The Old Tart Brigade | 4 – 24 nov
Artist Statement :
What do old tarts do the best? Gossip, and if there is nothing good to gossip about, making up stories is a far better way to amuse one’s self and friends. This type of gossip forms advantageous alliances that they hope will provide some stability to their own lives, to show their social hierarchy, and to ideally have the upper hand. However, gossip is inevitable and blameless – the problem lies instead in its content, which reflects precisely what is going on in people’s minds through these processes. The nasty little white lies generated by such gossip never die, they grow and linger long after the instigator has passed away; it creates a residual presence of continuous social decay.
To be good at malicious gossip requires a high degree of subtlety and skill which comes with practice and time. It seems that the trick is to appear to be sympathetic to the victim while holding them below the waterline with implicit denigration.
In the world of gossip, self-deception often takes the form of genuinely believing one is on the high moral ground of charitable sympathy, while looking down on one’s slowly sinking victim drowning in their own stomach-churning anger, shame, frustration, fear and resentment, all of which feeds stress like a carcass feeds maggots. The old tarts brigades perform this social act so very well.
Simply assume that anything you say can and will be used against you when they are around, as these old tarts are everywhere!
Any resemblance to persons living or dead should be bleeding obvious to those who know them!
No actual tarts were harmed in the making of these works of art.
Some details from this new exhibition
