May 27th, 2009
Anna Odell: living country house
Remember the part of the film “Cyclo“, where a prostitute is paid to drink mineral water of a certain brand over and over until she peed and a john watched? I couldn’t drink that brand for a year after that.
That’s how I feel about Anna Odell.
She is a Swedish person who quite recently faked mental illness, acted psychotic near a bridge and got picked up and restrained against her will by the authorities, who wanted to help.
As Odell claims it was just an art project1 designed to raise awareness about the state of psychiatric health-care in Sweden — plus fill out her artistic portfolio, I guess — I feel this is simply a cynical equivalent of war generals saying “you have to break eggs to make an omelet” when coldly discussing how many individuals on their own team they deem expendable when planning to invade an area. Where’s the artistic merit in that?
I have nothing against art. Hell, I love dadaism, impressionism and absurdism! I think Marcel Duchamp’s “Fountain” is a brilliant and extremely important piece of art. On the other hand, calling Odell’s stunt a performance just bores me to the point where I want to buy socks. I think said stunt only portrays Odell as egoistic, especially considering the mentally unstable people in dire need of help who faced the option of having to wait because of her.
Imagine you’re in the worst mental state you’ve ever been in, and you’re lucky enough that you’ve managed to call for emergency mental aid before you do something drastic enough to hurt or even kill yourself, or somebody cares enough about you to help you get professional help.
Then imagine you’re in that very state, but you can’t get help because somebody entered the emergency psychiatric ward before you did, and that person’s faking her/his ills.
I can’t even begin to explain how much I loathe Odell’s way. For quite some time, I’ve wrung my hands in despair by trying to cop something off her “art”, but her stunt is intellectual teflon: nothing sticks to it. Nothing of value, at least. Maybe occasionally stuff that hits fans.
Mia and The Pirate Cat have already written respective posts on the matter, being more focused and intelligent than I am, to great value and extent, especially considering constructive ways of discussing Swedish health-care alternatives. There are ways, e.g. discussion, debate and contacting your politicians.
- Which I think seems akin to being rude and, when confronted, you answer that you’re simply being honest.[back]
May 27th, 2009 at 15:59
There are so many things to say about Anna Odell and her so-called art but this time I'll just say this: a number of people, including Anna Odell herself, say that if one single person can, visually, affect the health care system then clearly something's wrong. Exactly! Something is indeed wrong and I'll tell you what: the economic and human resources! Mentally ill people are actually turned down and sent home while Anna Odell received help. I won't shed a tear over the fact that she was held in a belt bed – at least she got help.
May 28th, 2009 at 00:01
I think the only thing – as you’ve written on your blog – people talk about in relation to her stunt is her. She. Is that even remotely interesting?
May 28th, 2009 at 19:34
Bra skrivet. Förstås.
Jag har verkligen försökt förstå Odell, försökt se någon mening med hennes "konst". Det var nog därför jag åkte till Konstfack, men jag blev ännu mer arg/ledsen/uppgiven. Människan har gjort så mycket skada, och ingenting vettigt har kommit ur det. Ingenting som jag kan se, i alla fall.
May 29th, 2009 at 07:56
Tack! Det är åtminstone vältänkt av dig, d.v.s. att du gav henne en chans. Att det dessvärre verkar ha varit som att doppa huvudet i en kanna lut är en annan sak.