Car Park Art

Contemporary art spans many different and delightful forms. The traditional media such as oil paintings and bronze sculptures still hold their own against more recently developed approaches that use digital media or performance art to create works that are now shaping our modern lives. Therefore the only true concern of art in the twenty-first century is not the 'how' but the 'what'. And that 'what' is the focus of this week's blog.

If you take Picasso's premise that, 'art is a lie that enables us to realise the truth' then we can only truly understand the world through the prism of art. Sadly not everything is considered art, or given the focus by artists. Therefore in order for humanity to survive and prosper it is our duty to turn everything into art and every artist's duty is to do this. I already consider myself and my life as a work of art as outlined in my blog Life is Art. Art is Life. I am Art. Art am I, but I am a trivial irrelevance in the great scheme of things - car parks are not.

If I may modestly quote from my own blog Life is ...a car parking space (one of a number I have contributed on this important subject),

"The car parking space enables society to function, it enables life to happen - it is by proxy the arbiter of your mood, the barometer against which you measure whether you have had a good day, the enabler of activity (or frustrater). It is the lungs of enterprise, the heart of capitalism, the place of that first kiss, the conception of the first child (or fourth child in Ron Howard's case) and ... in dental hygiene."

It is not to overstate the case that the very survival of the human race is dependent upon the creation of more car park art. Only then will society really see itself for what it is and appreciate this most omnipresent of modern architectural phenomena. A new understanding will emerge, one that embraces the lie of the internal combustion engine and its incestuous relationship with the ubiquitous oblong of space. We can only 'realise the truth' of this if art recognises inherent lie that is the car parking space.

I recently discovered a blog post called 'Other Car Park Art' (at http://friarsgate.wordpress.com/2010/02/13/other-car-park-art/) that shows I am not alone in this view. It features art that is based within the car park's oblong environment. The next stage is art independent of the rectangular locus but inspired by, and conveying the inherent truth of, the subject. This is my call to arms for artists everywhere to take up the challenge to populate our modern galleries with 'the truth'. It should be easy - most paintings are rectangles as are most car parking spaces - that is surely no coincidence.

My dream, is that 10 years from now the ten most famous artworks will not be 

• Mona Lisa,
• Starry Night,
• The Last Supper,
• The Sistine Chapel ceiling's Birth of Adam.
• Guernica,
• Girl with the Pearl Earring,
• The Scream,
• Night Watch,
• Water Lilies, and
• The Birth of Venus

but

• Moaning Liza, lipstick on the rear view mirror, an early Renaissance style painting of an enigmatically smiling lady who got the last 'women only' parking space in a Japanese car park see blog Car Parking is a Gender Issue
• Staying All Night, oil on concrete, an abstract of someone getting great value on car park overnight rates
• The Lost Slipper, pen and ink on windscreen, Pre Raphaelite study of the crucial point in the fairytale when Cinderella's pumpkin gets a ticket in a 30 minutes only parking space
• The Ticket Booth's Purse of Ada, pastels in glove compartment, a post impressionistic view of a single object handed in to the security office found on the car park ticket machine
• Milton Keynes, gouache and coloured pencil on lavatory wall, a meditation on the destruction of a whole city through the excessive creation of car parks 
• Girl with the Pearlescent SsangYong, oil stains on hubcap, Fauvist celebration of female asian motoring in a field set aside for the annual Korean mud festival
• The Screaming, salt and watercolour in the petrol tank, a post impressionist breakdown in a residents' only car space
• Night Watchmen, water soluble ink pen in Nuts magazine, constructivist view of the night shift in a 24 hour staffed car park
• Walter's Lilies, watercolour on back seat, impressionist view of a forgotten piece offering gift to a neglected wife in a multi-storey car park
• The Birth of Vera, acrylic on bed sheet, De Stijl abstract of of an incident in the local hospital car park

Artists its now up to you. Make that dream come true

Strange British Laws

I apologise for the slight delay posting my blog following the

1,125th Olde Medieaval Unr'ason Foode Fayre (see last blog).

My memory of it is a little vague, and to be honest it slightly inhibited my defence before the local magistrate the following day. However, my knowledge of the law has been expanded as all the following are actual criminal acts (apparently committed by me over the Fayre weekend). In answer to the charges, I pleaded 'innocent on the grounds of diminished responsibility'.

1. Singing a profane or obscene ballad or song in the street (I thought my rendition of 'Barnacle Bill the Sailor' in front of the Unreason Protestant Nunnery was a useful addition to the Unreason Eisteddfod)

2. Erecting a washing line across a public street (It seemed a good idea at the time).

3. As keeper of a place of public resort permitting drunkenness in the house (I think the museum's license to sell alcohol has now been revoked).

4. To sell alcohol to an intoxicated person (I must admit I was giving myself a substantial staff discount on the cider stall).

5. The discharge of any cannon or other firearm of greater calibre than a common fowling-piece within 300 yards of any dwelling house to the annoyance of any inhabitant thereof. (I didn't know the museum's WWI howitzer worked let alone was loaded).

6. Eating a mute swan - only the Queen can do this and it seems and no amount of me insisting to the policeman that he addressed me as 'Your Majesty' convinced him I was anything other than a steaming drunk museum manager with large white feathers in his mouth.

7. The driving or conducting of any cattle through any street between the hours of 10.00 in the morning and 7.00 in the evening (Farmer Smith is still not talking to me)

8. Being intoxicated and in charge of a cow (I argued I was never fully in control of the cow).

9. Sounding a horn when stationary on a road at anytime, other than at times of danger due to another vehicle on or near the road (I thought it was a useful accompaniment to my ballad - and the cow was never stationary!)

10. Not offering a beached whale to the reigning monarch (I must admit I have no memory of this incident at all).

Net result - 3 month's spent at Her Majesty's pleasure in the Unreason Open Prison. However I'm back now and off to the bookmaker's to cash in my £100 guaranteed winning bet placed on England to get out of the group stages in the FIFA World Cup.