![\"breakfast\"](\"http:\/\/www.treeshark.com\/treeblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/breakfast.jpg\")
<\/p>\nI am officially qualified to make art. Yes I mean it, I have a bit of paper, which only I and the person\u00a0who shoved it in an envelope has ever seen, that says Robert Adams, Ba Hons Sculp (3rd class). Which is as near, I might add, as it is possible to get on a Fine Art\u00a0course to failing, but none the less it confirms I have the power. I can look, or even if I am bold intervene on an object, and with a wave make it art. Move it from the category of the mundane to an elevated existence. Ok, Ok waving is probably a bit too Harry Potter with an Art Wand… maybe just pin an A4 sheet of impenetrable art-speak next to it… Now people will look at this thing differently, they will stroke their chins and ponder, they will feel the need to say that I explore the boundaries of the mundane and the elevated, with a bit of luck they might even pay me so they can stroke their chins at home and impress their friends with their avant-garde taste in art.<\/p>\n
Great power, as Spiderman’s Uncle Ben once said, comes with great responsibility. I could theoretically pin a bit of paper on the Child Okeford village noticeboard declaring the whole village art, or even the whole of Dorset, drunk with power I could claim the entire universe as my creation and artify\u00a0the whole shebang! Tricky to exhibit I suppose, just an A4 in an empty gallery declaring my act of will would do it though. Ah yes I can see it, a pure white cube of empty space with a single sheet of paper on one of the pristine walls. The Turner prize would be a shoe in, Kirsty Wark would interview me in that humble mortal talking to a high priest manner she has, hanging on my every statement concerning my realms of concern\u00a0and posing\u00a0deferential enquires as to how I became such a genius.<\/p>\n
But maybe best not, how will everyone feel to be just the raw materials for my art? What if someone objects to being\u00a0merely the paint on my conceptual brush? I could of course put my bit of paper in a locked box and declare that within it lay the greatest creative statement ever. Hmm that might be enough for the prize in itself! Me not saying what it is would become part of the work and no one would need to know that I had artified them and the entire multiverse without \u00a0asking first.<\/p>\n
Other artists might be a problem too, their art would just become a footnote to my far larger conceptual reach. Artists are an egotistical lot they are bound to object. By signing and dating the entire universe I have made their work mine which could cause me to be accused of plagiarism… The other worry is that they have the power too. I would worry that they might de-artify my masterpiece. Very tricky, can an artist take back the fairy dust of artification? Is artifying a one way street? I don’t see why it should be, if I scrape off a painting it is very much de-arted, so what is possible in the practical world should be possible in the conceptual, easier too…<\/p>\n
Lets try it there is nothing like experimental evidence. Here is my breakfast in a mundane state.<\/p>\n
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now below here it is “Artified”<\/p>\n
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Pretty impressive, the difference is striking it now says so much more, it comments on society and how we always seem to fall short of our dietary ambitions. How the \u00a0paradigm of the dialectical forces inherent in the working classes express themselves in a glorious hymn to cholesterol. Now the acid test the de-artified version:<\/p>\n
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Well that pretty much proves it, the breakfast is just breakfast again with no subtext.<\/p>\n
This is going to cause a storm in the art world I fear. What if Anthony Gormley de-artifies one of my paintings? Do I retaliate in kind and de-art the Angel of the North? I can envisage two artists duelling each arting and de-arting objects by pinning A4 conceptual declarations in turn. Some miscreant could pin an A4 sheet saying “This is not an Oak Tree” next to Michael Craig Martin’s seminal work. What if someone de-arts the Sistine Chapel? Would the people stop going? The Pope would have to get Damien Hurst in to re-art it or the Vatican would be very much out of pocket.<\/p>\n
I am now worrying as to whether I should post this. By clicking “post” I am changing the whole fabric of Western Art entirely. No one will ever look at art the same way again.\u00a0Perhaps best not, the disruption would set artist against artist, a civil war in the art world. Tracy Emin might get blackmailed by a rogue artist threatening to de-art her bed. The foundations of the art world would be shaken and undermined.\u00a0More to the point auction prices could plummet, no collector would ever feel secure knowing that their\u00a0collection of shiny Jeff Koons doggies might be mundanified at any moment by a dissident artist… Then again there is always the chance that I might get that Kirsty Wark interview and be\u00a0on the telly…<\/p>\n
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