The difference between art and ornamentation is provocation. If it provokes thoughts, feelings, actions, opposition – anything but indifference – it is art. (Me, personal communication)
London is art.
I wander around the city,
from pillar to post,
from juxtaposition to juxtaposition.
It has a lot of pillars and posts –
old and contemporary,
pretentions and utilitarian,
faux Greek and real concrete.
I peel it layer by layer:
Shiny facades concealing ruins,
ruins prepared to be reorganised,
rebuilt, repurposed,
reabsorbed into nostalgia for the past
or hope for the future.
Only dead cities are immutable –
monuments to past hopes of individual success
and current delusions of national grandeur.
Gravestones.
Living cities have to consist of ruins,
it is a process of recreation,
flux and flow of people and things,
moving between loss and hope,
provoking innovation and outrage.
London is art.
