10 - The Michigan Daily - Friday, November 5, 1999 Thinking about paying $8 to see "Double Jeopardy," "Music of the Heart" or "The House on Haunted Hill?" 'First find out what the Daily reviewers had to say! w.michigandaly.con/daly/search. html 'Britpack' artists create new,' more offensive Tate exhibit The Washington Post 0 In the interest of international amity, it might be best if Rudolph Giuliani were to stay away from London's Tate Gallery for the next few months. The proudly avant-garde Tate has just opened a new exhibit featuring further work by the "Britpack" - the community of young British artists whose recent show at the Brooklyn Museum of Art sparked a noisy confrontation between the New York City mayor and the arts community. The Tate's current show is weirder, and arguably more offensive, than "Sensation." the collection that prompted Giuliani's attack. One of the artists in the Tate exhibit, Steven Pippin, has con- tributed a blurry series of photos taken from inside washing machines. Another, Tracey Emin, has put together a display that features her bloodstained underwear and a home movie about her abortion. In the film, Emin complains about a doctor who urged her to keep the baby. , "He must be a Christian or some- thing," she groans. The new Tate exhibit features work from Pippin, Emin and two Nov. 11-13 at 8 PM " Nov. 14 at 2 PM " Power Center Tickets are $18 and $14 " Students $7 with ID League Ticket Office * 734-764-0450 other finalists for the 1999 Turner Prize, probably the most prestigious1 award anywhere for young artists. Ass this year's nominees indicate, the Turner judges in recent years have turned sharply away from traditionali painting and sculpture to choose works that can be called either "imaginative" (that's the judges't term) or "shock commercialization"E (as Giuliani sees it). Last year the Turner winner wasl Chris Ofili, a London painter who decorates much of his work with ele-1 phant dung. Ofili's dunged portrait of the Virgin Mary has been the most con-t troversial single piece in the "Sensation" exhibit.' Another recent Turner laureate,1 Damien Hirst, also had a piece in "Sensation" that Giuliani disliked: Ai dead cow floating in formaldehyde. The four artists who have been "short-listed" - that is, named as finalists - for this year's Turner all come from the same "Britpack" set as Hirst and Ofili. But this year's short list has sparked much greater controversy here than Ofili's dung art did a year ago. That's mainly due to the center- piece of the Turner Prize show, Emin's "My Bed." This work of art is an unmade bed, encircled by clutter: pillows, panty- hose, pregnancy tests, condoms, vodka bottles, bloody toilet paper, stained panties, overflowing ash- trays, etc. On the surrounding wall, the 35- year-old Emin has framed news clip- pings about herself and taped up some of her drawings, including a sketch of the Statue of Liberty with bare breasts. Erin's entry also includes a set of hazy amateur videos in which she relates the details of her abortion and . other aspects of her life as the noto- rious "bad girl" of the London art scene. Tate Gallery curator Simon Wilson describes "My Bed" as "an object with powerful metaphorical reso- nance." The London critics have been less impressed. "Tracey, you just go on and on,' wrote Adrian Searle in the Guardian. "You 're only a bore. Your art has become so closed and predictable so mawkish. so clovinc i as many critics sucest mm s bed is m;nly desiined to be shock- inc, the artist hersel 1f ot a shock list weckend when two other self-styled "contemporary artists' leaped onio the exhibit and held a pillow fit Onlookers seemed to enjoy thi emlndation of Emin's work, aniJ boOed when the pair was haulid away by security guards. Emin spent fixe hours restoring "My Bed" to ,i originai dishev eled state. THe art world here seems more taken with the entry by Steve McQueen. a 29-vcatr-old British filmmaker now Iivinc in Amsterdam. His Turner submiission centers on short silent films. One shows a rec- to-reel tape recorder spinning. Another shows McQueen himself standing perfectly still while the wail of a barn falls. A third shows stream that appears to have a bicvc in it. There's more action -- well, slightly more action -- in the films of Jane and Louise Wilson, 32-vear- old twins from Newcastle. Their Turner entry comprises films and large photographs of empty spaces in and around Las Vegas - the casino at Caesars Palace in the predawn hours and some corridors inside Boulder Dam. And then there's Steven Pippin, lT 39 the old man on this year's short list. He put cameras inside 12 washing machines at a New Jersey laundro- mat. He passed in front of the machines, first wearing a pair -of white underpants and then riding a horse. The resulting photos, titled "Laundromat-Locomotion re entry in the Turner competition. He is generally considered the least like- ly to win this year The Turner Prize will be awarded to one of the four entries on Nov. 30. The prize itself pays S32,000, but its value is far greater. Winning tlhe famous prize makes any artist a mar- ketable commodity in the intensely. fashion-conscious art world. The 1999 Turner Prize entries , be viewed on the World Wide Web wiiw. flewsuhLnl) itel.to.-uk/turner. The University Activities Center's RUDE MECHANICALS present Much Ado About Nothing By William Shakespeare The University Activities Center's Rude Mechanicals present William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing on November 5th and 6th at 8pm, and November 7th at 2pm in the Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre. Tickets are $8/$6 for students, and are available at the Michigan Union Ticket Office (763-TKTS). 1 I. - tit m I U m 0