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Pressures of looking at an artist's work
(Working title)
I'm not sure what the correct term is, so I'll just say I visited some 'artist lock ups' on Saturday. The ones where you have to press the buzzer for you to let them in.
Anyway, in one of them we were greeted by a stern looking Irish artist, and his (I think) work based around the troubles in Northern Ireland. Basically the floor was made up of empty gun shells and the walls were decked with rifle handles, and there was some fake explosives in one room. But I felt pretty uncomfortable treading clumsily over these empty shells, looking sheepishly at the work. I thought it was slightly comical and crude. It didn't bring home the troubles in NI, I just thought 'wow, there's a lot of shells here'.
D'you find it slightly odd the expectations put on the viewer? Should they have to disguise their thoughts on the work in order to appease the artist?