【英语听和读】沙咖艺术展

 Amber 1: Hello, I’m Amber and you’re listening to bbclearningenglish.com.

In Entertainment today, we visit the largest art event in the Arab world - the
Sharjah Art Biennial 2 in the United Arab Emirates. (A biennial is an event that
happens every 2 years.)
Artists from all over the world have come to the Emirates to create new work
especially for this event, and the theme this year is a big, important issue - the
environment. The Sharjah Art Biennial is focussing on how art can create a
better understanding of our relationship with nature and on the challenges the
world is facing due to excessive urban development and pollution. Now the
United Arab Emirates is one of the most rapidly developing man-made
environments on the planet – think of the gleaming rows of newly-built hotels
and skyscrapers 4 in the city of Dubai, for example. So how does an art event
with an ecological 5 theme fit in?
BBC reporter Tim Marlow went to investigate. He describes a piece of work
which certainly makes you think about the pollution from car exhausts! As you
listen, try to image what the art work looks like.
Tim Marlow
‘It sounds, I’m sure, as if I’m standing 3 in a car park! But, in fact, this is an art work. It’s by
the German-born, London-based artist, Gustav Metzger, and it was a proposal called
‘Stockholm, June 1972’ and it was never realised until now. And it involves 120 cars, each
with their exhaust pipes hosed up into a central construction which is right in front of me -
which is covered in polythene - and all the pollution, all the exhaust fumes 6 are mingling 7
inside. I can see a certain amount of condensation 8, I can see a certain amount of darkness, and
this, I suppose, is the emblematic 9 piece for the 8th Sharjah Biennial, whose themes, you’ll be
amazed to discover, are ecology and the politics of change.’ 
Entertainment © BBC Learning English 2007
Page 2 of 3
bbclearningenglish.com
Amber: Can you picture the piece in your mind? There are 120 cars, each with their
exhaust pipes ‘hosed up’, joined together by hoses or pipes, into ‘a central
construction’, and all the pollution, all the exhaust fumes, are ‘mingling’ (or
mixing) as they collect inside.
Tim calls it ‘the emblematic’ piece for the exhibition – it’s symbolic 10, it
suggests the themes of the whole exhibition.
Listen again and try to catch the two compound words Tim uses to describe the
artist who created the piece.
Tim Marlow
‘It sounds, I’m sure, as if I’m standing in a car park! But, in fact, this is an art work. It’s by
the German-born, London-based artist, Gustav Metzger, and it was a proposal called
‘Stockholm, June 1972’ and it was never realised until now. And it involves 120 cars, each
with their exhaust pipes hosed up into a central construction which is right in front of me -
which is covered in polythene - and all the pollution, all the exhaust fumes are mingling
inside. I can see a certain amount of condensation, I can see a certain amount of darkness, and
this, I suppose, is the emblematic piece for the 8th Sharjah Biennial, whose themes, you’ll be
amazed to discover, are ecology and the politics of change.’
Amber: Tim describes Gustav Metzger as a ‘German-born, London-based’ artist.
Next, Tim met the director of the Sharjah Biennial and asked him why he
thinks artists are willing to create work on themes like the environment and
the politics of change.
As you listen, try to catch the adjective we hear to describe the crucially
important ‘issues’ facing societies and ‘the world in general’.
Director of Sharjah Biennial
‘Artists are intellectuals and they have their role in society. Their role is to be at the forefront
of the pressing issues of the societies that they live in, or the world in general. And they have
to kind of participate, or in this situation, initiate 11 the discussion.’ 
Entertainment © BBC Learning English 2007
Page 3 of 3
bbclearningenglish.com
Amber: Did you catch it? We heard that the role or work of artists is to be at the
forefront (the very front) of the ‘pressing’ issues of the societies in which they
live. They should ‘initiate’ (begin) discussion.
Now here’s a list of the language we focussed on in the programme today.
 
biennial, the Sharjah Art Biennial
hosed up
mingling
emblematic
German-born
London-based
pressing issues