TURNER CONTEMPORARY GALLERY A Beginners’ Guide to Conceptual Art Kenneth Byron Eustace Vermilingua (Second Edition)
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TURNER CONTEMPORARY GALLERY
A Beginners’ Guide to Conceptual Art Kenneth Byron Eustace Vermilingua (Second Edition) 2019
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A Trip To Margate This all started when I was visiting my brother Wilson. I asked his New Dad whether it was far to Moorgate, as I’d really like to visit the Turner Contemporary Gallery. It turned out that the Gallery isn’t in Moorgate at all, but in Margate, and Wilson’s New Dad said we could go, which was very nice of him of him!
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We all went - Wilson’s New Dad, Wilson, Nërp the Robot and me. . .
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A Trip To Margate I wanted to go to the Turner Contemporary because I love the work of Ms Katie Paterson, and she had a show on there, but it turns out that Margate is a Top Seaside Resort as well as a major centre of the Arts, and we had a lovely time there even before we got to the Turner Gallery.
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Turner Contemporary So after all sorts of adventures at the Fun Fair and on the Beach, we eventually arrived at the Turner Contemporary Gallery. It’s in a lovely building, and we didn’t even have to pay to go in!
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I was very excited, and so was NĂŤrp (who has never been on holiday before) but I think Wilson would really rather have just gone to the cafĂŠ and had coffee and Danish Pastries. . .
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Inside The Gallery Actually being inside the Gallery was very exciting! They had a lift or elevator that was bigger than the entire Anteater Enclosure where I live! Once we got properly inside, Wilson thought he could see a man trying to drown himself in the sea; I had to stop him phoning the Emergency Services and explain to him that it was an Antony Gormley statue.
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He seemed a bit disappointed, as I think he’d hoped to get his picture in the local paper after a Heroic Rescue.
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Artwork Anyway, we FINALLY got to see some of the art on display in the Gallery! The first piece was called “Light Bulb to Simulate Moonlight (2008) pt 1 and 2”, and it was just stunning, though I don’t think Wilson liked it quite as much as I did. He said he could have seen much the same thing in B&Q’s Lightbulbs department, and the entire gallery reminded him of an upmarket Hardware Store!
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Second Moon The next piece we saw was called “Second Moon”. What there was to see was a DHL Package in a glass display case (which unfortunately was a bit too high for me to see properly) but inside the package was a fragment of Moon Rock which had orbited the Earth for a year by means of an Air Freight Courier, travelling counterclockwise at twice the speed of the actual Moon. Wilson was a bit scathing, saying it was just a package, and he could have given me an Amazon package if he’d known I’d be so interested.
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NÍrp whispered to him that he shouldn’t be so cynical, as he sounded like a twerp, and might be spoiling my enjoyment. . . 15
Timepieces (Solar System) (2014) Then we reached one of the installations I had really been looking forward to seeing: “Timepieces (Solar System) (2014)”, and I sat down on the bench so I could properly take it all in. When Wilson came over and told me to ‘Get Real - it’s a row of clocks, AND they’re all wrong!’ I thought it was time to explain things to him. 'Wilson,’ I said, ‘the artwork is not the clocks. It’s not the Lightbulbs or the DHL Package. The Artwork is the IDEA, the CONCEPT. 16
The clocks, the lightbulbs, the package, they're just the Physical Manifestation of the Concept.’ He seemed quite thoughtful after this. I wonder whether I’m getting through? 17
VATNAJÖKULL (the sound of) I think I’ve made an impression on Wilson, because he’s just said, ’So, Biro, this isn't just a neon sign, is it?' 'You're right!' I replied enthusiastically, 'It's a telephone number. You can call it from anywhere in the world and hear the Vatnajökull Glacier in Iceland dying as it melts. . . it's a very melancholy sound, and a desolate thought, isn't it?'
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I left him contemplating this while I went off to listen to “As The World Turns” (a recording of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons played on a record player whose turntable rotates only once per day).
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Timepieces (Solar System) Revisited By now we’d had a good look at everything in the gallery, but I wanted to take a final look at “Timepieces (Solar System) (2014)”. Nërp and Wilson joined me, coming over from where they’d been listening to “Earth-Moon-Earth” (an automated grand piano playing Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, the data having been transmitted from the Earth to the moon, reflected off the Moon's surface and received back on Earth, the music occasionally interrupted or altered by data-loss).
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After a little while, Wilson asked me, ‘Biro, how do you know so much about all this. . . stuff?’ 'Mostly,' I replied, 'I just read the labels.’ 21
The Visit Concludes Sadly it was now time to leave Margate and return to Uckfield. As we drove back, though, Nërp spotted some Beach Huts that had been very cleverly decorated. We all got out to have a look at them, and Wilson’s New Dad said he thought the one in the middle should be called “Spongebob Beach-hut!”
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Acknowledgements I should like to thank: Wilson’s New Dad for taking me to Margate, The lovely people at The Turner Contemporary Gallery for letting us all in for nothing, Ms Katie Paterson for being such a wonderful and thought-provoking artist, and finally Mr JMW Turner for building such a lovely Art Gallery! 24
Thank you very much for reading my book, I hope you have enjoyed it and now have some greater understanding of Conceptual Art. Kenneth Byron Eustace Vermilingua 2019
2nd Edition/v3
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Vermilingua Publishing Inc https://antwars2.blogspot.co.uk/
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