Safe as ConDem’d Houses ( UK Towers; the ConDems’ Economic Miracle )
(c) Michael St.Mark 2015
Context
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Demolition site, Lambeth. Alluding to presevation of wealth for the select few, symbolized by the “true blue Tory” safe wall safe ( safe from demolition, wealth safe from banking crises etc ), whilst surrounding supporting structure is reduced to zero hours nil rights wreckage, ripe for a new fat cat profit private contract / poverty wage / job insecurity economic model to rise from the ruins like a diseased zombie.
Data
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Signed edition of 25 fine art Lightjet prints on Kodak Pro Endura.
27″ x 19″
£350 ( unframed )
* Related Work from 2013, midway through the coalition “ Building a Better Britain “
London Dada fast-access archive / works presently released for purchase / investment.
LONDON DADA 
Fab photo Mr St. Mark. I love the way only the ‘Tory’ safe is untouched yet the rest of the building [our economy] is being propped up, it sums up very nicely the state of play between ‘them and us’.
I wonder why people can’t seem to see that the rich are still getting richer while the rest of us poorer? Hopefully at the Election in May the apathetic who walk among us will vote to show that at last they have a grip on reality and they’ll get rid of the shower who represent us at the moment. It may be our only chance to restore the ‘Great’ to Britain.
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I think peeps arebeginning to see through the smoke and mirror BS of the mainstream (corporate) media’s daily front page or news desk propaganda shouts Mrs B.. only thanks to social media now getting the upper hand in terms of general viewing time and offering an alternative view of the weasel words and dastardly deeds of those in high office. All our big radio stations are still owned by the BBC or Sky mind – but still; Dinosaurs Must Fall!
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Oh, my bad. It’s like the old Charlie Brown and Lucy debate over blue-bloods too, doubtless. And that will be the rare rich soul who actually does not despise the poor…Wordsworth leaving his reflections in sonnets, Shelley’s lament on his defection from the cause holds less weight.
But that’s an aside.
Your question was more thought-provoking than I realized. Yes. If it were rendered as a painting, I’d unconsciously accept it, to then pick fault with the subject matter and our almost universal departure and blindness to this our calling.
Thank you for kindly clarifying the goal of Dada. And if I can only find the words, I shall attempt to offer another angle on Ball’s statement and intents. Consider Shelley. I believe him exemplary, and yet he is a classic artist. That is, we need not present the naked ugliness to enlighten. Argh. I cannot think how to express what I meant.
Dada has a comprehension of art’s essence, yet if this is how it must be rendered, I cannot but think we’ve lost a sense of our roots.
Any means of expression shall almost universally be monitored for the sake of repression lest the masses be enlightened and revolt stirs itself. But I already gave my commentary on that angle. You apparently disagree?
But of course, you’re welcome, my pleasure.
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Shelly seems to be more reflective than pro-active..he despairs without hope – a far cry from the Dada spirit.
The initial name for the little cabaret club that Hugo Ball and his wife Emmy Hemmings opened in Zurich in early 1916 was Cabaret Voltaire. Ball was deeply influenced by the French philosopher – have you read him?
” Dada is the search for a new morality” – Richard Heulsenbeck, Balls close friend and co-founder of Dada.
The search took as many forms as there were members of the initial group of artists, however Tristan Tzara’s nihilistic take was the one that art historians have latched on to as being the all-in-all of what Dada is about.
That’s unfortunate because Dada has come to stand for a kind of nonsensical almost clownish anti-art movement, when its initial direction was to stir, to revolt, to shock; but with an underlying positive motive and radical enthusiasm for uncovering a new direction.
For example Ball’s sound poems, although gibberish to the naked ear, when understood from the motivational standpoint of rage and disgust at the manipulation of language by politicians of the day that led to World War 1 and to con the public into going along with it ( “Sadam’s WMDs deployed within 45 mins” being the latest twisted use of language to justify the Iraq war ).
Dada was initially a protest against the war, but its spirit encompasses so much more.
Recommended read ” Memoirs of a Dada drummer” – R. Heulsenbeck.
Dada from the horse’s mouth 🙂
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While I thought to be properly demure and acquiesce, you rather sound as if you are as unfamiliar with my beloved Shelley as I with Dada.
That said, thank you very much for explaining further,and for the recommendation. I googled it promptly upon notice, but failing to access more than google books which are a pain to my laziness, will retain it against later.
Dada’s initial purpose as you state it thus, almost realizes it purpose, but fails ultimately since blind to our roots, I’d venture to assert.
Beg pardon for making a very poor rebuttal, and thank you again.
P.S. No, me not much acquainted with Voltaire, excepting what lit and history classes thought to proffer. Shame, shame?
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So what would be the “roots of art” in your esteemed estimation – cave drawings perchance?
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I wanted to inquire what qualified this as art (yes, kick me for my unforgivable audacity), thought again of modern taste and the degeneration of our holy grail, and then recalled this was Dada…and…still can’t reconcile me. The rich forever oppress the poor, the gulf twixt the twain yawning impossibly wider faster than complacency acknowledged, that pretty solution labeled “the middle class” practically nonexistent as the bad joke it was, and this illustration painfully showcases that like a cry in the bleakness which must go unheard. We cannot propose a revolt, for the French proved such folly. And then I don’t know what to say. Or, I do, but hesitate. Thanks for sharing. Is that blue like the classic pc demise “the blue screen of death”?
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The colour blue, over here, is symbolic of the political Right, as in “true blue Tory”, the party of the elite class who have always stood for the diminishing of the masses’ social rights and well as workers’ pay and conditions; the steady transfer of wealth towards the already wealthy.
If this was a painting would it be more like art for you?
It’s Dada in the original sense as Hugo Ball, it’s founder, defined it, missy.
” Art, for us, is not an end in itself,but is an opportunity for true perception and criticism of the times we live in.”
Not many artists are prepared to “tell it like it is” for fear of a career-limiting reaction( and they’re right to fear that).
So we end up with a diet consisting of the tepid, the safe, the tedious.
UK media and arts are increasingly heavily edited and restricted.
We’re betting on the dam of free-range creativity to burst soon.
A tide of Dada in 2016?
Thanks for commenting 🙂
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