Dave Hill's Big Britain

Superlamb City

Someone I know who knows says everyone should have one of these. Know what I mean?

Shibboleth & Scepticism

Sample dialogue from the rear seats of the family car last Sunday:

Child 1: "Where are we going?"

Parent 1: "To Tate Modern."

Child 2: Why?"

Parent 2: "To see a crack in the ground."

Child 1: "What's the point of going to see a crack in the ground."

Parent 1: "Because it'll help you think great thoughts."

Child 2: "About what?"

Parent 2: "About the meaning of life and...everything."

Child 3: "But what's the point!"

Parents 1 & 2 together: "You'll enjoy it when you get there."

They did, too, albeit not quite in the way the artist had in mind. Modern art, eh. Tsk.

StPauls Through A Spider

A Wren through a Bourgeois. As seen from outside Tate Modern on Sunday.

Mark Wallinger: Art As Frying Pan

Is it me or has there been less outrage than usual about this year's Turner Prize winner? I'd have thought State Britain, being outright agitprop, would have inspired a wave of fury about "political correctness" and so on. Yet, apart from Brian Sewell's annual show of disapproval, Mark Wallinger's winning recreation of Brian Haw's banned anti-war protest has been greeted quite respectfully. I'm taken by the following comment posted by Carlyle Braden of Croydon at the Evening Standard:

"I'm in two minds about this one. Mr Haw should be hired to sit outside his [Wallinger's] reproduction in the Tate Gallery. [It] would...be a dreadful reminder of [the government's] trying to curtail one's freedom of speech...I still remember Ken Livingstone's number of unemployed across from the seat of government with glee and have been a real fan of Red Ken's ever since! Sometimes you have to hit over the head with a frying pan to get them to listen to you!"

Modern artist speaks for the nation? Whatever next?

Angel Of The North: A Tribute

My nine year-old has yet to see the Angel Of The North but he obviously knows what it looks like. Hence his spontaneous re-creation of it in shadow form a few weeks ago on Hackney Downs. Hope you're flattered, Antony Gormley. Look here to discover the boy's technique.

Art Hustler

From a walkway at the historic - yes, historic - Brent Cross shopping centre.