The Motion Sickness Roar

The artspace unit cum gallery floorshow happening event was in full swing. At the same time, coincidentally, the city fathers were aglow and warm at the prospect of tearing down the best buildings in town. Hey, said one of the fatter ones, let’s start with that artspace unit thing.

Upon hearing the news of this news, the artspace unit fillers – those peasant scratchers, parochial crackpots and naïve dabblers - rose up. Banners were carried, children were held aloft and flaming torches were put to the effigies of the various council members.

And to top it all, art with something to say became the order of the day.

Art with something to say!

Locked into a tiny room, the lights down low, Pandora K’s white, plastic-coated, steel wire frame cage is suspended from the ceiling and stuffed through the slats with a number of notes and messages that, in as crystal clear plain language as possible, get across the exact nature and degree of the pain and anguish she is suffering and has suffered, both through her childhood and adolescence, and also as a full grown independent person/artist who, naturally enough, feels even more keenly than mere mortals, citizens that is, the slings, arrows and crippling blows that come from the belittlers and haters who cannot seem to appreciate how her sheer sensitivity and spirituality makes her ready for, and open to, the full pain of life, life itself, not to mention the difficulties of life and the business of simply existing, as hard and as painful as that is on its own terms. She is, of course, the very challenge of life.

Cornered like the rats they are/were, the city fathers had no choice but to surrender and accede to the demands of all those local artists. We, they shouted in unison, are a mere fine line away from making that tread into the realms of arts and crafts. We demand our stalls for the Sunday markets!

On the walls, floors and ceilings of the artspace unit cum gallery floorshow happening event there was a conceptual scramble to see who could be first to not only pose the important questions but also, at the same time, to answer the important questions. Naturally, with all of this scrambling there emerged a good degree of blather and detritus that, siphoned off into the corners, was used as a kind of backing track for the art with something to say to riff over. Man, it was one happening cacophonous howl of beauty in the shriek of the night.

And so the art with something to say continued to confuse itself with art that has something to say.