Posh parents defend their child scrambling over Tate Modern scultpture

[starfish2000]

I think this is the problem, Britain is starting to resemble an issue of Viz thats actually whats wrong, could we de-Viz the nation?

 

[andysays]

The sculpture isn't really that exciting and hardly worth £10m.

There's an awful lot of dross in the Tate, especially when it comes to video installations. I'd happily let my children jump up and down on Nick Serota.

Don't feel any particular antipathy or warmth to the family in question.

Don't forget to film them and sell the resulting installation.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

I just looked it up: the Mona Lisa was completed in 1517.

It was put behind glass 40 years ago.

 

[Boppity]

What a fuss about nothing.

Well one has to fund the retirement villa in Tuscany with something, doesn't one?

This reminds me of a friend of mine, he has fairly wealthy parents but he isn't a proper posh twat or anything. But the other night a big group of is were putting the world to rights in the pub discussing uni fees and he said folornly that to fund his masters he had to sell his shares in a villa in Portugal. We've been taking the piss ever since.

Oh how did one cope! And heaven forfend one may have to sell the fine china too! Etc

 

[J Ed]

This works on so many level as an outrage machine!

The bloke doesn't look very cognisant.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

The Mona Lisa is going to attract people who actively want to damage it. Few galleries I've been to have any pictures roped off, and usually not sculptures either.

 

[xenon]

Yeah you shouldn't really have to rope off sculptures. Letting your kids climb all over them in a gallery is rather remis.

 

[silverfish]

I think this is the problem, Britain is starting to resemble an issue of Viz thats actually whats wrong, could we de-Viz the nation?

From whichever point off the socio-political compass you look at it from

 

[felixthecat]

Few galleries I've been to have any pictures roped off, and usually not sculptures either.

Ai Weiwei's Ton of Tea at Bristol Museum was roped off with a clear wire about 15" high..........

.......which of course my mother tripped over and headbutted the aforementioned block of compressed tea.

No, I didn't take pictures because I was too busy crying with laughter while the mother was helped up by concerned passers by. Fortunately neither sculpture nor mother was damaged.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

I went to an exhibition at the Hayward which had a lot of sculpture based around furniture - a huge möbius bed, chain swings and so on - and those were all child magnets. When there were attendants around they shooed them off but it wasn't very well staffed. I wouldn't have minded a go myself, but I suspect I'm both not cute enough and too heavy.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

Ai Weiwei's Ton of Tea at Bristol Museum was roped off with a clear wire about 15" high..........

.......which of course my mother tripped over and headbutted the aforementioned block of compressed tea.

No, I didn't take pictures because I was too busy crying with laughter while the mother was helped up by concerned passers by. Fortunately neither sculpture nor mother was damaged.

You know, the only times I can remember nearly colliding with works of art is when they put up those translucent things. I'm wandering about looking at the sculpture and then suddenly "fuck!" as I half trip over a stealth tripwire. Probably cause more damage than not having them at all.

 

[equationgirl]

There's a Moore in a park relatively near here. I'm pretty sure they've bolted it down.

Believe me, bolting it down isn't much of a deterrent to scrap metal thieves.

 

[ChrisD]

When I lived nearer London I had favorite rooms in the Tate (Millbank). One day when I had 30 mins to spare I called in strode quickly across towards a gallery at the back. I suddenly realised that my motorbike boots were making rather a lot of noise then looked down and saw that I was walking right across some steel plates on the floor. Not any old steel plates but apparently ones by Carl Andre

http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/andre-144-magnesium-square-t01767

-seems that they were intended be walked on but no one else was.....

 

[Hocus Eye.]

Those Don Judd boxes are made of thin metal and fitted edge-on to the upright it or wall. They will also be quite old - he began making them in the early '70s. Those kids were lucky to get away without injury.

Yes ChrisD you were right to walk on them. That Carl Andre piece looks a bit like a chess-board in two tone metal. It relates to his famous Brick piece.

 

[revol68]

firebomb the tate, mausoleum of culture.

 

[goldenecitrone]

firebomb the tate, mausoleum of culture.

And the winner of next year's Turner Prize is...

 

[ViolentPanda]

What a fuss about nothing.


This reminds me of a friend of mine, he has fairly wealthy parents but he isn't a proper posh twat or anything. But the other night a big group of is were putting the world to rights in the pub discussing uni fees and he said folornly that to fund his masters he had to sell his shares in a villa in Portugal. We've been taking the piss ever since.

Oh how did one cope! And heaven forfend one may have to sell the fine china too! Etc

The poor little lamb!

