Dubai Days manuscript

In Time



Apr 18


In time, time takes back everything it gave

From cradle to grave.

Hard to tell what was worth your while

When time squanders everything you saved.







This is a detail from a painting by the Nigerian
abstract expressionist artist Yusuf Seidu Okus.

To learn more about his exhibitions and to purchase
his work, please visit
http://artbyyusufokus.blogspot.com/

















Insanity


30th Sep 18

We say hello
As we pass one another,
Not even stopping
To look back.
We wave
From opposite corners
Of the world.
We fish
In boats overloaded with fish.
We waste years
Navel gazing
But complain
There’s not enough time
To get everything done.
We ignore
The loves of our lives
To run to those
Who’ll break our hearts.
We
Are
Sane
In our
Insanity.





Is Modern Art Really Art and Why Does the Public
Hate it?



























th
26 Jun 17


Elitist art curators, pundits and art historians
bewilder and alienate the public from art through
their use of bombastic, flighty and pretentious
language surrounding art. I also think the same
suspiciously over blown, abstruse language is used
when relating and discussing concepts and
movements in philosophy to the laity.

I love art and especially modern art (1850 onwards)
and there is some excellent contemporary art out
there. There is a great deal of contempt for figures of
modern art like Jeff Koons and deservedly so; the
gentleman is full of his own self-importance and gets
paid obscene amounts of money for doing work that
he himself doesn't physically make and for ideas that
lack originality and imagination.


But there is a conflation of different issues here.

The thing that irritates the public about modern
artists is when the 'artist' demonstrates little or no
technical skills in their art and/or have had it put
together by someone else. The public rightly thinks -
'I could have made that, my 7 year old could have
come up with that idea, anyone could, what makes
you this elevated, lauded artist figure?'.



They are of course completely right.

Artists need to have technical skill to warrant the
exalted status of an artist.

I have 5 ways of measuring the artistic value of a
work of art:


1. Is it visually interesting, engaging or arresting?

2. Does it demonstrate specialist, technical skill?

3. Is it original and imaginative?

4. Does it pioneer or extend the movement, genre or
the medium it is working in?

5. Does it have any emotional impact and/or does it
make a personal or a socio-political point?



If it ticks at least 3 of these boxes, I consider it art,
modern or otherwise. If it doesn't, then it is art
without much artistic value, therefore it is
questionable whether it is art.



For instance, Dali is great art to me (visually
arresting, great technical skill and mastery of paint
on canvas, imaginative, extended the Dadaist /
surrealist movement, makes a social point about
psychology and dreamscapes forming our perception
and relation to events and objects).

Jackson Pollock's, Piet Mondrian's and Juan Miro's
art is art but less so (visually interesting, but not



much technical skill, original and imaginative but
repetitive of the same concept, extends/invents a
genre, but not much emotional impact or substance
and no socio-political point). Warhol sits somewhere
between Dali and Pollock, etc



I think some of Hirst's work is acceptable art work
(diamond skull, shark tank, butterfly disc) because
it's visually arresting and makes an interesting point
about death, money, materialism, our control of
nature, etc but he just came up with the idea and got
others to make it, so no technical skill or work on his
part. Some of his other art work is clearly laughable
and some may boldly say, fraudulent and that he and
other figures in the modern art world are duplicitous
charlatans lining their pockets by exploiting gullible
rich fools and the mercenary and commercial nature
of the art industry.

Anthony Gormley and Banksy are great artists for the
above reasons and 2 of the best living artists of our
age. Francis Bacon also did something profoundly
original, timeless and emotionally stirring.



The Renaissance masters were unquestionably
outstanding artists because their work undeniably
and resoundingly ticks each and every box.



I would also differentiate between fine art, concept
art and mere pattern marking.
Fine art should be reserved as the acme of art.

Concept art and pattern making cannot be put on the
same high plateau, just as a wonderfully designed
and fun ornament from Ikea cannot be on the same
plateau as a hand carved marble figurine.

