The Artellectual Correlation Game
MART @ Twisted Pepper (part of The Beatyard Weekender), Dublin. October 2010.
Game components include balls with various icons/symbols and the art holes table, which has holes labelled with art terms (artists, movements etc.).
Players are given three balls and asked to match the symbols on the balls with the correct hole on the table. On getting all three balls in the right holes, the player is rewarded with a unique Art Holes goody bag (includes light refracting glasses, candy necklace, balloon with art fortune, ‘make art not bollocks’ pencil and an art holes badge).
This performative, interactive piece deals with art world pretensions about the level of knowledge needed to understand most contemporary art. Much of the work of today’s artists chiefly addresses art world insiders; those who recognize how art practices function in reference to the work of other artists, resulting in art which is largely obscure to audiences who don’t possess this specific art knowledge. Art Holes is a reaction to this; parodying these pretensions and highlighting the relative absurdity that accompanies contemporary art speak.
Artists or art world insiders playing the game will mull over the range of associations between the symbols and the art terms, whereas the “outsiders” are likely to randomly choose where the balls go, quickly realising that they don’t know the answers. But just as there are no right answers in art, there are no right answers in Art Holes; the symbols and art terms are completely arbitrary and any connections drawn are merely coincidental. Anyone who plays wins. Lengthy discussions about the various ball/hole links are, like most bloated art world conversations, completely pointless.