APPRECIATING CONTEMPORARY ART
Lil’ Markie: Diary of an Unborn Child
Masterpieces of modern/contemporary art #11
To get full value out of Lil’ Markie, you need a well-developed sense of what constitutes conventional ‘normality’, alongside an equally well-developed sensitivity towards what constitutes accepted ‘good taste’ and ideas of ‘the conventionally seemly’. This doesn’t mean you have to subscribe to these notions, identifying with them as your default mindset, but rather that you have to be able to appreciate, savour and enjoy, those delightful occasions when someone, for whatever reason, strays beyond accepted ‘lines in the sand’ and opens up a singular realm of unforeseen experience.
The key here is of course the qualification ‘singular’. It’s relatively easy to break with convention by swearing or nudity or by invoking ideas of disgust and horror, and these are possibilities regularly deployed by those hoping to make some kind of presentational impact — horror films, stand-up comedy, whatever — but sticking to ‘conventional breaches of convention’…
