MELLOW DRAMA

摘要

As the cafe's and burgeoning shops moved into the culture houses of the 1980s and '90s, the boundaries between private commerce and public art museum as agnostic churches of spiritual redemption became confused. Many bemoaned this denouement as cultural vandalism, conveniently forgetting the murky commerce of the art dealers in the shadows. Then came the turn-of-the-century look-at-me 'blobs' and 'fractals', clamouring for one-day-only headlines, as if art was going to regenerate the urban landscape for the long term through globetrotting city tourists spoiled by ecologically unsustainable cheap air travel. Drunk on the quicksand of Lottery gold, floating on dream-like business plans, the brute reality of bums on seats, revenue spend and life-cycle costs was to arrive inevitably as a cold shower to many hot, fevered dreams.