[From: The Mews Project Space] Tate Britain Christmas tree strikes blow against baubles

The Mews Project Space spotted this on the guardian.co.uk site and thought you should see it.
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Note from The Mews Project Space:
Giorgio Sadotti
Guardian Article
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To see this story with its related links on the guardian.co.uk site, go to http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2010/dec/09/tate-britain-christmas-tree-sadotti-giorgio
Tate Britain Christmas tree strikes blow against baubles
Artist Giorgio Sadotti gives gallery nine-metre tree lacking any decoration except silver flyers and a bull whip on the floor
Mark Brown, arts correspondent
Friday December 10 2010
guardian.co.uk

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2010/dec/09/tate-britain-christmas-tree-sadotti-giorgio

The conceptual artist Giorgio Sadotti admits he had mixed feelings about being asked to provide this year's Christmas tree for Tate Britain ? not least because he used to decorate them for a living.
"We used to go round New York decorating trees ? or over-decorating them, in my opinion ? mainly in the lobbies of corporate offices," he recalled today, without discernible fondness.
Which may be one reason why the artist has chosen to install a nine-metre Norwegian spruce without a single bauble, light, fairy or piece of tinsel. It is as far from Christmassy as it is possible to get: just a big, tree, unadorned, but standing on a floor decorated with blingy silver flyers and a mysterious coiled bull whip.
The installation of the Tate Christmas tree in early December has become part of the art calendar since Bill Woodrow won the first commission and decorated his tree with cardboard sculptures and an illuminated globe in 1988. Since then there have been rats eating mince pies, blackbirds, a bin full of Christmas detritus, a tree that smelled of brandy and, the year Tracey Emin was commissioned, no tree at all because she gave it away to charity.
Sadotti, born in Manchester and based in London, said his idea this year was to keep the tree as natural and forest-like as possible. And should anyone think there had been a minimum of effort on the artist's part, then Sadotti is pleased.
"In a way, I strive to make my work look simple. If someone says, 'Your work's a bit easy,' then for me that's the perfect compliment. I want something to look like it was no effort because I lose interest if something looks like it was a lot of work."
The piece is called Flower Ssnake and the silver flyers at the tree's base are invites to a live action performance on twelfth night, when the tree will be "completed". Sadotti would say only that this would involve the whip and a woman he knew as "Fanny from Marseilles".

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