Art...

Art - what's that? Between beans, tomatoes, aubergines, dust, getting to places cleaning normally doesn't, etc, not much time for art round Granny these days. The island on the other hand... how about some island art...As you can see we're not talking Almodovar here, we're talking something much more indigenous. There's some theory the artist responsible is German, but that's hard for Granny to ascertain; she's seen him around several times - a small, not very clean, battered and rather
toothless man, but since he never speaks, how to tell. His size and squareness are Canarian enough for sure, whether he's German or not.





How to describe this weird work? Impossible really. The 'work' - whatever you call it - surrounds a house on the outskirts of Teguise, the old capital, a mishmash of sculpted figures and found objects placed, heaped, jumbled together and added to and altered all the time. The main plaster figures, for instance can change colour overnight, become all colours or one new colour all over; figures can have hats one day, not hats the next. As for the rest.... whatever he finds goes in. At one point you could go inside the house, Beloved said - the lavatory bowl inside the door was always full of sweets. But ever since Granny has been getting out of her vehicle to take a proper look the gate is always padlocked; the padlock and its chain are rusty, what's more as if never taken apart in a long time.




The overall effect is naive art/primitive art rather than the high stuff, but no less effective for all that. It's also very sinister - if anything says the artist is German, this might. Granny thinks of early illustrations to the Brother's Grimm, of an equally grim Germanic kind of surrealism. No more talk. Judge for yourselves. This is only a small part of the whole, she promises. But it will do for now.