Tick Tock
Posted: August 1, 2012 Filed under: Galleries, Museums, Private Collections | Tags: 2012 Olympics, art, Big Ben, British artists, clocks, contemporary art, graphics, London, Olympic art posters, Olympic posters 2012, Sarah Morris, time 2 Comments
We didn’t see the official London Olympics posters much here in America (not sure about my friends in other nations) but Londoner’s reactions to them were decidedly negative.
http://www.dezeen.com/2011/11/04/london-2012-olympic-and-paralympic-games-posters/
From the classically British
Oh dear… not very good are they?
to the scathing
Thought this may have been a joke at first, still have a hard time believing this is actually tied in to the Olympics, or anything respectable really. Does being a “well known” artist mean you don’t have to try anymore?
I’m featuring my pick from these slim pickin’s. Sarah Morris’s Big Ben 2012.
As you might realize from the onset, she features London’s most iconic time piece as a double entendre for both the city and the reality that the Olympic machine turns on seconds and milliseconds. Gold and silver decided by a razor edge of time, seconds sliced down to decimal places incomprehensible.
She’s plucked the minute and hour hands from their traditional place and multiplied them. Stretched them into taut bolts, arrows both coming and going. Time as a weapon? A severed dream. Arrow – can you hit the mark? On your marks.
The concentric circles tell the story of the clock face and suggest the Olympic rings piled one on top another. A flag-like diversity of color embraces the panoply of countries gathered.
It’s cool, strong and graphic with layers of meaning. Will it be a winner in the art legacy of Olympic posters? Only time will be the tell.
igetitart 
the audacity of the peanut gallery is amazing really. I’m certainly not afraid to put my aggressive strokes on canvas, but on the walls of my private abode? I think I need hours of therapy before I could do that. Put my work up for the world to see and critique? Ha, not a chance. Artists, those out there trying to make it in the world as their primary identity have the courage of soldiers, frontier pioneers, and astronauts as far as I’m concerned. Their physical lives might not be on the line, but their emotional well being is exposed to total many times unforgiving strangers.
Paint your painting, hang it on the city streetscapes for the masses to laude, critique, mimic, hate, love, and discuss. THAT’S what’s worth praising, the mere act of opening themselves up to these hooligans.
For the record, no I could not paint like that, I hate straight lines.
That’s my comment, and I’m sticking by it.
Well I have a fondness for the peanut gallery since I am a card carrying member. And criticism is kind of cathartic in a way, n’est pas? Schadenfreude and all. Nevertheless, I usually try for the encouragement angle under the assumption that what we appreciate, appreciates.