So much in art today is reliant on an artists ability to bullshit, bullshitting itself has become an art form as Jenny Fiduccia revealed in her recent Map article, ‘Bullshit! Calling Out Contemporary Art’. Edinburgh Art Festival roles around again and simultaneously we see Duchamp’s Fountain at the Dean Gallery while Martin Creed stacks up chairs, wood, cactuses, (imported from Birmingham as apparently there is not a cactus to be found in rainy Scotland) at the Fruitmarket Gallery. What links these two? The art of the blag - I am not being derogatory, billions of pounds go into this art form. The skill has now become manoeuvring the Ikea table and the John Lewis Packaging into the gallery. One of my favourite Creed quotes goes something along the lines of, ‘I like work that is stupid, the stupider the better…’ On another note however, his work IS self-consciously inclusive; while on some levels it is rigorously structured, on others it can be seen as a never ending pattern which the audience, as participant, moves into at any point to activate (for instance the sonic stair piece). Therefore if the audience is part of the work, and the best work is stupid, is the best audience is a stupid one… This is bullshit!