I funded mine through a mixture of not going out (convenient, as I'm semi-housebound! ), having few vices, and saving up my DLA, having nothing worth more than about £100 in sellable assets.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Are neck scarves à la mode again?

And cravats.

In 1969 my mother bought me a rather fetching pink matching shirt & neck scarf combo from the Co-op Men's Outfitters.

So, how did that make you feel about your mother...?

 

[ViolentPanda]

firebomb the tate, mausoleum of culture.

Aren't all galleries?

 

[J Ed]

And cravats.

What's with all the posh kids wearing red and yellow trousers as well? Don't they know it makes them look like cunts?

 

[ViolentPanda]

What's with all the posh kids wearing red and yellow trousers as well? Don't they know it makes them look like cunts?

It's that bastard killer b , he's brainwashed the nation's youth into thinking it's trendy.

All just to give him an excuse to wear his red jeans.

 

[Athos]

The fact that she climbed on the (shit) sculpture doesn't make the kid 'horrible.' In fact, most kids of that age would try to do the same. But, the parents ought to have prevented it. That said, it's not always as easy as it sounds - they only need a second to create mischief. But what is blameworthy is the ridiculous response about the kids being very intelligent and anti-establishment; anyone who isn't an egotist with a massive sense of entitlement would just have said 'sorry, kids will be kids, but we shouldn't have let her climb on the sculptures.' And that'd be the end of it.

 

[Puddy_Tat]

I am something of an outsider when it comes to parenting, having followed the philip larkin advice, but we seem to have gone (in not that many years) from a culture where kids were (largely) shouted at and hit for the slightest trangression, to one where parenting seems (again, largely) to consist of letting their kids do anything they bloody well like, getting highly indignant if anyone in authority points out that brat is about to do something bloody dangerous, and making an almighty fuss and blaming everyone else if brat does do something bloody dangerous and isn't stopped in time.

did some sort of sensible compromise exist for a short while when i wasn't paying much attention?

 

[Belushi]

I'm not sure that's true tbh, I don't have children but none of the parents I know let their kids do as they like. Most kids are pretty well behaved ime, a handful sometimes with all that energy but not outright bratty.

 

[shygirl]

For me, it was the parents' arrogance that was annoying. They more or less said it was ok because their children are intelligent, educated and art lovers, implying that had they not had these qualities, their acts might be seen differently. As for kids interacting with art, its perfectly natural and not "horrible" as that silly woman said. Still, parents have to rein them in at times. My son reached across to touch 'Sunflowers' in the National Gallery but 2 guards came out of nowhere to stop him. I had told him that we weren't allowed to touch the works, but I guess curiosity over-took him as he had been working on his own version of sunflowers in school.

 

[goldenecitrone]

For me, it was the parents' arrogance that was annoying. They more or less said it was ok because their children are intelligent, educated and art lovers,

Incredible, isn't it? Parents boasting about how clever and wonderful their kids are. You might even think that they really loved their kids.

implying that had they not had these qualities, their acts might be seen differently.

Only in your head are they implying such nonsense.

 

[el-ahrairah]

Bit of a fuss about nothing, even if the parents seem like arses.

the parents seem like massive arses but the way i look at it, the only purpose that sculpture could serve is as a climbing frame. i might go and have a climb myself now.

 

[trashpony]

My child would be likely to do this but he has a learning difficulty. I'd be bloody ashamed if I had a neurotypical 9 year old who thought it was okay to do that.

I agree with spanglechick though - the biggest cunt in the story is the person who filmed the kid and sought to publicly humiliate a child and her parents. And if I were the parent, I'd probably respond in a similar way because I'd be so fucked off.

 

[revol68]

the smugness of the parents is annoying but who cares about a kid climbing on some "art", sure doesn't every two bit artist claim their work is meant to problemise or reimagine the relationship between itself and the observer.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

the smugness of the parents is annoying but who cares about a kid climbing on some "art", sure doesn't every two bit artist claim their work is meant to problemise or reimagine the relationship between itself and the observer.

All very well calling it "art", but they were in the Tate Modern - that's the kind of thing that's there and that the gallery calls "art". If you dislike this kind of thing, don't go to the Tate Modern.

I don't care overly, and if I saw a kid do this, I'd certainly do and say nothing about it as long as I didn't think the kid was in danger, which this kid wasn't, but I can see why the gallery would care. It is basic consideration and respect for the gallery to stop your kids from climbing over things that you know the gallery doesn't want them climbing over.