"Alternative" art first caught my attention a couple of years ago when I visited a small gallery in London that exhibited shit work - literally I mean: sculptures, a lot of them, made by what I recall being a Spanish or South American artist who employs faecis and turn them into art objects. Then there was a dog by the same artist, whom he let die of starvation while calling the process "modern art".

***

The Tate has just bought some William Blake hand-made pictures. The inscription for one of them, depicting a naked man clasping his head in pain as he is consumed by flames, reads: "I sought Pleasure & found Pain." My thought exactly every morning when I go to work; I wonder if I also look the same. The museum paid £441m for these pieces.



Thursday, 4 March 2010

The Glasgow Hero

Last night I turned over the last page of Lanark while Alasdair Gray became another of my heroes.

This is the tale I have liked the most in a good while and made my jaw drop at least once.

Last month I was going on about this silly 'One Day' novel that I only bought because the poster in the underground described it as 'extremely funny'.

Well when the protagonist was smashed on the road by a car while on her bike I didn't really laugh - but that might just be me after all.

Lanark*, or Thaw, or Alasdair reminds me of many men I have met who are unable to love and blame it all on some sort of female hysteria.

However Alasdair can at least draw and drag me in his surreal, intriguing and magic world where I can catch dragonide and get lost in his reasonable madness.

Do you think it's time to interview Alasdair Gray?

I mean before it's too late , , ,

* Beside being the protagonist of the homonymous novel by Gray, Lanark also is a small town in Scotland.









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