), Monday, 13 January 2003 10:27 (twenty-three years ago)

Yeah I don't throw banana skins lightly either, in any sense.

― Ronan (Ronan), Monday, 13 January 2003 10:29 (twenty-three years ago)

it sounds like a terrible article but not surprising really. lame stuff is expected from mainstream papers on music. the times in london is just as bad. not only on pop but classical and jazz as well.

are you saying that the article was a 'piece of art'?

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Monday, 13 January 2003 10:30 (twenty-three years ago)

Oh yeah I had a musical one aswell, I don't tend to be disgusted with albums too much, generally it's just a meh and not listening again. But god when I put Futurism 2 in the CD player and it began "scaredy cat scaredy cat dont you want my bush" I actually just began to re-evaluate my life and career and why I listen to music at all. I mean it was that bad that I just thought this is more embarassing for me than it is for City Rockers. What a waste of time!

Bit of a stretch to call the article a piece of art but yeah I am.

― Ronan (Ronan), Monday, 13 January 2003 10:32 (twenty-three years ago)

He obv caters to a different audience - one you don't belong to. (Read: *old farts* which could be young people as well. I just mean people with a conservative mindset.)As such I would not really feel angered by it. Oh whatevah. I have an extreme headache.

― nathalie (nathalie), Monday, 13 January 2003 10:34 (twenty-three years ago)

I don't think he caters to any audience cos for all intensive purposes he might as well be writing about how water is the best liquid for showering with.

Also he's young and should know better.

― Ronan (Ronan), Monday, 13 January 2003 10:44 (twenty-three years ago)

well no if you're young you can also be misguided.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Monday, 13 January 2003 10:45 (twenty-three years ago)

newspapers and mags cater for a specific audience. its their job.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Monday, 13 January 2003 10:46 (twenty-three years ago)

Well that obviously means criticising them is stupid, they're just catering for their audience! Forget about it!

― Ronan (Ronan), Monday, 13 January 2003 10:47 (twenty-three years ago)

well if you feel strongly about it you should write a letter/send an email everytime a dud article is published. its just surprising that you didn't expect this sort of thing to be published after strummer's death.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Monday, 13 January 2003 10:54 (twenty-three years ago)

I don't think it matters whether I expect it or not, and I don't like your attitude.

― Ronan (Ronan), Monday, 13 January 2003 11:14 (twenty-three years ago)

ronan, you seem v angry at the moment. ad jingles, reviews, etc. you ok generally?

― Alan (Alan), Monday, 13 January 2003 11:16 (twenty-three years ago)

hey, you started the thread and its not my problem if you don't like the answers.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Monday, 13 January 2003 11:17 (twenty-three years ago)

(maybe not angry, just irritable and annoyed at lots of stuff)

― Alan (Alan), Monday, 13 January 2003 11:19 (twenty-three years ago)

Nah I'm fine, business as usual. I'm actually very well. I meant Julio by the way that I don't think your attitude is a good one, not "your attitude" suggesting I am offended so I think that covers that.

― Ronan (Ronan), Monday, 13 January 2003 11:22 (twenty-three years ago)

I was quite irritated by the crapness of some centre-piece conceptualist sculpture I saw at the Tate Modern last year, so I pulled a handful-sized lump off it (it was made out of cardboard and clay). I felt better after that.

― andy, Monday, 13 January 2003 12:49 (twenty-three years ago)

Interesting reactions:
At the age of 16, reading Iain Banks 'The Wasp Factory', the part when the fucked-up kid who sets fire to dogs is working in a hospital for problem babies, and the baby that he most cares for, with a metal plate holding his cranial plates together, gains a vacant stare and starts gurgling and topples over and the metal plate shifts on his head. The kid picks up the baby and sees maggots breeding in the baby's head.
I was reading this and I chucked the book at the wall. I then turned on all the lights in my bedroom, then turned them off, then on. Then read with furious abandon a selection of Mr.Man books, most notably Mr. Happy.

