[00:14.16]Conversation 1
[00:18.70]I went and saw an exhibition at the Hayward Gallery earlier in the week.
[00:25.36]Oh,did you?What was it?
[00:29.13]It was a collection of photos from the first lunar landing.
[00:34.38]Oh,readdy?It sounds quite interesting.What was it like?
[00:40.44]Quite good,actually,the photos were really great,quite amazing-some of them.
[00:47.60]So,you’d recommend it,then?
[00:51.15]Yes,you should go and see it.
[00:54.91]Conversation 2
[01:03.37]I went and saw that new exhibition at the National Gallery the other day.
[01:10.64]Oh,did you?Which one’s that again?
[01:15.31]Oh,it was this collection of Flemish paintings from the seventeenth century.
[01:21.37]Oh really?What was it like?
[01:25.63]Well,I didn’t think much of it myself.It was all a bit dull,you know.
[01:31.38]So,you wouldn’t recommend it,then?
[01:35.35]No,I’d give it a miss,if I were you-
[01:39.79]unless you really like that sort of thing,of course.
[01:43.86]Recommending expressions
[01:58.91]Listen and check your answers.Which expressions recommend an exhibition?
[02:08.05]Which do not?
[02:11.11]1.It’s OK if you’re into that sort of thing.
[02:16.46]2.It’s a must.
[02:23.12]3.I really recommend it.
[02:30.18]4.I’d give it a miss if I were you.
[02:37.15]5.It’s well worth a visit.
[02:43.81]6.It’s not worth the entrance fee.
[02:50.48]7.It’s not really my cup of tea.
[02:57.14]2. While you read Art Attack
[03:13.18]It’s November,which means it’s the time of year
[03:18.74]when the papers are full of acticles by people who are shocked about art.
[03:24.59]This is because in November the Tate Gallery on London
[03:30.16]holds the annual Turner Prize exhibition of modern art.
[03:35.61]Each year four of the best British artists
[03:40.34]are selected from all those who have exhibited during the year
[03:45.10]and of these,one is chosen.
[03:49.56]For the most part,the shock journalists express is not moral outrage,
[03:56.33]but more of the ’You call that art?!’variety.
[04:01.79]We are treated to string of the usual complaints and cliches:
[04:07.54]’Anyone could od that!’’My five-year-old daughter could do better than that.’
[04:14.01]’A bed in the middle of a room!Where’s the skill in that?’
[04:19.58]’Whatever happened to people just painting pictures?’
[04:25.14]’Fifty thousand pounds for that!You’re pulling my leg.’etc.etc.
[04:32.40]Well,personally,I’m sick of it-the journalists complaining,that is-not the art.
[04:39.56]The only thing which is predicable,boring,and money for nothing is their writing.
[04:47.82]These people just want art to be pretty pictures.
[04:53.77]For them,it’s just an extension of interior design
[04:59.23]-something which will match the sofa or look good in the bedroom.
[05:04.80]For me,the worst thing anyone could say about art is that it looks quite nice.
[05:12.35]Art should make you think.
[05:16.60]Art should be the result of artists thinking about the world
[05:22.38]they see and their reactions to it.
[05:26.74]It shouldn’t be about seeing something and saying,
[05:31.89]’Oh,that looks nice.I’ll paint that and make it look just like a photograph,
[05:38.65]and I’ll take ten years to do it,
[05:42.49]’which is what these journalists seem to think is required of art.
[05:47.95]I have made a selection of some of the previous Turner Prize entrants
[05:54.30]-I know journalists do not like to spend time doing research for themselves,
[06:00.33]so I’ve done it for them.
[06:03.96]Perhaps they could ask the question Wolfgang Tillmans,a previous winner,poses.
[06:10.81]’These scenarios might appear strange to some people,
[06:16.56]but I try to ask through them,what is so strange here,
[06:22.62]the scenario in the picture,the would around you,
[06:27.89]society,your ideas about beauty or my ideas about beauty?’
[06:35.15]Richard Long caused outrage with his work,
[06:41.71]which was a line of bricks laid on the floor of the gallery.
[06:46.96]He made a similar piece with bits of slate,a kind of grey stone,
[06:53.91]which he’d found on a walk in the countryside.
[06:58.17]Martin Creed won the prize with a piece which involved the audience
[07:04.65]walking into an empty gallery space and the lights suddenly being turned off
[07:10.99]and then sometime later turned back on again.
[07:15.57]Rachel Whiteread uses common objects as a mould.
[07:21.63]She fills the inside with concrete
[07:25.99]and exhibits the sculptures with the objects removed.
[07:30.74]She has used tables,chairs,bookcases and,most famously,a whole house.
[07:38.29]Simon Patterson,in a work called ’The Great Bear’,
[07:44.17]painted a replica of the London Underground map,
[07:49.03]but repplaced the names of the stations with the names of famous people from history.
[07:55.09]Chris Ofilli paints religious figures,
[08:00.44]and as well as paint uses other media such as mud and elephant dung.
[08:07.39]Mayor Giuliani in New York once tried to ban one of his works of the Virgin Mary
[08:14.55]because he said it was an insult to the Catholic religion.
[08:19.72]Tracy Emin was famous for making an installation
[08:25.47]of her slept-in bed in the middle of a gallery.
[08:29.91]She also made a tent and pinned on the inside the names of all the men she’d slept with.
[08:37.46]Douglas Gordon won for showing Alfred Hitchcock’s thriller,’Psycho’,
[08:44.23]which he slowed down so much that it took twenty-four hours to play instead of two.
[08:51.07]Personally,I don’t really care if you don’t like these pieces;
[08:57.91]that’s not the point.
[09:01.15]What should be absolutely clear,though,
[09:05.41]is that these ideas are not the work of five-year-olds,
[09:11.05]but of creative,intelligent adults.
[09:15.78]It’s a shame we can’t say the same of some journalists and critics!
[09:21.95]1. Oh,that reminds me!
[09:33.10]Listen and check your answers.
[09:37.85]1.I visited Alan in hospital last Friday to see how he was getting on.
[09:44.80]Oh,did you?I keep meaning to go and see him myself.How was he?
[09:51.28]2.I spent all day Sunday catching up on all my mail.
[10:00.53]Oh,that reminds me.I must send in my passport application.
[10:06.20]3.I went and saw that musical,Chicago,last week.
[10:14.84]Oh,I’ve been meaning to go and see that for ages.
[10:20.12]Was it as good as everybody says?
[10:24.38]4.I went round to Mike and Sue’s the other day to see
[10:32.11]that new car they’ve been telling everyone about.
[10:36.24]Oh,that reminds me.I must give them a call.
[10:41.52]I haven’t spoken to them for ages.
[10:45.46]5.I went down to Bristol for the weekend a couple of weeks ago.
[10:54.89]Oh,really.I’ve been thinking about having a weekend away myself.
[11:00.77]Were you camping or what?
[11:04.53]6.I just stayed in last night and watched TV.
[11:12.99]There’s a great thing on on Fridays at the moment about Antarctica.
[11:18.77]Oh,that reminds me.I must record that new thing on Channel Four tonight.
[11:24.62]It’s meant to be really funny.
