by Clarkson Wroe

Created on: April 23, 2008

WAS THE BLACK DEATH REALLY THE START OF MODERN ART!

As I continue to contemplate on how to make my fame and fortune another avenue opened up for me today. Celebrated Artist!

I have in fairness considered this option before usually after having read something or watched a feature on some weird spectacle or occurrence that now masquerades under the banner of art.

What has inspired me this time is a couple of articles that recently have appeared in the Times newspaper. The first a couple of weeks ago related the story of the late British artist Robert Lenkiewicz, no I hadn't heard of him either, apparently he died at the age of sixty in 2002 with huge debts, nine homes and eleven children from seven different partners. No wonder he died relatively young, I find huge debts, one, two and one hard enough. However his estate and works sold after his death for over two million pounds. His speciality subjects were green linoleum, metaphysics and death. The latter taken to extreme by the discovery, during the clearance of his home, of the embalmed body of a tramp named Edwin Mackenzie, in a chest of drawers. You see Damian Hirst with his embalmed cows is a mere amateur.
I must say that the image of the unfortunate tramp occupied my mind for a little while. I had just been searching for a very old but well loved t-shirt which I found in some unused drawers and could imagine a similar scenario with the artist and Mr Mackenzie, "Oh that's where I put it!"

Then I read today that a German, prize-winning artist no less, named Gregor Schneider is looking for someone with only hours to live, to actually die in a public art gallery whilst he experiments with the way light plays on the flesh of a person in terminal decay. Whilst not wishing to be a stick in the mud I do have to admit to finding this a bit macabre. Just as I did a couple of years ago when two writers were interviewed on television about a play they were hoping to put on in London's West End that required an actual recently dead body as it's main character, not embalmed like our sock drawer inhabitant Mr MacKenzie, but an almost warm corpse. As with our German friend they asked for terminally ill people to apply, because at that stage they weren't quite ready to go into production.

I don't think that this play ever got off the starting blocks but as I had just come out of a two decade retirement from playing football at the time and every part of my being cried out in pain and protest, I was sorely tempted to apply for

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