I second gruesome episode was the point that the father of Gregor Samsa, (Gregor has turned into a giant insect during the night and remains in his room, shunned by his family, Kafka's 'Metamorhosis'), the father hurls an apple at his son, who scuttles away with the apple lodged in his back. The apple then commences to rot, in his back, throughout the duration of the story.
My reaction to this is to harbour an unconditional fear of rotting fruit, and when, last autumn, I found a brown and squishy pear under my bed, I panicked and called my friend, Julia, to clean it away. I then took her out for coffee and cake. She did not seem too distraught, although she did have three sugars in her cappucino, plus a chocolate brownie...

― WilliamR (WilliamR), Monday, 13 January 2003 12:50 (twenty-three years ago)

can anyone point me to a strummer obit that was actually any good, uk or us? seemed to me that they started at unbelievably terrible and went plunging down from there...

(ones i didn't even bother seeking out: james brown's in the indie and steve sutherland's in nme)

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 13 January 2003 12:50 (twenty-three years ago)

most extreme reaction?

it's usually boredom - i.e. when i saw bodyworlds - wow - a coney island freakshow, but a terribly expensive coney island freak show.

but at an exhibition it's either claustophobia or boredom. or worse, a claustophobic boredom. usually, i just leave, as when i went to see cornelius, everything timed to the video screens, thought, this is worse than watching a channel five erotic thriller and went home.

― doom-e, Monday, 13 January 2003 12:54 (twenty-three years ago)

however, when i went to see the warhol film exhibition; bad art created a definate feeling of uncomfortableness for the people watching the films. i enjoyed their reactions. though, historically interesting, the warhols films are banal. and people thought that would have changed! i.e. this was before paul morrissey.

― doom-e, Monday, 13 January 2003 12:56 (twenty-three years ago)

''can anyone point me to a strummer obit that was actually any good, uk or us? seemed to me that they started at unbelievably terrible and went plunging down from there...''

good obituaries of a dead member of a band that belongs in the canon?! surely not.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Monday, 13 January 2003 13:01 (twenty-three years ago)

Mark I can point you away from ILX and back to yr keyboard to write one :)

― Tom (Groke), Monday, 13 January 2003 13:10 (twenty-three years ago)

will mark s do it? hey mark s - i think it's time for another meet up....what do you think?

― doom-e, Monday, 13 January 2003 13:11 (twenty-three years ago)

but he wouldn't finish it until 2025 tom!

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Monday, 13 January 2003 13:12 (twenty-three years ago)

doom-e yes that wd be nice

i will finish this strummer piece, just not today!! i have two in-between deadlines (today and thursday) which have derailed it

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 13 January 2003 13:15 (twenty-three years ago)

cool, will email you tonight.

in the year 2025...mark s finishes his obit of joe strummer to be read outside the joe strummer memorial institute in west london.

― doom-e, Monday, 13 January 2003 13:18 (twenty-three years ago)

where he is instantly lynched by angry strummer fans!!

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 13 January 2003 13:26 (twenty-three years ago)

well, being that as it may, i would wait awhile before lynching (i love joe strummer! much better than the pistols).

― doom-e, Monday, 13 January 2003 13:27 (twenty-three years ago)

i have mixed feelings really, that's why it's taking me so long

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 13 January 2003 13:44 (twenty-three years ago)

Forgetting it is probably the most negative reaction you can have to a piece of art. Or not even noticing it in the first place.

― Pete (Pete), Monday, 13 January 2003 13:46 (twenty-three years ago)

That's open to debate though I do see your point.

― Ronan (Ronan), Monday, 13 January 2003 13:50 (twenty-three years ago)

What is art ?

― baggy (baggy), Monday, 13 January 2003 14:05 (twenty-three years ago)

Nickname for Arthur.

Arthur is an alcoholic heir to a fortune.

― Pete (Pete), Monday, 13 January 2003 14:27 (twenty-three years ago)

when i think of a strong reaction i think of, say, projectile vomiting.

there is a lot of forgettable art/music/writing--i don't think of that as necessarily a negative assessment, more a neutral one. just a mental "meh". the reeeeally awful stuff you tend to remember, and not want to. stuff where you just cringe at the memory.

though then there's stuff that's so incredibly bad it's funny. that tends to be memorable too.

