The week in the arts
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Your support makes all the difference.IT'S 4 A.M. and you're desperate to get to sleep, but all you can hear is "We don't need no education" followed by Dark Side Of The Moon and just as you're finally drifting off it's Atom bloody Heart Mother wafting its way up the stairs. It could drive a woman to divorce. And I regret to report it has.
For behind the exhibition by 35- year-old Steve Geary of paintings based on Pink Floyd albums, which runs until tonight at the Air Gallery in Dover Street, London, there is a sad story of marital disharmony or an inspiring story of devotion to art, depending on which way you look at it.
Geary tells me that it was necessary for inspiration to have the albums playing while he worked into the early hours. His wife of seven years, Emma, who was not at the exhibition opening last Tuesday, has now separated from him.
"The Floyd was the final straw," Geary admits ruefully. "It did get fairly obsessive around the middle of last year. I was working right through the night with the music blaring. There were six weeks when I had The Division Bell on continuous loop. It was necessary for the work, but she couldn't sleep. You can't be a dedicated artist and run a happy marriage. Also I suppose the Floyd wasn't her thing. But these things happen. No one is really to blame." On the contrary, that's far too magnanimous. I trust Emma will name Floyd guitarist Dave Gilmour in the divorce.
THE Arts Council has pledged to rid the fans funding system of jargon and cliches, deciding at its last meeting that communications in the arts must be more simple and effective. Well, the fight for plain English in cultural life hasn't begun very well. Immediately following that resolution by the Council it promised "the adoption of the more holistic and integrated approach to arts funding." Which we'd all support if we had a clue what it means.
WE may have scored badly at the Oscars in terms of awards, but there aren't many lessons to be learned from the Americans when it comes to acceptance speeches. Yet again they were almost without exception either cringe-making or tedious. We do things better over here.
My favourite acceptance speech of all time occurred a few years ago at The Evening Standard Drama Awards when Vanessa Redgrave broke down in tears as she thanked the stage carpenter. That takes style. Kim Basinger, eat your heart out.
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