Paint drying etc.

Never has a Montreal January been so balmy -about 12 degrees c. in the sun. Rode my bicycle ...

Paradisiacal, this prelude to planetary destruction.

Today my partner and I went down to Musee d'Art Contemporain, saw an exhibit of Neo Rauch, a surrealist German painter somewhat a la Dali who was quite depressively impressive , a Serge Murphy installation that was quite delightful, and some offbeat/pretentious video art by Rodney Graham and others. One of Graham's videos (the best one in my view) featured the artist seated in a deck chair before a bored/bemused audience about a hundred, throwing potatoes at a huge Japanese gong (I think this one was called Lobbing Potatoes at a Gong): sometimes he hit it with a big kabaam which resonated through the whole gallery, but sometimes the potatoes missed with a loud thump. A collision of Eastern mysticism and Western matter-of-factness (am I reading too much into this?), with dead pan (resounding pan) humour. Another video (not by him, by someone else) showed a snail crawling across some sand for about 20 minutes, from a distant, not-so-in-focus camera.

I couldn't help but wonder -- if I painted a wall and then filmed it drying and titled it "Watching Paint Dry", would I be able apply for funding? Has this idea been already done? Ah well...