― JuliaA (j_bdules), Monday, 13 January 2003 14:48 (twenty-three years ago)

Wanting to create something that completely negates the thing you hated and everything you can possibly imagine it 'standing for', and do it so effectively that the original piece is thoroughly discredited or ridiculed andeventually forgotten. But then, is that 'negative' or 'positive'?

― dave q, Monday, 13 January 2003 14:55 (twenty-three years ago)

Pete, you didn't by any chance wrote Start Me Up? heh

― nathalie (nathalie), Monday, 13 January 2003 14:59 (twenty-three years ago)

Hein?

― Pete (Pete), Monday, 13 January 2003 15:11 (twenty-three years ago)

can anyone point me to a strummer obit that was actually any good, uk or us?

I'm writing one for my college paper as we speak. I'll show it to y'all when I'm done if I'm not too embarrassed by it. ;)

― Justyn Dillingham (Justyn Dillingham), Monday, 13 January 2003 15:30 (twenty-three years ago)

"It is one of the astounding ironies of music history that, at the premiere of The Rite of Spring, the orchestra was barely audible. On that chaotic evening of May 29, 1913, Pierre Monteux valiantly conducted to the finish, amidst the public din, but the initial derisive snickers finally ballooned into a guerre à mort, transforming Paris's Théâtre des Champs-Élysées into a scene of pandemonium never previously experienced by the Ballet Russes and resident noblesse. According to one eye-witness, the audience - driven berserk by Nijinsky's "perverse" choreography - raged uncontrollably over what it felt a blasphemous effort to destroy music. Nijinsky's future wife witnessed an elegantly attired damsel slap a young man hissing nearby, this effrontery provoking him to exchange cards with her escort. As the ballet concluded with the Sacrificial Dance - tremorous paroxysms seizing the hitherto immobile Chosen Victim - alarm echoed through the gallery: "Un docteur, ... un dentiste, ... deux docteurs." Nijinsky, straddling and offstage chair, continuously bellowed out ("like a coxswain," Stravinsky recalled) a barrage of counts to maintain the dancers' metrical synchronization, while the impressario Diaghilev, fearing public panic, ordered electricians to turn the houselights on and off. Jean Cocteau noted that Diaghilev, Stravinsky, and Nijinsky, huddled together in the Bois de Boulogne during the wee later hours, wept at the debacle."

― Justyn Dillingham (Justyn Dillingham), Monday, 13 January 2003 15:33 (twenty-three years ago)

Yeah I don't throw banana skins lightly either, in any sense.

Okay, due to an unfortunate difference between US slang and Irish English, this sentence is making me laugh much harder than it actually should.

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 13 January 2003 15:37 (twenty-three years ago)

...and apperently people still walk out of it to this day.

― Christine "Green Leafy Dragon" Indigo (cindigo), Monday, 13 January 2003 15:39 (twenty-three years ago)

I once threw a comic book on the fire. I'd got it free, as a review copy. It was from a prolific but small company from that black and white indie boom in the '80s. They might have been called Eternity, but I might be misremembering and can't be bothered checking what I still have by them. The comic was utterly inept and violent misogynist.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 13 January 2003 20:21 (twenty-three years ago)

Dan what's the difference? I did mean it as a crap pun.

― Ronan (Ronan), Monday, 13 January 2003 22:50 (twenty-three years ago)

I was going under the assumption that "banana skins" was common usage instead of "banana peels", and since "skins" is a term for "ready-for-sex vagina"...

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 13 January 2003 22:53 (twenty-three years ago)

ah!

― Ronan (Ronan), Monday, 13 January 2003 22:54 (twenty-three years ago)

I would have thought that the most negative reaction to art would be indifference.

― toraneko (toraneko), Tuesday, 14 January 2003 00:23 (twenty-three years ago)

Just go to any radio stations disposal / free bin and pick out some of the CDs there. Some of the worst music I've ever heard has come from these.

― A Nairn (moretap), Tuesday, 14 January 2003 00:51 (twenty-three years ago)

Indifference may be a negative reaction to art I suppose so maybe I should have entitled this thread how upset have you got by a piece of art. But I mean then someone would read as disturbed and I don't know.

― Ronan (Ronan), Tuesday, 14 January 2003 09:03 (twenty-three years ago)

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