Douglas Gordon attacks theater with ax following bad reviews

[karenarchey]

Well, here’s some art news you don’t hear every day: Turner Prize-winning artist Douglas Gordon has taken an ax to Home theater in Manchester following negative reviews of his play “Neck of the Woods,” starring Charlotte Rampling, produced for the Manchester International Festival. It remains unclear whether the criticism spurred a planned, symbolic attack on the theater, or if the incident occurred spontaneously. It appears Gordon has adorned his ax mark with a hasty Sharpie drawing of a wolf claw, suggesting the former. The wolf doodle is also signed and dated by Gordon with an “x” kiss symbol, indicating a friendly, commemorative flair.

The report via BBC below.

A Turner Prize-winning artist has used an axe to attack the wall of a theatre where he has staged a new play to scathing reviews.

Douglas Gordon has directed Neck of the Woods, starring Charlotte Rampling, at the Home theatre in Manchester.

Critics have described it as a “vanity project” and “humourless and sedate”.

The show features several axes, and Gordon is thought to have wielded an unused prop to take a chunk out of the wall, which he then signed and dated.

Gordon drew a wolf’s claw around the damage and signed and dated it

He inflicted the damage on Saturday, the day after Neck of the Woods opened as part of the Manchester International Festival (MIF).

The show begins with the sound of an axe, and the stage has a number of axes screwed to it.

The Daily Telegraph said Neck of the Woods had “the unmistakable whiff of a vanity project”, with a script that “simply isn’t very good”, while “Rampling looks terribly uncomfortable most of the time”.

The Guardian, meanwhile, described it as a “humourless and sedate Red Riding Hood retelling” that “takes itself very seriously” and is “so old-fashioned you wonder if Gordon has any familiarity at all with contemporary theatre”.

MIF artistic director Alex Poots said: "We understand that one of our artists acted in a wholly inappropriate way on Saturday night, causing slight damage to the fabric of Home’s new building.
"This is totally unacceptable, and the artist involved will be paying for repairs.

[davidlevine]

Institutions always view it as a triumph of interdisciplinarity when they invite artists from one field (eg art) to work in another (eg theater), as though the invitation itself sufficed. But if the artists, critics, and audiences involved are completely unfamiliar with the protocols, histories and insecurities of their new friends/fields, what else can you expect? huffiness, hurt feelings, and reinforced prejudices all around.

The interdisciplinary gesture often boils down to this kind of imperial largesse, where institutions demonstrate their might by their capacity to ignore borders. The artists from one field, and audiences from another, always take the bait, and wind up sacrificed to the gesture itself.