Tuesday 26 February 2013

International Art English

I like to consider myself as a nice person. I smile when I say I am grumpy. I put out as many previews as I can on this blog, because I believe in the importance not only of art but its ongoing discussion within society. I'd go so far as to say there is nothing that I have seen, ever, that wasn't worth my time and attention.

However, today I have had way too much of Tramway's industrial strength coffee and I am in the middle of a big temper tantrum. I also had a flashback to my first ventures into criticism.

Once upon a time, I was a teacher who lived around the corner from Tramway. One day, I went to see a show there that made me reconsider the very foundations of my assumptions about life and love. When the panic subsided, I realised that art has a way of reaching the emotions and the intellectual simultaneously, presenting ideas in a manner that can engender epiphanies.

At that point, I decided that I had to become a critic. The Vile that is now sitting at Tramway, cutting and pasting press releases, is the result of that moment. I threw away my career as a Latin teacher to join the circus.

My intention to become a critic was enforced when I read the description of the show I had seen on the internet. It was gibberish. There was nothing that would have persuaded me to see the show. It sounded pretentious. It was described in words that I did not understand.

This art was too important to be hidden by the use of a specialist language.

This art was too important to be occluded by the utilisation of specialist language.

This creative discipline is too important to be occluded by the utilisation of specialist idiolects.

This creative discipline is too salient to be occluded by the utilisation of idiolects comprehensible to the active practitioner.

This creative discipline is too salient to be occluded by the utilisation of idiolects transparent only to the active practitioner. 

I am declaring war on this use of language. From now on, I am going to take the worst examples and translate them.

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