Friday 28 September 2012

It's a shameless act of self pollution

Show Name: I Love Criticulous and Critculous Loves Me
Artist: Gareth K Vile
Venue: Arches LIVE 2012
Date: Sat 29 Sep 2012 |2pm onwards | Foyer| Free

Descriptions (from The Arches Website): He took confession, investigated murder, chatted to stars and was locked up in a basement for his art. Now Criticulous faces the ultimate challenge: collaboration. 

Unwilling to admit that criticism is not the original art form, Criticulous fights his ego and mounting anxiety to present a series of pieces that brings dance, radio, dialectics, sculpture and the audience into his relentless quest to understand a world he did not create but reflects.
Contains desperation.

The idea for I Love Criticulous was inspired by Joseph Beuys. I don't want to give too much away... there isn't that much to give away, anyway. But then Vile remembered seeing An Oak Tree by Tim Crouch and decided to rip it off. And he was listening to Radio 3 while he was writing the script, and realised that he could pretend that the piece was a celebration of John Cage's hundredth anniversary if he built in a random selection process. 

The thread that runs through the script is a darkly cynical exploitation of the work of other artists. In the absence of any real inspiration, Vile figured that he could pose as a post-modernist by collaging the inspiration of others. His conscience bothered him, so a great deal of the text involves explaining the references, acknowledging his sources.

But there is a core message at the heart of all... and not just that no-one ought to trust a critic who claims that they are making a collaborative art work. To be honest, we've been rehearsing it for three weeks, and I am not entirely sure what the message might be.

Oh yeah, that's the interpretation thing. Apparently it is all about how every possible reading is valid. That just sounds like a pitiful excuse, to be honest.


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