Dismaland - was it any good?

Achamore

Anyone visit the Banksy inspired event in Weston-super-Mare?
Looked like some clever pieces - but did the hype merit the queues.

The local businesses seemed to do OK out of the added interest in the area.

thanks Acha

(would have liked to have seen but its closed now)

lostboysaint

Yes.

The concept was very clever as a way of presenting art. Indeed, it was art itself. As with all art it's down to individual taste/ideas as to whether it's "art" or not and sure enough there was plenty which I didn't "get" but an awful lot that I just thought was excellent*.

*I will confess to a slight vested interest - our business supported one of the artists that had a couple of pieces on display by providing a site and PR for one of his installations very early in his career.

veronese68

I spoke to someone that went and he said he thought it was very good. He was particularly impressed by the way the staff all managed to be miserable. He was amazed they didn't laugh on occasion. He said some people didn't seem to enjoy it, but maybe they didn't get that it was meant to be dismal.

photonic69

I went. A lot of it was pretentious twaddle. It was the old, anti-establishment, anti-police, anti-fashist, "f#ck the pigs"; "f#ck the government" stuff they've been spouting for the last 30 years. It was nothing new, and I found this aspect quite tedious and a little offensive as it wasn't art.

What i did like was the animation reels they showed. There was some brilliant and unexpected pieces of work of a very high quality and very clever concepts. There were some great painting and illustrations. Great techniques and skills. Some of the work was exquisite. Tiny painted porcelain dolls with tattoos. Simply brilliant. Damien Hurst's "Unicorn" was excellent as too were the other pieces in that display.

The thing is they tried too hard to make the venue look grotty and neglected. They were 25 years too late! That's exactly how WSM was 25 years ago without even trying. It was dismal.

We had tickets and queued for around 50 minutes. I would have said that if I had queued for more than 1.5 hours I'd be disappointed that I'd lost 1.5 hours of my life I'd never get back. It was alright but not the "wow" that everyone seems to make out it to be. I like Banksy but not when it's in-yer-face. I like the cleverly done, site specific works that pop up now and then. Far more clever and thought provoking.

The Rotating Caravan was on another level! I'd queue again and again for that alone!