That Crusty Corner of the Sandbox

Doris Salcedo Shibboleth 2007 Photo: Tate
Image from the Tate Modern Website

It's amazing the things you can find at the end of something else: home at the end of a journey, a fish at the end of your line, a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. Yesterday, I found artist Richard DeDomenici at the end of the Tate Modern's crack. Equipped with a coffee and a hot chocolate, we headed for one of the windy balconies. I'd come more or less prepared to discuss the place of avant-garde in his work but instead I got to see the smallest gallery ever to be worn on a wrist and was introduced to the progress of his new year's resolution to make bad decisions. So far, smoking, flying and watching a lot of Eurovision seem to indicate success.

But a quick look at his work reveals that although he's not always been an adept of the well assumed disaster, he's often voluntarily privileged the unexpected and the absurd. I would say that forming a boys band with asylum seekers, signing the 80s success 99 Red Balloons while inhaling helium and embracing failure are a fairly good indication of his propensity to create unsettling experiences. Although some of them are no less than giggle-worthy, it's not that simple to faze people enough so they're able to consider their world from a different vantage point.

As the conversation veered to Richard's works in progress and my coffee gradually got cooler , I couldn't help but think that if there is any chance that art can accomplish what politics can't – significant changes in the attitudes of people regarding the various unpleasantness otherwise known as “social issues” – it's via works that jostle people out of their comfortable preconceived ideas. Some of these works are notably uncomfortable to engage with, but some of them present themselves in the guise of a game which is much more efficient. As you all know, whoever doesn't want to play is left to sulk in the crusty corner of the sandbox. And since nobody wants to be left alone in the sandbox, being playful about important issues is serious work.

Finally, we've run out of coffee and hot chocolate when we get around to the avant-garde. In all honesty, Richard is not sure whether his work is neo-avant-garde, post-avant-garde or plain avant-garde but he knows he's an artist. I tend to believe him and promptly commission The Forum's first avant-garde self-portrait. Result soon to be posted...