British writer and artist Miriam Elia has written a humorous children’s book called We Go to the Gallery that pokes fun at the self-absorption and pretentiousness one sometimes encounters in modern art.
Written and illustrated in the style of the classic Ladybird books, it revolves around a family’s visit to a modern art gallery where they learn about sex, death, nothingness and the “debilitating middle class self hatred contained in the artworks.”
The book is filled with scenes that bubble with dark humor and sarcasm; one page features an empty room which confuses the children and prompts their mother to proclaim “God is dead”, while another scene simply shows the girl staring at a blank canvas.
In an interview with The Independent, Elia said she thought it would be amusing to imagine “Mummy, Peter and Jane going to a really nihilistic modern art exhibition.”
She raised £5,000 through crowdfunding platform Kickstarter to self-publish the book, which is available for pre-order here.
View some pages from the book below.
[via The Independent, images via Miriam Elia and The Independent]