So Duchamp's toilet, Yoko Ono's Flux art output and
Tracy Emin's bed is not fine art, it's just concept art.
Howard Hodgkin's paintings are not fine art, they are
just (irregular) pattern making. Mark Rothko's work
and most contemporary abstract paintings are also
just pattern making. (There is no snobbery here, I still
really like their work, and still consider it artistically
worthy and that it has a place but it cannot be given
the same status as Michaelangelo, Van Gogh,
Picasso or Peder Kroyer)

The talented street artists who do those amazing
charcoal sketches or a formidable illustrator like
Robert Ripley or Dr Seuss, or cartoonists like Gerald
Scarfe and Ronald Searle and Walt Disney in the
1940s are closer to refined art, to my mind. I would
say even the hand-crafted work of millions of
artisans on the meandering lanes of markets bristling
Kenya, Morocco and Zanzibar, is also better, more
credible art for all the reasons stated above.

The reader must pardon my didactic tone in this
essay!

At any rate dear reader, this is my subjective take on
the issue, for what it's worth; you must draw your
own conclusions.









This is a detail from a painting by the Nigerian
abstract expressionist artist Yusuf Seidu Okus.

To learn more about his exhibitions and to purchase
his work, please visit
http://artbyyusufokus.blogspot.com/







Jericho



19th Nov 18


If you want to dive for pearls,

Feed and befriend the sharks.

Then Jericho. They stay, I go.

You know

You once had a simple paper round.

And that fog comes again. Perfect sound.
Jericho then Jericho. No one thinks. Justice sinks in
quicksand.

Left to your caruthers, let us understand how your
brothers deteriorate into animals.

Your righteous mothers and boorish fathers

Have sent their sons flying to the sun

With wax feathers. My lovers despise you. Deluge.
Jericho and the deluge. Louche mob you don’t bend
me. You send me free.

My thoughts and prayers are no longer with you.

They were withdrawn after the armistice. There’s
no punishment for no crime.

Jericho, deluge and fire next time.

Scream. For you I don’t care.

Shield under the steel-torn sky and ashen air
And at the bar

The wigged pigs gather with hooves and snouts at
troughs

To see the coffers overflow.

A final toss and I’ll go

Down that road
Of bare feet and empty pockets.

I have nothing to picket.

Write the death sentence and stick it

To the man dangling

From the tree of life.









Jokes in an Age of Political Correctness and
Mass Hysteria


26th Oct 18



Lipstick on a pig

Doesn’t make it any prettier a lover.

A cock in a frock

Doesn’t make it a vagina.
A donkey born in a horse stable

Doesn’t make it a horse.

Money can’t buy you love

Of course,

But it does a great job of getting you quality
education, swift justice and life-death medical care,

Endless options and influence in all affairs

And all those handy things
Too long to fit

Onto a fortune cookie paper slip.

I am being ironic.

My humour is sardonic.

At least

That’s what I am forced to say

To the political correctness brigade
And yes I insist it was only a joke

To the easily triggered

Pitchfork-wielding Twitter folk.

Judas



Jun 18


A caress.

Pigeons and crows peck at the chaff

On the field by the hill

Upon which the crosses stand.

And the light renders nude

The truth.
And lies are a repellent

And facts a propellent.

A banquet for moral paucity.

At the last supper

Jesus breaks the bread

And takes the wine

And hands it
To Judas.

Keep it Shining

12th Sep 18


There’s a star on your head

While putrid water

Winds through the webs of your feet.

Defeat is the domain

Of crafty schemes.

And it seems this is not your way.

Your dreams are not for them.
The wind and river will carry you

When the land of plenty

Yields nothing.

When the fate of the down-and-under

Has rent your heart asunder,

While about you, the avaricious

Have plundered with vicious zeal,
Stick to what you believe to be real.

There’s a star on your head.

Keep it shining.