A man walking around in a bear costume night-after-night alone in a Berlin museum. Give me a break. See Dom Joly of Trigger Happy TV’s response here.
Wallinger’s only piece of work here, the 2004-5 video Sleeper, is tremendous. It is also crazy: why would a grown man dress up in an unconvincing bear suit and spend night after night alone (give or take a discrete camera crew) in Mies van der Rohe’s Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin – or anywhere else, come to that? And who is going to watch him maundering about for two-and-a-half hours?
Art is in the eye of the beholder – also it did what he wanted – it drew attention to himself and that’s what he is after pure and simple!