Art and alcohol

the problem is perhaps I should have made it a "Alcohol THEN art" weekend, cos as much as Ive always admitted to being clueless about art, after the experience of looking at Mike Parr's so called art installation I have to say that even IF I had started my day with lots of alcohol before visiting the installation I would still not be able to ever accept his work as art.
All I see is torture. Torture of people, torture of animals. And yes, much as I believe in choice, so you may tell me that the people that took part in the filming of the videos made a choice to let the torturous act be done to them, it still totally baffles me how the City of Sydney can use tax payers money to display such gruesome acts in one of the city's most prominent art festival. (and dont forget you cant use the choice argument for the numerous chicken mercilessly tortured either!).

There wasnt even any attempt to warn people visiting the installation of the awful nature of what people are to expect, and there certainly was no sign of any sort of group protesting the act. I wonder where are all the groups with the moral high grounds that are always out and about protesting far more trivial things?

the installation was bad enough to ruin the experience and any other good pieces by other artists that I saw on the day.

Ensuing discussion that led to the question of the fine line between child pornography or what the parents who are also the artists using their own children as subject certainly didnt help calm me down.

The only comfort I could find was the warmth of the Gluhwein at Sylvia's accompanied with meeting the lovely Yoko, and of course memories of my first Gluhwein at IAF, and once again with Sascha and Juliane in Dusseldorf