'Artistes'

Last Saturday a group of ‘artistes’ rode the New York Subway wearing their underpants (they wore ‘normal’ clothes on their top half). Notice I use the word artistes in the loosest sense of the word. I could think of many ways to describe these people but there may be children reading this so I won’t.

These, ahem artistes, said that they were out to shock people. Ooh yes, I was really shocked because I’ve never seen a person wearing underpants before. Yes very shocking indeed. How radical of them. One woman wearing a pair of pink frilly knickers complained that a tourist took a photograph of her wearing said knickers. She said she felt violated. Well love, how about putting some trousers on? Perhaps people wouldn’t stare at you.

They called this event ‘improv comedy’. I’m sorry but I thought the word improvisation meant to make something up as one went along. Somehow I don’t think 20 people woke up last Saturday and thought hey I’m going to ride the subway in my pants today.

Can you imagine them sitting in the pub planning this event? I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall.

Man One: Hey I’ve got a great idea. Why don’t we walk around Manhattan with flower pots on our heads? We could, like, expose the plight of flowers in pots.

Woman One: Yeah that’s a good idea dude but I have a better one. Why don’t we wear our swim suits and go ice skating. We could let the world know that it’s OK to wear swim suits and skate.

Man Two: Hey, I have it. Let’s ride the subway wearing our pants. That would be so radical.

All: Cool. What a great idea. Let’s do it.

A few weeks before this SHOCKING event I was reading about an artist who took photographs of women walking round the financial district of New York topless. Again, how radical. He (yes the photographer was a he – perhaps I should tell him about Page 3) said that he wanted to challenge the concept of wearing of clothes. I don’t know about you but clothes keep me warm in the winter and prevent my wobbly bits from getting sunburnt in the summer. Apparently he was arrested shortly after he started taking photographs. Wish I’d been there to see that. I bet that shocked him.

There’s a craze in London (at least there was before I left – these artistes are fickle folk) which involves people standing in train stations and dancing wildly to whatever happens to be on their ipod. Again, this apparently, is art. To me they are just a bunch of fools who haven’t got anything better to do than make a show of themselves.

The same people (probably) also tour London for group hug sessions.
London is a lonely place they say. Well, yes it is, and it’s even more lonely when you realise you’re surrounded by people like this.

Maybe I’m just a philistine. Or maybe I just appreciate REAL art. I wonder what Cezanne would have made of it?