3 questions :

1. William Carlos Williams, maybe.
2. I don't really know anything about art after pop art or so.
3. Not very.

2)The last ten years of contemporary art have been a slow crawl to try and regain direction and ground lost by the previous century. Promising, but not out of the woods yet.

3) Generally about as entertaining as egging on Doompatrol- ie, fun for the first ten minutes, but gradually becomes horribly depressing as you realise that they *mean it*, maaaaan.

Exactly why I think it's promising. The 20th Century systematically destroyed the fine arts, first abstract expressionism, then pop art, then post-modernism, in a 1-2-3 punch basically cleared the board and declared art over. Now we've got a few cautious people taking baby steps into the "OK, what do we do now?" scary dark void. Which is why I think things are about to get really interesting.

2) I prefer painting.

3) I feel sorry for Jesus freaks, more than anything. It's like picking on the weakest kid at school (maybe it's more fun in the US).

The sculpture is both on the plinth and of the plinth: a simulacrum and a transformation.

Ah, I don't know. The plinth was a bad example to use, I think. Serrano's "Piss Christ", though - that'd be more appropriate.

(the book my sister has of Serrano's pix reveals he has totally FAB colour sense: the blood and piss pieces are gorgeous...!)

But half of Sensation! fitted yr description pretty well, in terms of Not Terribly Well Made.

2. Don't really follow it thoroughly enough, it's not my area of interest per se. However, what I saw at the Tate Modern last year (the most recent stuff, obviously) was intriguing. I can't decide what to think about Damien Hurst...

3. Lord. I'd rather laugh at a distance. Thing is, as another response I made indicated, I'm frustrated by self-imposed limitations, which is what I think Jesus freakery is ultimately all about. I don't so much want to trash them as suggest ways for them to think in new areas. If I'm not directly involved, at least I can be amused.

2) Um, I loved that Virgin Mary with the cow dung!

3) Extrodinarily. I used to make it my only pasttime. My mom still does. It's great. They're easily egged on, we used to write letters to the local newspaper and get engaged in LETTER WARS with Jesus Freaks, and my mom tries to convert all the ones who come door to door to harrass her about the Bible. She really should hang a big sign on her door, "I AM A WICCAN. YOU FIND ME SCARY. GO HOME BASTARDS"

Most of the contemporary art I see (quite a lot) seems keener on making small statements, but that may just be me.

May I take this opportunity to mention how exceptionally marvellous the Bill Viola installation (upstairs) at the D'Offay on Dering Street is, please?

I love the conceptual art stuff dominating now, I don't that care if it's hyped and derided, I just adore all these ideas. Emin, McQueen, Wearing and yes, Hurst. Surely it's closer to true ART than the supremely CRAFTED paintings-to-order of previous centuries?

I thoroughly enjoy egging on religious fundamentalists but I'm blessed by location, living in a city where their power is very restricted. I probably wouldn't enjoy it so much if I was in Alabama or Afghanistan.

Rachel Whitread's House was one of the bet pieces of sculpture ever.

2) By contemporary art do you mean Tracey Emin and Damon Hirst? If so they're a bunch of charlatans

3) Like Ned, I'd rather laugh at a distance

2. Know very little about contemportary art but I did go to the Sensation show when I was visiting New York and it was fun and all but the Bowie narration was the best! Utterly hilarious! His posh, easygoing erudition was so Dave. I wish he'd release it.

3. I'm not that entertained egging on Jesus Freaks. Or Mormons, for that matter. They're just sad.

2. I just LOOOOOVE those Matthew Barney movies.

2: Ordinary. I mean, where's the *awe*? Where's the magnificence? Why is so much contemporary art just so much smug laziness? Last piece that made me skip a beat was the Hindley painting made up of child's handprints. Very disquieting.

3: Snore.

I suppose depending on the day I might say John Berryman instead, or possibly Frank O'Hara. But usually WCW - Berryman is close, though.

2. Kate, I realize we've argued about this before, but what exactly is it that we "lost" in the course of the ENTIRE TWENTIETH CENTURY? I seem to recall you admitting that a lot of the stuff from impressionism to ab. exp. was at least acceptable somehow, even if you didn't like it (ranging to - loathed it).

(2) Dunno that much about it, though what little I've seen I've liked. I liked "Yo Mama's Last Supper," if you're thinking about things like that.

(3) If you include egging on a Jew for Jesus as "egging on Jesus freaks," then yeah it's pretty entertaining. Getting the Black Israelites outside Time Square pissed off is also good for shits and giggles.

Contemporary Art - I like it, a lot. I really have to do more about this. The big eye-opener for me was devouring Matthew Collings' "This Is Modern Art" - amazing style, and a valuable way in to what's been happening.

Jesus freaks piss me off. This is partly because anyone hassling me pisses me off, partly because they're trying to use a sledgehammer to plant a nut, partly because I'm slightly scared about thinking through religious stuff for fear of where I might end up.

In light of the foregoing, I might feel sorry for the Jesus Freaks if they weren't so damn obnoxious and so intent on violating my personal space (and if their colleagues in Washington weren't so intent on taking a shit on the Constitution, but that's another gripe fer another thread).

Matthew Collings = GENIUS. After a century of self-important, self-indulgent, pretentious gits of the Greenbergian school, finally an art critic I can read without throwing the magazine across the room. He is clear, he in concise, he explains what he means, whenever he brings up references to other art movements, he explains himself in a way which is neither confusing and obscurantist to those of us who don't have degrees in art history from Goldsmiths or RISD, yet is not pedantic or insultingly over-obvious to his readers that DO.

I don't always agree with his opinions or his assertations, but he is, under it all, both a brilliant writer, and a superbly critical eye. I like the fact that he strips away the deliberately pretentious and abstruse nonsense that has made much of 20th century art criticism intolerable to me, while still managing to be high-brow, intelligent and intellectual.

Josh, we've argued this before, so I'll be concise.

Search: Impressionists, Dada, *real* German expressionists, those swhirly Italian painters (futurists? constructivists? can't remember the name of the movement), Pop Art, Op Art, some post-modernism (mainly Koons and Hirst).

Destroy: pretty much everything else from the end of post-impressionism, cubists, (KILL Picasso) *abstract* expressionists, colour field-ists, and the rest of pointless, meaningless, pretentious abstract art.

1. I agree with loads of folk who have already written. I'm slightly surprised that no-one has stuck up for the high modernists. Are they too obvious?

2. By 'Contemporary Art' I imagine you mean 'visual art' - things in galleries and so on. If so - it means nothing to me.

3. I don't know whether I understand the third question. I am an atheist. I'm not sure that it is productive for me to discuss religion with anybody else, because I don't expect to change anyone else's mind, and I certainly don't expect them to change mine. (This might, I suppose, go for hundreds of other topics too.)

1) Who said "Israel is a strong friend of Israel"?
2) Who lied and said his pastor of 20 years was taken out of context?
3) Who lied and said he never knew how his pastor really felt?
4) Who suggested America has "57 states"?
5) Who is a Muslim by birth?
6) Who declared the surge wouldn't work and wanted us to surrender to Al Qaeda?

mmm...
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