Untitled - Blue Curry, 2009
Again Blue was his usual friendly and amenable self even if I couldn't help but feel he was engaged in a slight uphill struggle with editors that were playing to populist prejudice and continually looking to try to tie down some reified, definitive meaning inherent in the artwork. It was as if they were looking to Blue as 'author' to decode some evasive, 'authentic' interpretation, clearly not only missing any obvious aesthetic dimensions of the work but singularly failing to comprehend that the 'meaning' appeared to be there to be negotiated within the context of the work and its audience rather than somehow internal to the work itself. A personal opinion (Chris) but if you are going to make documentaries, ostensibly for a serious arts orientated channel (this was BBC4, not BBC3), then a rudimentary understanding of the fact that art has moved on somewhat in the last 40 years or so would at least be helpful.
Anyway, rant over, it was an interesting show and good publicity for Blue no doubt, it's just a shame it didn't ultimately give us anything but yet another, admittedly slightly more subtle, tired, old trotting out of the same tried and tested tabloid take on contemporary art. You can catch the second episode on BBC iplayer here for a week or so.
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