Art and soul

What role does art play in the home? It plays no role unless you assign it one: to memorialise a face or a place, to semaphore success, to offset tax or a damask-covered couch, to console for the endless pressure to acquire, to politicise, to exhilarate, to amuse, to agitate, to reflect, to ruminate, to beautify…

Or to serve as a reminder of that over-hyped exhibition where the pinot flowed, the bravura peaked, all reason departed and you purchased a caustically titled bucket and mop and became the patron saint of conceptualism. That is, until a catalogue entry made the work’s intent clear: to clean (1917), history’s most figurative and famous piss-take.