Search Swinburne Research Bank
Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.3/24949
 Download PDF (Published version) (Adobe Acrobat PDF, -1 bytes) |
- Title
- As happy as a pig in art
- Author(s)
- Tofts, Darren; Haig, Ian
- Abstract
- Innovative, insightful, significant. These are some words that may come to mind when thinking about the appellations artists crave to hear about their work. Ian Haig, it seems, is an exception to the rule. For Haig, revolting barbarous and shameless would appear to be favorites in the ultimate lexicon of recognition. During the exhibition of his most recent work, The Dirt Factory, he was the recipient of that most sought after grail, a full page of free publicity in the Melbourne Herald Sun, courtesy of our lyrical orator of all things cultural, journalist Andrew Bolt. The scourge of artists and cultural funding bodies, Bolt pilloried Haig in his inimitable “your taxes paid for this” style of bellicose belle lettrism. The excremental theme of The Dirt Factory clearly wasn’t to Bolt’s taste and after describing how Haig’s work stinks, he likened him to a pig frolicking in its own filth. Art, it seems, must always be uplifting and enlightening, steering away from the darker less palatable realities of the human condition. If Haig is indeed a pig, then he is in good company. One of the greatest artists of abjection is also of the porcine family, by name Francis Bacon. Not to mention those other spurned artists who have plumbed the depths, among them Samuel Beckett (whose centenary was celebrated last month), Shakespeare and Dante. I took some time out to wallow in the mire. [Introduction]
- Publication type
- Essay
- Research centre
- Swinburne University of Technology. Faculty of Life and Social Sciences
- Source
- RealTime, No. 73 (Jun-Jul 2006), p. 29
- Publication year
- 2006
- Keyword(s)
- Art criticism; Art exhibitions; Arts funding; Haig, Ian; Interactive art; Interview; Mixed media installations; Review
- Publisher
- Open City
- ISSN
- 1321-4799
- Publisher URL
- http://www.realtimearts.net/article/73/8131
- Copyright
- Copyright © 2006 Darren Tofts. Published version of this paper reproduced with the kind permission of the publisher.
- Full text
