Well, not so much a post as a large slate block. And probably synthetic slate at that. But no matter, for whatever its actual composition, it is undoubtedly of the Earth and will therefore serve as a signifier fully akin to the stonegnome himself. It is thus an appropriate subject for the first entry in this blog.
For the benefit of those who don't know, this particular slate—or whatever it is—block is situated on the riverside walk, immediately outside London's South Bank County Hall Gallery, currently the home of the Dalí Universe exhibition. Mounted atop the block, Dalí's monumental Space Elephant stoically turns its back on the London Eye and strides on its spindly "spider legs of desire" towards the Palace of Westminster. Taken from his painting of The Temptations of St. Anthony, Dalí intended this sculpture to symbolise the 'temptation of power'. I wonder if there was significance in its siting here?
But no matter...
The name of Salvador Dalí is, of course, synonymous with Surrealism and this block, with its elephant, can therefore also be taken as a signifier of that artistic movement generally and hence, by extension, those art forms which draw heavily upon Surrealism for their inspiration, justification and whole common-or-garden semiotic kit-and-caboodle: their raison d'être, if you will. Such as acousmatic music, for instance.
But that's not why TOGH snapped this particular snap, at the end of a sunny Sunday afternoon in June a couple of years back. No, the Gnome was drawn instead to the other, more prominent signifier in this scene: the detritus left to adorn this icon of the surreal by an uncaring and unthinking public. Here we have a perfect signifier for our times—times dominated by a need to acquire, consume and discard. Art is no longer valued or appreciated for what it is but is commodified, packaged, marketed and then consumed and discarded without thought. Music especially no longer seems to have a raison d'être so much as a raison d'avoir. If it doesn't sell, it doesn't exist. Or shouldn't exist. And even if it does sell today, someone will have the job of sweeping it up off the pavements tomorrow.
Sad, n'est-çe pas?
No comments:
Post a Comment