The Vicar of ArtRumour Writes:

Dear Friends,

Quite often, when composing my sermons, I'm inspired by the similarities between Nature's tiny miracles and all the other things going on in the world. Right now for example, even as the spring shoots come peeking through Mother Earth's crust, parishioners are carrying on much as before, in a heartwarming confirmation of the continuity of life and so forth. And deep down, there's something very special about that, very special and at the same time very ordinary, yes, in fact, really remarkably ordinary. Shouldn't it remind us how much we have to learn from little things? You see, life is very much like a lovely garden, or a trunk road, or a great big rotating Richard Wilson piece stuck on the side of a bingo hall in Stockton-on-Tees! (see below). And all the small things we do are just like manure, or traffic lights, or, or, or... well, I'm sure you fully understand the gist of the metaphor, so now on with the parish news.

Vacancy: God Wanted

Applications are invited for post of Almighty God. Duties include essential Directorial work at the Parish of St. Monolith's-in-Bankside. Should be inspirational leader with expansive, coherent knowledge of the future and ability to maintain existing levels of visitor discomfort in Jacques-Tati-inspired "Modernistic" wind-tunnel. Must be good technocrat, skilled at deferring to yet more powerful Deity. Blasphemers: Don't even think about it. Brush provided by management after ten years' loyal service. Info packs available from cheryl.burberry@tate.org.uk, and you have fifteen seconds to comply. Apply. Whatever.

Film Club News!

Last week's film club AGM and singalong was a great success, everyone joining in lustily with the club anthem, "Where have all the films and videos gone, Long time passing?". Questions were asked about the whereabouts of forty-years'-worth of priceless and irreplaceable archive material- independent film compiled by the now-defunct London Film and Video Co-op (subsequently absorbed into the Black Hole of the now-defunct Lux centre). Following Marge Allthorpe-Guyton's example, the club chairman kept mum, hinting only that it was being "taken care of", and would anyone like a macaroon? Members who commented that this means the UK no longer has a publicly-accessible archive of film and video art and that this is "an insult to everything the Co-op worked for for the last forty years" were silenced with a fistful of jammy dodgers. Suggestions that the issue might be aired in public-funded film mag Filmwaves's "Polemic" section were rejected, as "Polemic" is understood to be strictly for saying nice happy things about UK indy film and video art, not upsetting the (widely recognised as stagnant) filmmaking status-quo. The evening ended in grand style with a record-breaking one-zillionth showing of Michael Snow's "The Berlin Horse" and lashings of cream horns.

Mrs. Brightley's Basketweaving Circle: Annual Outing

"The Ladies of the Circle travelled by coach to London for 'From Material Things', the Arts Council of England and Crafts Council's joint get-together at the British Museum" writes Mrs Veronica Brightley. "The group were very excited about the Arts and Crafts' "coming together as one" (after all many of us are watercolourists too!) but quite frankly, many attenders looked like they'd never donned green wellies or potted on a sapling in their lives. The Ladies vigorously kept their end up in the debate, "Is Plastic a Textile?" but were upset that their own favourite discussion topic, "Whither Willow Withies?" had been left off the agenda. Sadly, guest speaker Vivienne Westwood failed to comment on the lovely woolly muffler Germaine Koh had knitted for the former Reading Room! (It seems Ms. Westwood declared "I'm not talking about that sh*t", but we are sure she would never stoop to such a coarse expression). Having seen "Nicos Papasterdopologis" billed in the programme, we were expecting beautiful lilting songs from a fat hairy man in a tie-dyed kaftan, but he turned out to be an academic person in a suit and was therefore largely incomprehensible. We returned home tired, downhearted and disappointed but at the same time, cheerful and optimistic! Sherry and hot-buttered raffia tablemats kept us going on the home stretch."

Local Museum: Trustees Report

The Trustees reported that last year, no-one visited the museum. However they pointed out this is no bad thing, viewed in the light of Baltic supremo "Stormin'" Sune Nordgren's recent comments in Blueprint magazine: "I'm not interested in attendance figures. It's more the politicians and the Arts Council who are interested in those sorts of things... We will never try to popularise what we are doing. On the contrary, actually. We want to make things more complicated." Whilst deploring the underlying suggestion that visual art and culture generally might sometimes be quite complex and require a bit of thought, the Trustees saluted the overall spirit of "Stormin'" Nordgren's remarks, and poured scorn on the unnamed Baltic official who described Nordgren as having "the diplomatic skills of a rhinoceros". "Nordgren is nothing like a rhinoceros" said one. "I met a rhinoceros at a preview once, it was very polite". In the coming year, they plan to follow the Baltic model: a grand re-opening with all the exhibits lying on the grass around the building (date to be postponed as many times as possible); payment of sums of up to £100,000 to artists such as Chris Burden, to make works which will remain the artists' property afterwards; recruitment of another education officer to cope with the increased workload caused by the large numbers of museum visitors who don't exist, and plenty of unwise remarks to the press.

The Gentlemen's Over-Nineties Breakfast Club

"...was honoured to welcome A.C. Gruelling (Professor of Comparative Philately at Barking and Dagenham College of Bagpiping) talking on that topical issue, "Why Contemporary British Art is Mostly Undiluted Rhino Doo-Doo", writes Club Chairperson A. C. Bumfluff. Professor Gruelling amazed listeners by claiming "most of what will in time come to count as the best of the present day's art is not yet recognised as such- web page designs, certain films, photographs, and television works, certain cars and planes, certain currently unsung paintings". The suggestion shocked all present, and most agreed that any art student caught surfing the net, looking at work by Goldin, Mikhailov, Hiller, Ozu, Ray, or Jarman or dipping into Barthes's article on the Citroen DS, should be chucked out on their ear without chance of appeal. Prof. Gruelling will be talking to us again soon- next time, on "Life on Planet Tharg", another subject about which he apparently knows a great deal. (N.B. The club member who claimed that Gruelling had pinched bits from A.C. Grayling's piece in March's Art Newspaper has been unceremoniously wheeled into the local canal.) Also on our list of forthcoming highlights: "British art of the Nineties: The pair of pea-green scrotums with nobody inside them" by William Slef, Bart., Writer, of Olde London Towne, and "Why We Need Rhino Doo-Doo" by the President of the Royal Society of Rhinos.

Rotationalists' Circular

The Rotationalists Society was concerned to hear that the Arc, Stockton's lottery-funded art centre, has mostly shot over Stocktonian heads. The Arc's premises featured "Over Easy", an ambitious Art for Architecture project by Richard Wilson which involved a circular section of the building rotating, but it seems few locals liked it so it was switched off "to save electricity". Not long after, the whole centre closed down. Now it will be re-opened as an "entertainment centre", so Stocktonites can once again sleep easy in their beds, untroubled by the threat of crappy 1990s British Art appearing in their midst. And as for Wilson's piece, who knows? Maybe it can be "recycled" as a novel kind of rotating advertising hoarding.

And so, goodnight, and God Bless -

The Vicar