The art of binge drinking

The British culture of binge drinking received artistic recognition in a state-funded art show in which the female performance artist consumed large quantities of beer and then attempted to walk along a balancing beam two feet off the ground.

The Japanese artist Tomoko Takahashi, a former Turner Prize nominee, described her work as a comment “on the availability and use of massproduced products”. She was awarded a £5,000 grant to put on her one-woman show at the Government-funded Chapter Arts Centre in Canton, Cardiff. Audiences saw Miss Takahashi arrive on stage in high heels and a smart black business suit. For the next three hours, they watched her drink numerous bottles of lager while periodically lurching towards the beam and seeing how much of it she could negotiate before falling off.

Unfortunately, some in South Wales showed themselves unable to appreciate the work’s aesthetic qualities by complaining that it was no more than an exhortation to binge drink.

“This is stupid and dangerous and sends out the message that binge drinking is OK," said Ramesh Patel, a local councillor, who called for an inquiry. He demanded to know why taxpayers’ money was “being wasted on trash like this”.

However, James Tyson, the theatre’s programmer, defended the performance. He said that Miss Takahashi was an internationally renowned artist and that her work constantly questioned the way products were marketed and the role of mass media in society. “This wasn’t just about a woman drinking a lot of beer” he added, “This was a powerful piece of art.” Mr Tyson’s explanation failed to convince everyone. David Davies, a member of the Welsh Assembly and another philistine, said: “If anyone is daft enough to want to see a young woman getting plastered and tottering around in high heels, they can do it in just about every city centre most nights of the week. The show is probably the biggest waste of money in the world. The worrying thing is people are deciding to hand out taxpayers’ money like this when they are sober.”

Whether or not Miss Takahashi’s show deserves the title of biggest waste of money may be a matter for debate. The Cardiff show took place more or less at the same time as The Tate gallery paid £20,000 for a another piece of performance art, Time, by David Lamelas, which involves asking people to stand in a line and state the time to the person next to them. A commentator explained that the advantage of the show was that the gallery would be able to put it on at any time it wanted.