Boning Up On art

IT is art.

To you it might look like a bone-shaped piece of wood, a mere fixing on which David Hensel’s sculpture of a laughing head was meant to sit but it is so much more.

The Times says the head and plinth were two parts of a piece called One Day Closer to Paradise.

But they became separated in transit. The head was shown to judges choosing works to include in the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition. It was deemed unfit for display. It was rejected.

Then the bit of wood on a plinth came before the judges. They loved it. “It’s a quirky little piece,” says David Mach, one of the judges. He duly selected the fixing for the summer show.

“We were quite puzzled by it and that’s why we liked it,” says he. It, like the judges, is worthy.
So they told the artist that his work had been accepted. “I was very excited about going to London to see my sculpture on display,” says Hensel, “but I walked all the way round the gallery looking for it and couldn’t find it.”

But lo! “Eventually, I saw just the base on a shelf with the piece of wood that was meant to keep the head in place on it, which looks like a bone.”

So there it is. An insight into how the art world functions. And an explanation as to why our work Vomit In Sock did not make the cut. Next year, we’ll just send in the vomit…

Posted: 15th, June 2006 | In: Uncategorized Comment | TrackBack | Permalink