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Jo Munton: ‘Always Leave Them Wanting More’

21/11/2022

Art

The screen start with the words always leave you wanting more. The saying then cuts to an old-fashioned stage. With a man and a woman answering from the right drinking wine in a celebratory way. The stage curtains open and we go to a close-up of the stage where an egg falls onto the stage gets larger and then breaks to reveal a rooster the rooster then gets bigger and bigger and starts to pick the stage full stop the rooster vent turns into a t-rex dinosaur then into a dragon breathing fire and walks off stage a flame appears on the stage and from the flame a phoenix like bird rises from it and flies around in circles. The phoenix then changes into a lady on a telephone in a burlesque costume still with feathers waving her right hand. The words you want more appear and then cuts back to the lady who has has made a hole in her chest and starts to pull out her organs and waves them in the air air and wipes her forehead with her blooded hand

I wanted to show how a hungry public and arts establishment ( more hungrier than ever) were pushing, willing the artists to do more, and reveal more. With the intimacy that was established during the lockdown, there was a nasty element of selling your intimate details for the crowd to feed upon. There is always an element of industry that wants an artist to burn so brightly that they consume themselves. This sells! Sells the old idea of the suffering artist and voyeuristic public. The swan song. The dance of the red shoes. But with the rise of social media, there is a real push to sell your suffering, sell your personality, in the name of sharing is caring. But who is there after the curtain call?